‘Ava: The Secret Conversations’
Elizabeth McGovern (“Downton Abbey”) stars in this play, which she wrote, about the Hollywood actress Ava Gardner and her abortive collaboration with the British journalist Peter Evans (Aaron Costa Ganis), whom Gardner enlisted in the 1980s to help write her memoir. Based on “Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations,” the book Evans made from their interviews long after her death, the play finds Gardner toward the end of her life, recalling her ex-husbands — Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra — and her tumultuous past. Moritz von Stuelpnagel directs. (Through Sept. 14, New York City Center Stage 1)
‘Amaze’
The British illusionist Jamie Allan isn’t interested merely in wowing his crowds with tricks. He wants to tell them some stories along the way. When Allan performed this show in Chicago in 2023, the critic Chris Jones lavished praise on his warmth and skill, and described his niche as “audience-centered, narrative-based magic.” (Through Nov. 2, New World Stages)
‘The Animals Speak’
Walt Disney and the female artists at his troubled studio, circa 1941, made an intriguing study a few years back in Cameron Darwin Bossert’s union strike drama, “Burbank.” In this new play, Bossert follows Disney and his artist wife, Lillian, on a tour that same year to South America, with a promising young watercolorist, Mary Blair, among the party. (Aug. 5-Aug. 17, Wild Project)
‘Twelfth Night’
Reopening the Delacorte Theater after an $85 million renovation, Shakespeare in the Park is breaking out some serious stardust with this convoluted romantic comedy. Lupita Nyong’o plays the shipwrecked Viola — who disguises herself as a young man, Cesario, to get a job — opposite Sandra Oh as Olivia, who swoons for him. With Peter Dinklage as Malvolio, Olivia’s cross-gartered attendant; John Ellison Conlee as Sir Toby Belch, her ill-behaved uncle; Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Andrew Aguecheek, Toby’s sidekick; and Daphne Rubin-Vega as the avenging servant Maria, Khris Davis plays the duke Orsino, the object of Viola’s affection; Moses Sumney plays Feste, the fool; and Junior Nyong’o, Lupita’s brother, plays Sebastian, Viola’s lost twin. Saheem Ali directs. (Aug. 7-Sept. 14, Delacorte Theater in Central Park)
‘Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me’
The Wooster Group travels the world with its experimental theater works, but in this case it’s heading mere blocks uptown from its SoHo base, trading the grittiness of the Performing Garage for some cabaret cool. The actor Eric Berryman, so mesmerizing in “The B-Side” with the Wooster Group in 2017, followed up that album-based show last year with this one, which he now reprises. The virtuosic Kate Valk directs, with production design by Elizabeth LeCompte. (Aug. 13-Aug. 23, Joe’s Pub)
‘Road Kills’
Sophie McIntosh (“Macbitches”) sets this world-premiere drama in her native Wisconsin, where a drunken driver sentenced to community service teams up with a roadkill collector and takes to the local highways. A play about the long shadow of abuse, it’s directed by Nina Goodheart, who staged McIntosh’s buzzy “Cunnicularii” last summer. (Aug. 15-Sept. 6, Paradise Factory Theater)
‘The Royal Pyrate’
For ambience, an old wooden barge on the waterfront in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn seems a felicitous match with a new musical that reimagines the 18th-century romance between the English pirate Samuel Bellamy, of the ill-fated ship Whydah, and Mary Hallett, a Massachusetts woman (or teenage girl; the legend varies) who met him on Cape Cod. Directed by Emily Abrams, the show has a book by Chas LiBretto and a score by Jason Landon Marcus (“Cyclops: A Rock Opera”). (Aug. 16-Aug. 31, Waterfront Museum)
‘House of McQueen’
Colin Bridgerton fans, assemble. Luke Newton, best known for playing Penelope’s beloved on the Netflix hit “Bridgerton,” stars as the British fashion designer Alexander McQueen in this immersive retelling of his life, which ended with his suicide, at 40, in 2010. With Emily Skinner (“Suffs”) as McQueen’s mother, the show is written by Darrah Cloud and directed by Sam Helfrich. The costumes, by the Obie winner Kaye Voyce, are inspired by McQueen’s designs. (Aug. 19-Oct. 19, the Mansion at Hudson Yards)
‘We Come to Collect: A Flirtation, With Capitalism’
Jenn Kidwell, who won an Obie for “Underground Railroad Game,” the surreal and provocative play she wrote and performed with Scott R. Sheppard, directs the world premiere of this comedically inclined, politically minded play. Written by Kidwell and devised by a nascent collective called the Blackening, of which she is a member, it stars Kidwell and the American Sign Language artist Brandon Kazen-Maddox. (Aug. 26-Sept. 27, Flea Theater)
‘Saturday Church’
The Tony Award winners J. Harrison Ghee and Joaquina Kalukango star in this new musical alongside Bryson Battle (“The Voice”), who makes his professional stage debut as Ulysses, a young New Yorker whose world opens up when he discovers the L.G.B.T. haven of Saturday Church. Based on Damon Cardasis’s film of the same name, it has a book by Cardasis and the Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames (“Fat Ham”), music and lyrics by Sia, and additional music by Honey Dijon. Whitney White directs. (Aug. 27-Oct. 12, New York Theater Workshop)
‘Pericles: A Public Works Concert Experience’
One of New York’s most charming late-summer traditions — the Public Theater’s pageant-like free Public Works shows, usually staged at the Delacorte in Central Park — moves uptown and indoors for this re-envisioning of a lesser-loved Shakespeare play, now with music and lyrics by Troy Anthony. Ato Blankson-Wood plays the title role of the tempest-tossed Prince of Tyre, alongside a cast that includes fellow Broadway veterans Denée Benton, Crystal Lucas-Perry and the Tony winner Alex Newell, as well as a large ensemble of community members. Carl Cofield directs. (Aug. 29-Sept. 2, Cathedral of St. John the Divine)
‘The Brothers Size’
Tarell Alvin McCraney, an Academy Award winner for “Moonlight,” was still in drama school at Yale when he made a New York splash with this play, in 2007. Now André Holland, a star of “Moonlight,” embodies one of the title characters in this poetic fable of two Black brothers in Louisiana bayou country, the elder diligent and rooted, the younger restless and just out of prison. Bijan Sheibani and McCraney jointly direct this co-production between the Shed and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, where McCraney is the artistic director. (Aug. 30-Sept. 28, the Shed)
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