A musical comedy about a half-boy, half-bat creature, directed by a Tony winner, and an all-Black revival of the farce “La Cage aux Folles,” starring Billy Porter, will highlight the 2025-26 Encores! season at New York City Center.
The four-show lineup is the first chosen by the center’s new vice president and artistic director of musical theater, Jenny Gersten, who is taking over programming from Lear deBessonet, who was named the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater.
Gersten, who had for three years been the artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts before joining New York City Center as vice president and producer in 2020, said she aimed to focus on the original mission of the 32-year-old concert series, which stages short-run productions of decades-old musicals, many of which are rarely revived.
“A lot of people think about the Encores! series as being for revivals of musicals that you might not otherwise see, but the rationale for Encores! was always the chance to hear the orchestrations as they were originally intended,” she said.
First up is the annual gala presentation, which will be “Bat Boy: The Musical” (Oct. 29-Nov. 9). This irreverent horror-rock musical, inspired by stories from a supermarket tabloid, centers on a cave-dwelling creature (Bat Boy) who searches for acceptance and love in a small town. It will be helmed by Alex Timbers, who won a Tony Award in 2021 for directing “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” The story and book are by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, with music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe (“Legally Blonde: The Musical”).
Next, the Encores! series will begin with a production of the supernatural musical comedy “High Spirits” (Feb. 4-15), based on Noël Coward’s 1941 play “Blithe Spirit” about a man coping with his dead wife’s ghost. Though the musical, whose score and book are by Hugh Martin (“Meet Me in St. Louis”) and Timothy Gray, was nominated for eight Tonys, it won none and was never revived on Broadway. It will be directed by Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo,” “Water for Elephants”).
It will be followed in the spring by a revival of Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe’s hedonistic “The Wild Party” (March 18-29). Set in the Roaring Twenties, the show, which is inspired by a 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March, is a Jazz Age musical about lust, death and substance abuse. Lili-Anne Brown will direct.
Finally, Porter (“Kinky Boots”, “Pose”) and the director Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”) will team up on “La Cage aux Folles” (June 17-28), with an all-Black cast. Porter will headline as Albin, the star attraction at a nightclub managed by his romantic partner, Georges. The 1983 musical, with a book by Harvey Fierstein (“Torch Song Trilogy,” “Kinky Boots”) and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman (“Hello, Dolly!”, “Mame”), was the first Broadway musical to focus on a homosexual relationship. It won six Tony Awards, including best musical.
“We tell gay stories a lot onstage, but it’s not often that we get to center voices that are also marginalized because of their background,” Gersten said.
The productions are known for their full, onstage orchestras; often starry casts; and minimal sets and props.
At the end of the day, Gersten said, she hopes audiences will be exposed to new shows, while gaining a fresh perspective on those they’ve seen.
“All four of these musicals encourage us to think about how we can expand our consideration to people who aren’t like us,” she said. “We can’t be telling these stories enough at a time when it’s so easy for us to get lost in our own echo chambers or our own belief systems.”
Sarah Bahr writes about culture and style for The Times.
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