‘This Much I Know’
From Jonathan Spector, who won a 2025 Tony Award for his comedy “Eureka Day,” comes this globe-trotting, time-jumping play. It involves a psychology professor; his estranged wife, who has discovered Joseph Stalin’s daughter lurking in her family history; and a student beginning to reject the white supremacy he was raised with. (Through Oct. 19, 59E59 Theaters)
‘The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows’
The comedian Abby Wambaugh, an American living in Denmark, charmed the critics at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe with this show, whose title spells out the conceit. It adds up to an autobiography told in snippets, including one about Wambaugh’s miscarriage — each brief beginning here ending before it can be fully realized. (Through Oct. 25, Dixon Place)
‘Oratorio for Living Things’
A lush and mysterious choral work of music theater by the singular composer Heather Christian, who, with the show’s director, Lee Sunday Evans, won plaudits for it downtown. (Through Nov. 16, Signature Theater)
‘Tartuffe’
The first of two prominent fall productions of this Molière comedy stars the Tony winner André De Shields as the titular swindling hypocrite. Performed in an Upper East Side mansion, with Amber Iman as Elmire, whom Tartuffe targets for seduction. (Through Nov. 23, House of the Redeemer)
‘Messy White Gays’
Murder and Sunday brunch collide in this new satire, whose author, Drew Droege (“Bright Colors and Bold Patterns”), sets about skewering his own tribe. He’s also in it, as part of an ensemble that includes Aaron Jackson (“Dicks: The Musical”). (Oct. 6-Jan. 11, the Duke on 42nd Street)
‘Kyoto’
Kate Burton, Roslyn Ruff and Dariush Kashani are among the large cast of this climate-change play by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson (“The Jungle”), which mines drama from the international negotiations that brought about the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin direct this Royal Shakespeare Company-Good Chance production, presented by Lincoln Center Theater. (Oct. 8-Nov. 30, Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)
‘Blue Cowboy’
As a monologuist, David Cale (“We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time”) is a master of the art of spellbinding. His new show is a tale of connection, sexual and otherwise, between a New York writer and a ranch hand he meets in Ketchum, Idaho. Les Waters directs. (Oct. 14-Nov. 1, Bushwick Starr)
‘Did You Eat? (밥 먹었니?)’
The playwright-actor Zoë Kim has said that she wrote this autobiographical solo show, which deals with parental abuse, “as a love language to my inner child” and “as a love letter to all Korean daughters.” When Kim brought the piece to Massachusetts last year, The Boston Globe called her performance “unflinching and altogether extraordinary.” Chris Yejin directs for Ma-Yi Theater Company. (Oct. 14-Nov. 9, Public Theater)
‘Romy & Michele: The Musical’
Laura Bell Bundy (“Legally Blonde”) and Kara Lindsay (“Newsies”) star in this new adaptation of the Mira Sorvino-Lisa Kudrow comedy, in which two BFFs — not the brightest members of the class of 1987 — remake themselves for their 10-year high school reunion. (Starts Oct. 14, Stage 42)
‘Queens’
Stories of women and immigrant life are the Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok’s métier. Cases in point: “Ironbound,” the play that made her name; the recent film “Preparation for the Next Life,” for which she wrote the lucid screenplay; and this drama about women new to the United States, scraping by in an illegal outer-borough basement apartment. With a cast that includes Anna Chlumsky, Marin Ireland and Julia Lester, Trip Cullman directs this revival for Manhattan Theater Club. (Oct. 15-Nov. 30, New York City Center Stage 1)
Crossing the Line
The boundaries between artistic disciplines blur, sometimes thrillingly, in L’Alliance New York’s festival, whose 2025 stage temptations include joint ventures with institutions around the city. Also part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival, the French director Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s “Lacrima” (Oct. 22-Oct. 26, BAM Strong Harvey Theater) is about the making of a wedding dress for royalty, and the fashion industry’s globe-spanning exploitation of labor. Presented with the nascent Powerhouse: International festival, and recommended for audience members 18 and up, the Brazilian writer-director-performer Carolina Bianchi’s “Cadela Força Trilogy, Chapter I: The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella” (Oct. 23-Oct. 25, Powerhouse Arts) confronts sexual violence against women so viscerally that it made a New York Times critic, seeing the show in France, feel ill. And from the Japanese artists Yoshi Oida and Kaori Ito, there is “Le Tambour de Soie (The Silk Drum)” (Oct. 24-Oct. 25, Japan Society), a dance-theater piece about an old man besotted with a young woman who does not reciprocate. Adapted from Yukio Mishima’s modern Noh play, it features Ito alongside the venerable downtown actor Paul Lazar.
‘The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire’
Attention, fans of the mind-bending brilliance of “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play”: Anne Washburn, its author, and Steve Cosson, its director, have made a new show, co-produced with the Civilians. Advance plot details are vague, but characters living off the land are involved. Do you need to know more? Just go. (Oct. 23-Nov. 30, Vineyard Theater)
‘The Wasp’
Two women (Colby Minifie and Amy Forsyth) whose childhood friendship devolved into bullying meet decades later as one makes a lucrative proposal in this psychological thriller by the Olivier Award winner Morgan Lloyd Malcolm (“Emilia”). Directed by Rory McGregor in a loft in Lower Manhattan, with set design by the Tony winner Scott Pask. (Oct. 23-Nov. 15, Financial District)
‘The Seat of Our Pants’
Thornton Wilder isn’t renowned for zaniness, but his play “The Skin of Our Teeth” is pretty out there: the tale of one American nuclear family, persevering down the millennia as apocalypse looms. Now Ruthie Ann Miles, Shuler Hensley, Micaela Diamond, Damon Daunno and Andy Grotelueschen help to retell it in Ethan Lipton’s new musical comedy adaptation. Leigh Silverman directs. (Oct. 24-Nov. 30, Public Theater)
‘Bat Boy: The Musical’
In the tabloid-inspired world of this cult show, Taylor Trensch plays the title role of a West Virginia teenager who is part bat, part human and eager to belong. Alex Timbers directs a cast that includes Kerry Butler, Andrew Durand, Jacob Ming-Trent, Alex Newell and Marissa Jaret Winokur. (Oct. 29-Nov. 9, New York City Center)
The post 17 Off Broadway Shows to Enliven Your October appeared first on New York Times.
