The current Broadway season is hurtling toward the finish line, with a crush of openings this week and next. But even as critics and fans focus on the latest offerings, producers and presenters are looking ahead to next season: On Thursday, the Roundabout Theater Company, one of four nonprofit organizations with Broadway houses, announced three new Broadway productions.
This fall, Roundabout plans a rare Broadway revival of Molière’s “The Imaginary Invalid,” a 17th-century French comedy about a hypochondriac. The production is the brainchild of the acclaimed actor-clown Bill Irwin, who has written a new adaptation and will star in the show; it is being directed by Brandon J. Dirden, an actor who had an attention-getting role in this season’s Broadway revival of “Waiting for Godot.”
“The Imaginary Invalid” has had only three previous productions on Broadway, in 1917, 1958 and 1967, and all of them were quite short-lived. Molière, although still popular Off Broadway, has also seemingly gone out of fashion on Broadway — the last Broadway production of a Molière play (“Tartuffe”) was in 2003.
The leadership of Roundabout — Scott Ellis, the interim artistic director, and Christopher Ashley, the incoming artistic director — said in a joint interview that they chose “The Imaginary Invalid” because it is a passion project for Irwin, an artist they both believe in; because it is a comedy, which they wanted as part of the season; and because Dirden had made a persuasive case for Molière’s contemporary relevance. Also, Ashley said, “hypochondria never goes out of style.”
Next winter, Roundabout plans to stage a Broadway production of a new two-character play by Dominique Morisseau called “Mix and Master.” The play, directed by Kamilah Forbes, the departing executive producer of the Apollo Theater, and starring Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Kara Young, tells a contemporary fictional story about a last record shop in the Bronx. There, D.J.s from two generations are “in competition with each other, and pushing each other, and supporting each other in ways that are very human and really theatrical and arcs to a D.J. battle at the end that I think people are going to be amazed by,” Ashley said.
And next spring, Roundabout will stage a revival of “The Full Monty,” a 2000 musical adapted from the 1997 film about a group of unemployed men who take up stripping to raise money. The musical has a score by David Yazbek and a book by Terrence McNally; the revival is being directed by Leigh Silverman. Ellis has been interested in reviving the show for some time, and has been actively considering it since McNally’s death in 2020. “I love the piece,” he said.
Roundabout also announced three Off Broadway productions. Although Roundabout has rarely staged new musicals, Ashley is determined to change that, so this fall he plans to direct a production of “The Heart,” about the transplant of a heart from a dead surfer. The electronic dance music score is by Anne and Ian Eisendrath, who are married to each other, and the book is by Kait Kerrigan; Ashley, who previously directed a production of “The Heart” at La Jolla Playhouse in California, has worked with the creative team to make some significant changes.
Next winter will bring “The Grief Eater Near North Bender,” a new play written by Dylan Guerra and directed by Dustin Wills; the play, billed as a “surreal comic fable,” is being produced in association with New York Theater Workshop. And next spring Roundabout plans a 30th-anniversary revival of “The Vagina Monologues,” written by V and directed by Noma Dumezweni.
Ellis and Ashley said they also plan to restart productions at Roundabout Underground, the company’s Off Off Broadway space, which has been dormant since the pandemic. It will resume staging shows by writers who have not previously had productions in New York, they said.
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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