Cyndi Lauper has a new musical. So does Prince. “The Hills of California” will be on both coasts, and “Come From Away” is slated to be approximately everywhere. Enticing work is popping up on stages all over the United States this fall, which means loads of options — fresh plays, and fresh interpretations.
Northeast
‘LIONS’ The experimental artists Alice Yorke and Scott R. Sheppard (“The Appointment”) perform their new work, a two-hander about fathers, loss and myths of manliness. Sarah Blush directs. (Sept. 10-21, Lightning Rod Special, Philadelphia)
‘AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MURDER ON THE LINKS’ Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony Award for directing “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder,” adapts and directs a mystery investigated by the sleuth Hercule Poirot. (Sept. 13-Oct. 5, Two River Theater, Red Bank, N.J.)
‘THE UNEXPECTED 3RD’ Kathryn Grody stars in the world premiere of this solo show about her life’s third and current act, during which she has become a TikTok darling for videos of her and her husband, Mandy Patinkin, being themselves. (Sept. 17-Oct. 19, People’s Light, Malvern, Pa.)
‘BULL DURHAM’ Minor league baseball meets romance in this musical comedy, adapted by Ron Shelton from his screenplay for the 1988 movie, with music and lyrics by Susan Werner. Carmen Cusack plays the Susan Sarandon role. Marc Bruni directs. (Oct. 2-Nov. 2, Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, N.J.)
‘SPUNK’ The world premiere of Zora Neale Hurston’s once-lost 1935 play with music, which she adapted from her short story of the same name. Directed by Tamilla Woodard and choreographed by nicHi douglas, with Hurston’s lyrics set to traditional music and new songs by Nehemiah Luckett. (Oct. 3-25, Yale Repertory Theater, New Haven, Conn.)
‘FUN HOME’ Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s Tony-winning musical, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, is about a lesbian daughter, her closeted father and the act of piecing together the truth of a childhood from the distance of adulthood. (Nov. 14-Dec. 14, the Huntington, Boston)
‘WONDER’ First the R.J. Palacio children’s novel about a 10-year-old whose face doesn’t look like other children’s became a movie. Now it’s a musical, with a book by Sarah Ruhl and a score by A Great Big World, as the pop duo of Ian Axel and Chad King is known. Taibi Magar directs the world premiere. (Dec. 9-Jan. 25, American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, Mass.)
South
‘DAMN YANKEES’ Jordan Donica, Rob McClure and Alysha Umphress are among the stars of Will Power and Doug Wright’s new adaptation of the classic Faustian-bargain baseball musical, directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo. (Sept. 9-Nov. 9, Arena Stage, Washington)
‘MERRY WIVES’ The Obie Award winner Lance Coadie Williams plays Falstaff in Jocelyn Bioh’s Shakespeare adaptation, set in contemporary Harlem. Taylor Reynolds directs. (Sept. 9-Oct. 5, Shakespeare Theater Company, Washington)
‘THE GREAT PRIVATION (HOW TO FLIP TEN CENTS INTO A DOLLAR)’ Black mothers and daughters confront white grave robbers and the tainted soil of history in this play by Nia Akilah Robinson, set on the same plot of land two centuries apart. (Sept. 11-Oct. 12, Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, Washington)
‘THE AMERICAN FIVE’ Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, Bayard Rustin, Stanley Levison and Clarence B. Jones plan the 1963 March on Washington in this play by Chess Jakobs. Aaron Posner directs the world premiere. (Sept. 19-Oct. 12, Ford’s Theater, Washington)
‘MALCOLM X AND REDD FOXX WASHING DISHES AT JIMMY’S CHICKEN SHACK IN HARLEM’ Set in 1943 and grounded in history, Jonathan Norton’s play follows two young friends before fame finds them. Dexter J. Singleton directs the world premiere. (Oct. 1-26, TheatreSquared, Fayetteville, Ark.)
