NYC, COME OUT AND PLAY!
Broadway alive & kickin’ with a marquee mania of openings
SIXTEEN going on 17? Try 18. That’s the eye-popping number of plays and musicals that are opening on Broadway this spring. The wallop of shows, the most in ages, runs the gamut. There are adaptations of classic American novels and a ripped-from-the-headlines Soviet political thriller. Some feature A-list actors, while others are composed by hit-making musicians. You’ve got a lifetime of romance and a high-school gang war.
They’ll all be in hot contention for Tonys — and ticket-buyers’ scattered attention. Regular theatergoers see on average four shows a year, according to the Broadway League.
Here’s what’s on Broadway’s Cheesecake Factory-sized spring menu.
SEEING STARS
You’ll have no trouble spotting celebs around Times Square.
The biggest is “Theory of Everything” Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne as the “Willkommen! Bienvenue!” Emcee in the party-hardy revival of Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret” (starts April 1). I caught Redmayne when he played the role in London and found his Evil Clown turn menacing.
And months after poor Kendall Roy was painfully denied Waystar/Royco on HBO’s “Succession,” actor Jeremy Strong rebounds in Henrik Ibsen’s play “An Enemy of the People” (now playing).
It’s been awhile since another TV star, Steve Carell, trod the boards — all the way back to his Second City days. With some maturity under his belt, he’ll make his Broadway debut in the title role in Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” (starts April 2).
While “The Notebook” wrings out tears a few blocks away, that film’s star, Rachel McAdams, plays a mom with a chronically ill kid in Amy Herzog’s acclaimed drama “Mary Jane” (starts April 2).
She’s still got “Doubt” (now playing). Amy Ryan’s stern 1960s nun tries to stop a priest she suspects of being a child molester, Liev Schreiber, in John Patrick Shanley’s taut-as-ever drama.
And here comes Jessica Lange in Paula Vogel’s new comedy “Mother Play” (starts April 2), in which the ferocious actress plays the mom of “Big Bang Theory” funnyman Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger.
RETRO THROWBACKS
Longing for the good (or bad) old days?
Remarkably, the R&B “Wizard of Oz” riff “The Wiz” (starts March 29) has not been back to Broadway for some 40 years, despite being enduringly popular thanks to the Michael Jackson movie. This belated revival features Wayne Brady and cast performing favorite tunes such as “Ease On Down the Road” and “Home.”
“The Who’s Tommy” (now playing) has had a slightly shorter absence — a mere 29 years away. But the “Pinball Wizard” should shake the house with the band’s hummable bangers.
Differently nostalgic, the movie based on S.E. Hinton’s novel “The Outsiders” (starts March 16) that we all read in school starred a bevy of teen heartthrobs: Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze and Rob Lowe. Crazy, in retrospect. Now, a fresh Ponyboy, Sodapop and Co. aren’t just gonna fight — they’re gonna grand jeté.
CHART-TOPPERS
This year, there’s plenty of radio on the Rialto.
Not a Gordon Ramsay one-man show, “Hell’s Kitchen” (starts March 28) is a musical partly based on the
NYC teen years of Alicia Keys — who’s also producing it — using her fabulous songs like “Empire State of Mind” and “Girl On Fire.”
Hue’d a thunk it? Huey Lewis’ catalogue features in two musicals this season. Marty McFly has crooned “The Power of Love” eight times a week at “Back to the Future” since August. And now, Lewis’ catalogue will pump through the “The Heart of Rock and Roll” (starts March 29), which is not a biography but a brand-new story.
For some indie flair, “The Way I Am” singer-songwriter Igrid Michaelson takes on “The Notebook” (now playing) — Nicholas Sparks’ weepy tale of Allie and Noah’s summer of love and decades of drama.
And “Stereophonic” (April 1) intriguingly is not a musical at all even though it features an original score by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler. David Adjmi’s play chronicles a 1970s rock band that looks suspiciously like Fleetwood Mac.
EXTRA! EXTRA! For those who can’t get enough politics and news:
“The Crown” creator Peter Morgan’s “Patriots” (starts April 1), starring Michael Stuhlbarg, depicts the rise of mysterious Russian oligarchs.
And Shaina Taub’s musical “Suffs” (starts March 26) puts a modern spin, a la “Hamilton,” on the women suffragists who fought for the right to vote during the 1920s.
PAGE TURNERS
Broadway is practically a Barnes & Noble.
Along with several other book adaptations above comes “Water for Elephants” (now playing), a musical based on Sarah Gruen’s novel about an animal minder in a traveling circus.
And Eva Noblezada and Jeremy Jordan star in “The Great Gatsby” (starts March 29), a song-filled version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grand story of a reclusive Long Island millionaire.
AND A BRUSH WITH GENIUS
Broadway has had its share of memorable shows about painters, like Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” and John Logan’s “Red.” “Lempicka” (March 19) about Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka seeks to join the club.