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01/03/2018 06:00 AMCompared to the Connecticut theater calendar, Broadway and off-Broadway schedules are more flexible. Shows may plan to open, but then something happens (more work is needed or a star has a conflict) and the opening is delayed. On the other hand, shows may want to open, but can’t find an appropriate theater.
City theater-goers will have some late nights between now and June, with two highly acclaimed revivals of very long shows heading to Broadway. One is the London revival of Tony Kushner’s Pultizer-winning play, Angels in America, which stars Nathan Lane. It will begin previews in February for a limited run. This show is three-plus hours.
Denzel Washington is returning to Broadway in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, which runs nearly four hours. It also is a limited run that begins previews in February.
Another all-star revival is Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, which stars Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and Alison Pill. It is a full-length play.
Other plays that run a full two-plus hours include Condola Rashad in a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan, Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, and the revival of Boys in the Band and Children of a Lesser God.
Two productions will be huge hits no what matter what the critics say. The first is the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, which had huge success in London and begins previews on Broadway in March. The musical version of Frozen is also a hard ticket to find, with previews in February.
Musicals planned for the spring tend to be either revivals or feature biography or songs from a well-known performer/composer.
In the revival category are Carousel starring Jessie Mueller and My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center starring Lauren Ambrose as Eliza, Harry Hadden-Paton as Henry Higgins, and Norbert Leo Butz as Alfred Doolittle.
New musicals include a musical version of the film Pretty Woman with Tony winner Steve Kazee, Mean Girls by Tina Fey, and Escape to Margaritaville with, of course, the music of Jimmy Buffett.
Off-Broadway we can look forward to The Beast in the Jungle, a new musical with score by John Kander, which will begin performances in May at the Vineyard Theatre. Playwright Terrence McNally’s Fire and Air will open at Classic Stage in January; it’s about the relationship between choreographer Diaghilev and the dancer Nijinksy. David Rabe’s Good for Otto opens in February. The brief description is “heads of a clinic cope with patients’ mental illness.”
Pulitzer winner Quiara Alegria Hudess is collaborating on a musical, Miss You Like Hell at New York’s Public Theater. The show is about a mother and daughter, immigration trouble, and a road trip. It starts performances in March. A R. Gurney’s play Later Life is being presented by Keen Company beginning in February. Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s play Hangmen will be at the Atlantic Theater Company in the London Royal Court production.
Many off-Broadway theaters have yet to announce productions for the spring, so stay tuned!