‘FDR’S VERY HAPPY HOUR’ Regan Linton’s immersive play finds inspiration in the 32nd president’s regular hosting of gatherings and — in the accessible design of M. Graham Smith’s world-premiere production — his use of a wheelchair. (Oct. 15-26, Actors Theater of Louisville, Kentucky)
‘MOTHER PLAY’ The Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s autobiographical memory play, which she has called the prequel to “The Baltimore Waltz,” is about a sister and brother growing up around Washington with their witty, ambivalent, hard-drinking mother. (Nov. 12-Dec. 21, Studio Theater, Washington)
‘GUYS AND DOLLS’ Julie Benko, a breakout star of “Funny Girl” on Broadway, plays the Times Square missionary Sarah Brown, looking to convert the gamblers in the Jo Swerling-Abe Burrows-Frank Loesser musical. Francesca Zambello directs. (Dec. 2-Jan. 4, Shakespeare Theater Company, Washington)
Central
‘THINGS WITH FRIENDS’ A dark comedy by Kristoffer Diaz (“Hell’s Kitchen”), set at a dinner party with dreadful guests as New York City falls apart outside. Dexter Bullard directs the world premiere. (Through Oct. 5, American Blues Theater, Chicago)
‘RAISIN’ A Tony winner for best musical in 1974, this is an adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun,” about a Black family aiming to move to a hostile white neighborhood. (Sept. 3-21, the Black Rep, St. Louis)
‘OUR TOWN’ The Tony-winning visionary Mary Zimmerman stages Thornton Wilder’s classic about realizing life while you live it — “every, every minute.” (Sept. 7-28, Cleveland Play House)
‘MR. WOLF’ K. Todd Freeman directs this drama by Rajiv Joseph (“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo”) about a teenager abducted as a toddler and newly restored to her family. (Sept. 11-Nov. 2, Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago)
‘BIG WHITE FOG’ Racism is the miasma of the title in Theodore Ward’s play, which came out of the Depression-era Federal Theater Project and has financial oppression also very much on its mind. (Sept. 12-Oct. 12, Court Theater, Chicago)
‘PURLIE VICTORIOUS’ Ossie Davis’s wild ride of a revenge comedy from 1961, in which a Black preacher named Purlie and his intrepid recruit, Lutiebelle, snatch back an inheritance from a white plantation owner. (Sept. 7-Oct. 12, Main Street Theater, Houston)
‘WISH YOU WERE HERE’ A tender, comic chronicle of friendship among a group of women in Iran, stretching through war and revolution from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. By the Pulitzer Prize winner Sanaz Toossi. (Sept. 18-Oct. 19, Remy Bumppo Theater Company, Chicago)
‘MYTHIC’ The Tony winner Kathleen Marshall directs and choreographs this pop-rock retelling of the myth of Persephone by Marcus Stevens and Oran Eldor. (Sept. 20-Oct. 19, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park)
‘REVOLUTION(S)’ Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine wrote the original music and lyrics to this punk, metal, hip-hop musical, about a soldier-musician who returns from Afghanistan to the South Side of Chicago. With a book by Zayd Ayers Dohrn; Steve H. Broadnax III directs. (Oct. 4-Nov. 9, Goodman Theater, Chicago)
‘PURPLE RAIN’ This stage adaptation of the Prince film and album of the same name makes its world premiere in his hometown. With a story, music and lyrics by Prince, it has a book by the Pulitzer Prize winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Lileana Blain-Cruz directs. (Oct. 16-Nov. 16, State Theater, Minneapolis.)
‘AS YOU LIKE IT’ Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery’s musical is a frolicsome, feminist adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy of cousins, lovers and disguised identity in the Forest of Arden. Braden Abraham directs. (Oct. 30-Dec. 14, Writers Theater, Glencoe, Ill.)
‘AMADEUS’ Robert Falls, the Tony-winning director who for decades ran the Goodman Theater, steps over to the competition to stage Peter Shaffer’s play about Mozart and his bitter rival, Salieri. (Nov. 6-Jan. 4, Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago)
West
‘HUZZAH!’ A Renaissance fair is the setting for this musical comedy from Nell Benjamin and Laurence O’Keefe (“Legally Blonde”). Annie Tippe directs the world premiere. (Sept. 13-Oct. 19, the Old Globe, San Diego)
‘ALL THE MEN WHO’VE FRIGHTENED ME’ A married couple, preparing to have a baby, get some mysterious visitors to their home: men from one spouse’s past. Kat Yen directs the world premiere of this play by Noah Diaz (“You Will Get Sick”). (Sept. 16-Oct. 12, La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, Calif.)
