Garden Theatre 2022-23 season: ‘Dreamgirls,’ ‘Next to Normal’
The Garden Theatre’s 2022-23 season will focus on family, with popular titles “Next to Normal,” “Dreamgirls” and “Something Rotten!” in the lineup.
Joseph C. Walsh, artistic director of the Winter Garden Theatre, announced the new season schedule Saturday night at the opening of “Beauty and the Beast.”
The season also will include a musical version of the movie “A Bronx Tale,” as well as a musical written with children in mind, “Honk!”
“Stick Fly” is a family drama that deals with issues of race, class and privilege, while “Paper Thin” shows that a “perfect family” isn’t always what it seems.
Subscriptions to the Garden’s 15th season go on sale May 24. There are multiple options, including a pick-any-three-shows deal, a full seven-show subscription or a 22-ticket “flex pack.”
Reduced-price packages are available for students and arts-industry workers.
Tickets to individual shows will be available beginning July 6. For more information, go to gardentheatre.org.
Here’s a chronological look at the Garden Theatre’s 2022-23 season.
A BRONX TALE: Aug. 26-Sept. 18. Chazz
Palminteri starred in the 1993 film version of his 1989 play about a boy torn between his father and the mob boss he wants to be. Robert DeNiro also starred and made his directorial debut with the film. In 2016, Palminteri adapted his one-man show again, this time into a musical featuring tunes by Alan Menken (“Wicked,” “Beauty and the Beast”) and lyrics by Glenn Slater (Broadway’s “The Little Mermaid,” “School of Rock.”) That musical version will take the stage at the Garden as young Calogero, growing up in 1960s New York City, learns whom he can truly call his family.
PAPER THIN: Oct. 7-23. In T.K. Lee’s comedic drama, the matriarch of a “perfect family” decides it’s time for divorce. Swigging from a whiskey bottle, Lucrece does her best to explain her decision to her son, Charlie.
HONK!: Nov. 18-Dec. 18. An odd duck named Ugly doesn’t fit in with his siblings in this childfriendly musical by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Facing taunts from other barnyard creatures, he sets out on a musical adventure and learns that being different isn’t a bad thing at all.
STICK FLY: Jan. 20-Feb. 5, 2023. Introductions are made in Lydia R. Diamond’s play about an affluent Black family gathering in
Martha’s Vineyard. Brothers Kent and Flip have each brought home their significant others to meet their parents for the first time. The two newcomers to the clan — one white, one Black — butt heads discussing race and privilege, while family tensions boil over as secrets are revealed.
NEXT TO NORMAL: Feb. 24-March 12, 2023. This musical by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey compassionately studies how a mother’s struggle with bipolar disorder affects her family: The son who provokes her condition, the daughter struggling to be perfect and the father trying to keep his brood together.
SOMETHING ROTTEN!: April 21-May 21, 2023. Brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom are working their way through Renaissance England as playwrights in this irreverent comedy that’s a zany but heartfelt love letter to the theater. When a soothsayer predicts musicals will be the next big thing, the brothers try to write the world’s first one — with pressure from a certain William Shakespeare. John O’Farrell, Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick created the show.
DREAMGIRLS: July 7-Aug. 6, 2023. Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger wrote this musical about Effie, Lorrell and Deena, a talented Black girl group of
the 1960s (loosely inspired by The Supremes). But the three friends ride a roller coaster through the ruthless world of show business that puts their relationship to the test. Hope, ambition and betrayal take center stage in this tale set to an R&B and pop beat, including the anthemic “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”