New Productions
‘Zack’
After presenting the political satire “Garside’s Career” last year, the Mint Theater continues to explore the catalog of the British playwright Harold Brighouse, whose best known work is the World War I-era “Hobson’s Choice.” In Brighouse’s 1916 comedy “Zack,” the title character (Jordan Matthew Brown) is underestimated by his own family — but may turn out to be more resourceful than they expected. (Through March 28, Mint Theater)
‘Bughouse’
The dance-theater director Martha Clarke and the performance artist John Kelly reunite for this intriguing project based on the writings of the outsider artist Henry Darger. A reclusive janitor, Darger created a fantastical illustrated epic that came to light only after his death, in 1973. (Beth Henley adapted some of his writings for the stage.) That his work was made up of armies — literal armies — of little girls only adds to his convention-flaunting strange mystique. (Through March 29, Vineyard Theater)
‘Antigone (This Play I Read in High School)’
Anna Ziegler (“The Janeiad,” “Photograph 51”) is the latest playwright to riff on a classic text — in this case Sophocles’ tragedy. The expert Celia Keenan-Bolger turns up as a busy chorus of one, and Tony Shalhoub takes on the king, Creon, but keep an eye out for the wondrous Susannah Perkins, Off Broadway’s not-so-secret weapon, in the title role. (Through March 29, Public Theater)
‘About Time’
The composer David Shire has an extensive career in film and stage, but a particularly privileged collaborator through the decades has been the lyricist Richard Maltby Jr., with whom he concocted the revues “Starting Here, Starting Now” in the late 1970s and “Closer Than Ever” in the late 1980s. The pair have reunited for a third, “About Time,” which is premiering in a production directed by Maltby himself. (Through April 5, Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater)
‘Calf Scramble’
Five teen girls raising cattle for their FFA (formerly known as Future Farmers of America) are the subjects of Libby Carr’s new play, directed by Caitlin Sullivan for Primary Stages. That this is a subject we don’t often seen on New York stages only adds to the production’s appeal. (Through April 12, 59E59 Theaters)
‘Grey Arias’
Don’t blink or you’ll miss this show bringing together a pair of bona fide iconoclasts: the American comedian and performance artist Adrienne Truscott (“THIS,” “Asking for It”) and the British-Nigerian drag cabaret maven Le Gateau Chocolat. The personal is political is personal — and with these two, unlikely to be dull. (March 5-7, Flea Theater)
‘A Brief History of the Telephone’
The writer and performer Deb Margolin (“Imagining Madoff,” “8 Stops”) continues to plow her idiosyncratic furrow in the New York theater scene, and it’s good to have her back at the beloved incubator Dixon Place. This time around, she turns her attention to the most common object in everybody’s life. (March 6-14, Dixon Place)
‘Ulster American’
Fresh off his run as a cunning manipulator in “Tartuffe,” Matthew Broderick reappears in David Ireland’s satire from 2018. He portrays an American actor slated to star in a play written by an Ulster playwright (Geraldine Hughes) and staged by an English director (Max Baker). What could possibly go wrong? (March 6-May 10, Irish Repertory Theater)
‘Trash’
The frequent collaborators James Caverly and Andrew Morrill play roommates who are Deaf, capitalized to express it as a culture, in this show performed in American Sign Language. Nathaniel P. Claridad directs this Out of the Box Theatrics production where the simple act of taking out the trash acquires outsize dimensions. (March 7-28, Perelman Performing Arts Center)
‘The Wild Party’
After its 2015 production of Andrew Lippa’s “The Wild Party,” based on Joseph Moncure March’s long-form poem — about a decadent Jazz Age bash — Encores! is reviving a different adaptation of the same source material, by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe. As usual for this beloved series of musicals in concert, Lili-Anne Brown’s production has a mouthwatering cast, led by Jasmine Amy Rogers, Adrienne Warren, Jordan Donica and Tonya Pinkins. (March 18-29, New York City Center)
‘Actua 1’
For its latest project, the experimental Brooklyn company Object Collection revisits a couple of gallery events it created in 2011 and 2013. The new iteration was inspired by a short movie the French director Philippe Garrel made in May 1968, and incorporates both a film screening and live performers taking over the Collapsable Hole space in the West Village. (March 12-22, Collapsable Hole)
‘My Joy Is Heavy’
Shaun and Abigail Bengson, who write and perform as the Bengsons, are best known for musical shows drawing from their life. The latest chapter in this memoir project of sorts focuses on what follows loss. Rachel Chavkin directs. (Through April 5, New York Theater Workshop)
‘Liberty Scrap’
