Broadway Buying Guide: April 1, 2024- MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Rolls to the Top

Looking for the best deals on Broadway shows? Welcome to our new weekly guide to the most popular shows listed on BroadwayWorld.

---

This Week's Top Broadway Shows

1) Merrily We Roll Along Buy Tickets - Spanning three decades in the entertainment business, Merrily We Roll Along charts the turbulent relationship between composer Franklin Shepard and his two lifelong friends — writer Mary and lyricist & playwright Charley. An inventive, cult-classic ahead of its time, Merrily We Roll Along features some of Stephen Sondheim’s most celebrated and personal songs. Directed by Maria Friedman, Merrily We Roll Along features music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a book by George Furth, and is based on the original play by George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart.

2) Mother Play Buy Tickets - Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) has written a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past. It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis (Jessica Lange) is supervising her teenage children, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures — or survives — the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful roller coaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.

3) Hadestown Buy Tickets - In Hadestown, a song can change your fate. This Tony-winning new musical by Anaïs Mitchell and innovative director Rachel Chavkin is a love story for today, and always. Intertwining two mythic Greek tales - that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and of King Hades and his wife Persephone - Hadestown invites you on a journey to the underworld and back. Mitchell's alluring melodies and Chavkin's poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith, and fear against love, with art perhaps being the one thing that can save it all. Hadestown is a haunting and hopeful theatrical experience that grabs you and never lets go.

4) Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club Buy Tickets - Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome to the Kit Kat Club. Home to an intimate and electrifying new production of CABARET. Experience this groundbreaking musical like never before. The denizens of the Kit Kat Club have created a decadent sanctuary Inside Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre, where artists and performers, misfits and outsiders rule the night. Step inside their world. This is Berlin. Relax. Loosen up. Be yourself. London’s hottest ticket arrives on Broadway this Spring with Academy® and Tony Award® winner Eddie Redmayne reprising his Olivier Award-winning performance as the Emcee, and introducing Gayle Rankin as the Toast of Mayfair, Sally Bowles. CABARET has music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Joe Masteroff – based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood.

5) Doubt Buy Tickets - John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award®-winning Best Play has blazed back to Broadway starring Academy Award® and Tony nominee Amy Ryan and Tony winner Liev Schreiber. This “excellent new revival, directed by Scott Ellis, affords the pleasure of watching two supremely good actors going toe to toe” (The Wall Street Journal). “Ryan and Schreiber are electric on Broadway (Entertainment Weekly).”. The fireworks begin as the exacting principal of a Bronx Catholic school—feared by students and colleagues alike—suspects improper relations between a charismatic priest and a student. She’s forced to wrestle with what’s fact, what’s fiction, and just how far she’ll go to expose what she sees as the truth. As the New York Post says, “It keeps the audience guessing and second-guessing through the play’s famous final line.”

6) Sweeney Todd Buy Tickets - Tony Award® winner Aaron Tveit stars in the title role with Tony Award winner Sutton Foster as Mrs. Lovett through May 5 only. Directed by Tony Award winner Thomas Kail (Hamilton) and choreographed by Olivier Award winner Steven Hoggett (Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been hailed as a New York Times Critic’s Pick, “a triumphant, must-see production” (Chicago Tribune), and “a riveting revival with big laughs, serious scares, and a thunderous 26-piece orchestra” (Entertainment Weekly).

7) Aladdin Buy Tickets - You won't need a magic lamp to experience this crown-pleasing musical. Disney's beloved story about the Diamond in the Rough is brought to thrilling theatrical life in this exciting new Broadway musical. Just as it has on screen for decades, Aladdin's journey sweeps you into an exciting world full of daring adventure, classic comedy and timeless romance. Directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw, this stage adaptation of the beloved animated classic features the iconic film score by the legendary team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, with new lyrics by Sir Tim Rice, along with book and additional lyrics by Chad Beguelin.

8) Wicked Buy Tickets - Before Dorothy, before the flying house, and before the yellow brick road, there was Elphaba and Galinda. Born with emerald-green skin, Elphaba is smart, fiery, misunderstood and possesses extraordinary talent. When circumstances force her to room with the bubbly blonde and exceptionally popular, Galinda, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships. From the first electrifying note to the final breathtaking moment, Wicked tells the story of Oz that you've never heard.

9) Othello Buy Tickets - Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal will return to Broadway next season in a production of Othello directed by Kenny Leon. Washington will play the title character and Gyllenhaal will take on the role of Iago. The last time Othello was seen on Broadway was the short-lived 1982 production starring James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer. The new production will open Spring 2025 and is produced by Brian Anthony Moreland.

