Broadway Buying Guide: April 29, 2024- New Shows Top the Week

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

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This Week's Top Broadway Shows

1) 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.

2) Uncle Vanya Buy Tickets from: $74 - Sonya and her uncle Vanya have devoted their lives to managing the family farm in isolation, but when her celebrated, ailing father and his charismatic wife move in, their lives are upended. In the heat of the summer, the wrong people fall in love, desires and resentments erupt, and the family is forced to reckon with the ghosts of their unlived lives. Director Lila Neugebauer (The Waverly Gallery, The Wolves) and playwright Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me) collaborate on the premiere of this Lincoln Center Theater production of UNCLE VANYA, which pairs Anton Chekhov's enduring masterpiece with one of America's most celebrated contemporary playwrights in a strikingly immediate new translation.

3) 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.

4) Illinoise Buy Tickets - Direct from two critically acclaimed sold-out productions, the New York Times Critic’s Pick Illinoise is transferring to Broadway for 16 weeks only beginning April 24. Based on the landmark Sufjan Stevens album, Illinoise “springs to epic life onstage” (The Washington Post) in a “mysterious, deeply moving and unforgettable dance-musical hybrid” (The New York Times) directed and choreographed by Tony Award® winner Justin Peck. Told through live music performed by an 11-member band, three vocalists and impressionistic choreography, Peck and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury have crafted an original story that bursts with feeling. As friends gather around a campfire, sharing stories of first love, grief and growing up, “Illinoise explores the hot zone between childhood and adulthood when emotions can be at their most overwhelming” (The New York Times). Don’t miss this limited Broadway engagement. “Illinoise throws open a window to the cosmos, and we all turn like hungry wintering plants toward the sun” (New York Magazine).

5) 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.

6) 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.

7) 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).

8) 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.

9) The Lion King Buy Tickets - The circle of life continues on! In one of the most thrilling visual experiences to ever hit Broadway, giraffes strut, birds swoop, gazelles leap - the entire Serengeti comes to life. This adaptation of Disney's iconic film transports you to a dazzling world that explodes with colors, stunning effects and enchanting music. Relive the story of Simba and his journey from wide-eyed cub to finally reclaiming his crown as the king of the Pridelands. Celebrating over 25 landmark years on Broadway, The Lion King continues ascendant as one of the most popular stage musicals in the world.

10) Moulin Rouge! Buy Tickets Tickets: from $74 - Enter a world of splendor and romance, of eye-popping excess, of glitz, grandeur, and glory! A world where Bohemians and aristocrats rub elbows and revel in electrifying enchantment. Pop the champagne and prepare for the spectacular spectacular. Baz Luhrmann’s revolutionary film comes to life onstage, remixed by director Alex Timbers and choreographer Sonya Tayeh in a new musical mash-up extravaganza. A celebration of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and — above all — Love, Moulin Rouge! is more than a musical — it is a state of mind.

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) Jordans Buy Tickets - A bitingly funny, wildly imaginative new play by The Public’s Emerging Writers Group alumnus Ife Olujobi, JORDANS is a piercing exploration of assimilation, racial capitalism, success, and survival. At an overwhelmingly white workplace where appearance is everything, a long-suffering receptionist finds herself in personal, professional, and psychic jeopardy when her ruthless boss hires a hip new employee in an effort to improve the company’s image and “culture.” Suddenly, the two young, Black social climbers are forced together and torn apart by their race, ambition, and otherworldly circumstance. JORDANS is a story of identity mistaken, power subverted, and rage unleashed. Don’t miss this bold new play directed by Obie Award winner Whitney White about the true cost of “diversity” in the workplace.

3) Grenfell: in the words of survivors Buy Tickets - Grenfell: in the words of survivors (April 13–May 12, 2024) is a powerful new production from London’s National Theatre about the resilient, multicultural North Kensington community who protected and cared for one another before, during, and after a devastating 2017 public housing tower fire. Seventy-two people died in the catastrophe. Compiling haunting testimonies drawn from verbatim interviews with some of the survivors and bereaved, the play—by South African writer and former English PEN President Gillian Slovo—reveals the impact of the multiple failures that led to the national disaster. The production explores the courage of an ill-treated community and their continued campaign for justice and accountability. The North Kensington residents have preserved their community with dignity and commanded a public forum for securing the right to safe housing worldwide. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, The Donmar Warehouse’s all-female Shakespeare Trilogy) and Anthony Simpson-Pike (The P Word), this “masterpiece of forensic fury” (The Guardian) leaves the audience awestruck and motivated to join the cause.

4) STILL Buy Tickets - What happens when you love someone, but you hate the things they believe? A funny and heart-wrenching story for anyone who's ever wondered: "what if?" Lost love is revisited, secrets are exposed, and an avocado goes flying in Lia Romeo’s whirlwind New York premiere about getting older and roads not taken.

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) Orlando Buy Tickets - Playwright Sarah Ruhl adapts Virginia Woolf’s Orlando—once called “the longest and most charming love letter in literature,” written by Woolf for her lover, Vita Sackville-West. Orlando’s adventures begin as a young man, when he serves as courtier to Queen Elizabeth. Through many centuries of living, he becomes a 20th-century woman, trying to sort out her existence. This theatrical, wild, fantastical trip through space, time, and gender features the one and only Taylor Mac in the title role.

7) 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.

8) Agreement Buy Tickets - The clock is ticking. It’s April 1998 and the main political parties in Northern Ireland, the British government and the Irish government, all under the watchful eye of Senator George Mitchell, try to hammer out a deal that could pave the way for peace in Northern Ireland. This is their last chance, and no one is leaving until agreement is reached. Awarded an "outstanding" five stars by the Irish Times, the Lyric Theatre's critically acclaimed production of AGREEMENT comes to NYC after two sold-out, record-breaking runs in Belfast.

9) 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.

10) Scarlett Dreams Buy Tickets - In Scarlett Dreams, siblings Milo and Liza have created RealFit, a fitness and wellness app designed for the OmniVision, a new Virtual Reality headset from OmniCorp. They bring in Milo's husband, Kevin, to beta test the app prior to its launch. As Kevin engages with the app, he starts forming a connection with Scarlett, his virtual trainer. This development leads to an exploration of the intersections between technology and personal relationships, questioning how digital interactions impact human connections and shape our perception of reality.