‘FANCY DANCER’ The pathbreaking Osage prima ballerina Maria Tallchief becomes an inspiration to a Lakota girl in this play by Larissa FastHorse (“The Thanksgiving Play”). Chay Yew directs the world premiere, a co-production with Seattle Children’s Theater. (Sept. 18-Nov. 2, Seattle Rep)
‘JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING’ A five-way co-production of Jocelyn Bioh’s Harlem salon comedy, directed by Whitney White, makes its final stop after crisscrossing the country. (Oct. 1-Nov. 9, Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles)
‘THE ROOMMATE’ Jen Silverman’s odd-couple comedy about a restless empty-nester in Iowa sharing her space with a shifty newcomer from the Bronx. (Oct. 1-26, Salt Lake Acting Company, Salt Lake City)
‘PARANORMAL INSIDE’ Prince Gomolvilas follows up his ghost-hunting, darkly comic thriller, “The Brothers Paranormal,” with this new sequel. Jeff Liu directs. (Oct. 9-Nov. 2, East West Players, Los Angeles)
‘WORKING GIRL’ The 1988 movie about a Staten Island secretary with Manhattan-size ambitions is reborn as a musical by Cyndi Lauper and Theresa Rebeck. Christopher Ashley directs the world premiere. (Oct. 28-Nov. 30, La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, Calif.)
‘TABLE 17’ Zhailon Levingston’s MCC Theater production of this rom-com romp by Douglas Lyons (“Chicken & Biscuits”) transfers with two-thirds of its terrific original cast, Biko Eisen-Martin and Michael Rishawn. (Nov. 5-Dec. 7, Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles)
All Over the Map
‘COME FROM AWAY’ Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s big-hearted, historically based musical about small-town Canadians’ generous welcome to international passengers on flights forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on Sept. 11. (Sept. 24-Oct. 26, Northern Stage, White River Junction, Vt.; Nov. 4-Dec. 14, Milwaukee Repertory Theater; Nov. 12-Dec. 28, Asolo Repertory Theater, Sarasota, Fla.; Nov. 28-Dec. 28, Seattle Rep)
‘EUREKA DAY’ In this comedy by Jonathan Spector, a mumps outbreak forces board members at a crunchy, cosseted private school to square the ideal of respecting each parent’s opinion, no matter their stance on vaccination, with the need to protect all of the children. (Sept. 4-Oct. 5, Curious Theater, Company, Denver; Sept. 10-Oct. 5, Pasadena Playhouse, Pasadena, Calif.; Sept. 19-Oct. 11, 4th Wall Theater Company, Houston)
‘THE HEART SELLERS’ Lloyd Suh sets his affecting two-hander on Thanksgiving Day 1973, when a couple of young Asian women, new to the United States, turn from strangers to something like friends. (Sept. 24-Oct. 26, Studio Theater, Washington; Oct. 3-19, Austin Playhouse, Austin, Texas; Oct. 25-Nov. 23, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; Oct. 26-Nov. 16, South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, Calif.)
‘THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA’ Loretta Greco directs Jez Butterworth’s time-hopping tale of four English sisters whose dreamy, determined mother raises them in the 1950s to be a close-harmony singing group — and of the wreck that, two decades later, their family has become. (Sept. 12-Oct. 12, the Huntington, Boston; Oct. 31-Dec. 7, Berkeley Rep, Berkeley, Calif.)
‘PARANORMAL ACTIVITY’ Based on the film franchise of the same name, this is a horror story for the stage, written by Levi Holloway (“Grey House”) and directed by Felix Barrett, the founder and artistic director of the immersive company Punchdrunk (“Sleep No More”). (Oct. 8-Nov. 2, Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Nov. 13-Dec. 7, Ahmanson Theater, Los Angeles.)
‘PRIMARY TRUST’ Eboni Booth’s gentle 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner about a lonely man named Kenneth; his best friend, Bert; and the holes in the net of community that let some people fall through unnoticed. (Oct. 11-Nov. 16, Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis; Nov. 7-Dec. 28, Detroit Repertory Theater)
‘WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME’ Heidi Schreck’s meditation on women and girls’ status and stake in the project of American democracy, told through the lens of her own past as an impassioned high school debater. (Sept. 12-28 in Juneau, Alaska, and Oct. 17-26 in Anchorage, Perseverance Theater; Oct. 3-26, Chance Theater, Anaheim, Calif.; Oct. 24-Nov. 23, A Public Fit Theater Company, Las Vegas)
The post ‘Purple Rain’ and 41 More Plays and Musicals to See in the U.S. This Fall appeared first on New York Times.