10) Hamilton Buy Tickets - A revolutionary story of passion, unstoppable ambition, and the dawn of a new nation. HAMILTON is the epic saga that follows the rise of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton as he fights for honor, love, and a legacy that would shape the course of a nation. Based on Ron Chernow’s acclaimed biography and set to a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B, and Broadway, HAMILTON has had a profound impact on culture, politics, and education. HAMILTON features book, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, direction by Thomas Kail, choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler, and musical supervision and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. In addition to its 11 Tony Awards, it has won Grammy®, Olivier Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and an unprecedented special citation from the Kennedy Center Honors.

This Week's Top Off-Broadway Shows

1) Oh, Mary! Buy Tickets - Directed by Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy starring Escola as a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism and suppressed desires abound in this one act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot (Cole Escola).

2) Brooklyn Laundry Buy Tickets - John Patrick Shanley, the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning author of Doubt and the Oscar®-winning writer of Moonstruck, returns to MTC with this world premiere of a new play. Sometimes big things start from little things; in this case, a bag of laundry. Shanley’s latest is about three sisters and a guy who runs a laundry in Brooklyn, and the sometimes savage tricks life plays on them. Tragic and funny by turns, this story will remind you what is important in life... and the sorrow and joy of fully embracing adulthood.

3) Corruption Buy Tickets - Based on the book Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and The Corruption of Britain by Tom Watson and Martin Hickman, CORRUPTION tells the story behind the story of the phone hacking scandal that engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in 2011, stunning the world and upending British politics. When Parliament member Tom Watson is maliciously smeared by the newspapers of Murdoch’s News International, he decides to fight back - taking on its larger-than-life leader Rebekah Brooks. But what he uncovers is far more insidious than he ever imagined. As Watson and a small band of journalists, lawyers, and politicians struggle to expose the endemic criminality at the heart of this media monolith, they risk their careers and, at times, their very lives. Epic in scope and often startlingly funny, CORRUPTION tells a true-life David and Goliath story of ordinary men and women trying to find a way to save their democracy before it’s too late.

4) The Play That Goes Wrong Buy Tickets - Co-written by Mischief company members Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, The Play That Goes Wrong is a riotous comedy about the theatre. The play introduces The 'Cornley University Drama Society' who are attempting to put on a 1920s' murder mystery, but as the title suggests, everything that can go wrong...does, as the accident-prone thespians battle on against all odds to get to their final curtain call.

5) Philadelphia, Here I Come! Buy Tickets - Set in 1962, this classic bittersweet comedy revolves around the young Gar O’Donnell on the eve of his departure from Ireland to America. Gar’s heartache from losing his girlfriend to a successful businessman propels him to accept an invitation to go and live with an aunt in Philadelphia. Despite the wild fantasies of what life in America might hold, and his yearning to escape the tedium of small town Ballybeg, a kind word from his taciturn father could change his mind. Philadelphia, Here I Come! was Friel’s first major success, premiering in 1964 at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin, and transferring to Broadway two years later.

6) Drunk Shakespeare Buy Tickets - With more performances of Shakespeare than any other company in New York! Also, more drinking! One professional actor has 5 shots of whiskey and then attempts to perform in a Shakespearean play. There is a hidden library on the 2nd Floor of a building on 43rd and 8th. With over 15,000 books, The Drunk Shakespeare Society meets every night to drink... knowledge of Shakespeare is not required.

7) GRIEF HOTEL Buy Tickets - The Obie Award-winning production of GRIEF HOTEL from Clubbed Thumb's acclaimed Summerworks returns for a limited engagement at The Public. Loss is fast, but grief is slow. Aunt Bobbi’s going to try to make everyone feel better, even though her parties are cursed. Written by Liza Birkenmeier and directed by Tara Ahmadinejad, both of whom received Obie Awards for their work on this production, GRIEF HOTEL features the original cast: Susan Blommaert, Nadine Malouf, Bruce McKenzie, Ana Nogueira, Susannah Perkins and Naren Weiss.

8) Shitzprobe Buy Tickets - Shitzprobe! Where a special Broadway Guest Star improvises a musical for their very first time, based on your suggestion! Past guests have starred in: Wicked, Aladdin, Waitress, and Company. The rest of the cast is chock full of the best musical improvisers in New York City, who have been seen on Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and on Broadway in shows such as School Of Rock, Groundhog Day, Hair and The Prom.

9) Blue Man Group Buy Tickets - Blue Man Group combines music, technology and comedy to create a form of entertainment that defies categorization and appeals to people of all ages. Blue Man Group's shows have been described by critics as "innovative," "energetic" and "wildly entertaining." But the only way to truly understand Blue Man Group's global popularity is to see the show for yourself.

10) Queen of Hearts: A Baroque-Burlesque Adventure in Wonderland Buy Tickets from: $43 - Fall down a rabbit hole of sensual wonders and surreal delights at Queen of Hearts, Company XIV’s sumptuous ode to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Peer into a decadent dreamworld laced with a mesmerizing blend of stunning circus, shining chanteuses, brilliant burlesque, classical dance, and lavish design.