Christina Masciotti’s thought-provoking plays, like “No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh” (2023), are often about working-class folks and immigrants. Presented by Culture Lab LIC in association with the Chocolate Factory Theater, her new piece explores statelessness through the story of a woman (Natia Dune) who discovers her immigration status is not as certain as she thought. (March 5-29, Culture Lab LIC)
‘Tru’
Jesse Tyler Ferguson portrays Truman Capote in this Jay Presson Allen play about the falling out between the writer and his socialite friends. (The same story inspired the second season of the anthology series “Feud,” subtitled “Capote vs. the Swans.”) Fittingly, Rob Ashford’s production takes place in an Upper East Side mansion, with Ferguson performing for 99 people at a time. (March 6-May 3, House of the Redeemer)
‘Jesa’
Where would American theater, fiction and cinema be without fraught family reunions? There’s a reason writers and audiences alike are drawn to them: Almost everybody can relate in one way or another. In Jeena Yi’s new play, presented by Ma-Yi and the Public Theater, four estranged Korean-American sisters reunite to honor their late father. (March 10-April 5, Public Theater)
‘Monte Cristo’
Alexandre Dumas’s oft-adapted tale of elaborate revenge gets the musical treatment — no, this is not a revisal of the Frank Wildhorn-Jack Murphy version but a new piece, with a book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg, and music by Stephen Weiner. Adam Jacobs, Norm Lewis and Sierra Boggess lead the cast. (March 12-April 5, York Theater)
‘Public Charge’
This show comes at a serendipitous time in United States history, as the concept of public servants dedicating their life to their country and the public good has come under attack. Written by Julissa Reynoso and Michael J. Chepiga, the play centers on the real-life work of Reynoso (portrayed by Zabryna Guevara) as a diplomat during the Obama administration. Doug Hughes directs. (March 12-April 5, Public Theater)
‘Titus Andronicus’
When you need someone with an imposing presence and an even more imposing voice, Patrick Page (“Hadestown,” “All the Devils Are Here”) is at the top of every director’s list. Now the Red Bull theater company gives him a worthy vehicle as the title character in Shakespeare’s brutal tragedy of revenge — or rather revenges. (March 17-April 19, Pershing Square Signature Center)
‘No Singing in the Navy’
The playwright and performer Milo Cramer’s star is on the ascent: After “School Pictures” and “Business Ideas,” he returns with this new show in which three sailors must make the most of a 24-hour leave. This may be reminiscent of the plot of “On the Town,” but Cramer’s unlikely to pay a warm and fuzzy tribute to golden-age musicals. (March 18-April 19, Playwrights Horizons)
Returning Shows
‘Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes’
Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty return in an encore production of Hannah Moscovitch’s “terrific, tightly plaited knot of a play,” as Jesse Green put it in his review for The New York Times. The casually suspenseful story relies on a narrator who may or may not be entirely reliable — if you can figure out who it is. (March 17-April 30, Minetta Lane Theater)
‘Cold War Choir Practice’
MCC is teaming up with Page 73 and Clubbed Thumb to bring back Ro Reddick’s play, which had a short run in the Summerworks festival last year and recently was a winner of the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Alana Raquel Bowers returns in the central role of a little girl in 1987, a time when Americans lived in fear of Soviet missiles. In a review of the production for The New York Times, Laura Collins-Hughes praised the show as “a brainy new comedy” that is “infused with choral music and spiked with espionage.” (Through March 29, Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space)
‘Mexodus’
Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson’s hip-hop musical, which had a short run last fall, returns for an encore run. In their tale of an Underground Railroad heading south instead of north, the pair loop themselves to create their songs. Brittani Samuel described the production as “an electrifying theatrical experience” in her review for The Times. (March 6-May 17, Daryl Roth Theater)
‘Burnout Paradise’
The Australian collective Pony Cam’s super-physical show, which had a short engagement at St. Ann’s Warehouse in November, returns for an extended run — literally, as the cast members must perform tasks like cooking a pasta dinner or writing a grant application while trotting on treadmills. Worse: They are timed. (Through June 28, Astor Place Theater)
‘Music City’
This country musical was a well-deserved hit for the Bedlam company, and it now returns at a new venue custom-designed to preserve the show’s immersive vibe — the story takes place in a Nashville bar where aspiring singer-songwriters ply their wares. And they are good wares, too: The score is pulled from the catalog of J.T. Harding, which includes hits like “Sangria,” “Smile” and “Somewhere in My Car.” (Performances begin March 23, the Wicked Tickle)
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