DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES & More Lead Top Off-Broadway Shows for May 2023
Each month we're rounding up 10 off-Broadway recommendations for audiences not to miss!
By: Team BWW May. 01, 2023
What's happening off-Broadway? BroadwayWorld is helping you pick what to see next by rounding up our top recommended theatre each month. Coming up off-Broadway this May is a world premiere musical, a revival of a classic musical, and much more.
Days of Wine and Roses
Atlantic Theater Company
May 5th - July 9th, 2023
Tony Award winner Kelli O'Hara and Tony Award nominee Brian d'Arcy James star in a searing new musical about a couple falling in love in 1950's New York and struggling against themselves to rebuild a family. Adapted from JP Miller's 1962 film and original 1958 teleplay, composer & lyricist Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins) and playwright Craig Lucas (An American in Paris) reunite in their first collaboration since their acclaimed The Light in the Piazza. A world premiere musical directed by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen).
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Lionel Bart's Oliver!
New York City Center
May 3 - 14, 2023
Nominated for 10 Tony Awards, Lionel Bart's Oliver! has been a household name since its premiere in 1960 but has not been seen on a New York City stage for nearly 40 years. This landmark revival revels in the brassy, boisterous sound of such classics as "I'd Do Anything," "Oom Pah Pah!," and "Consider Yourself," and welcomes a broader community to share in the celebration of this iconic musical with a number that includes 20 public school students. The coming-of-age story of a child who dares to trust in others, search for love, and ask for more in Victorian London's seedy underworld promises to inspire a new generation of musical theater lovers. The production stars Lilli Cooper as Nancy, Raúl Esparza as Fagin, Julian Lerner as The Artful Dodger, Tam Mutu as Bill Sikes, Brad Oscar as Mr. Bumble, Benjamin Pajak as Oliver Twist, and Mary Testa as Widow Corney.
Monsoon Wedding
St. Ann's Warehouse
May 6 - June 25, 2023
Monsoon Wedding, the Musical is a joyful and triumphant love song to Nair's Delhi roots, Punjabi culture and families: how they love, rejoice, and endure together. The production begins with a Baraat, a wedding brass band that greets the "guests of the bride and groom" (the audience) in the Max Family Garden and foyer of St. Ann's Warehouse. The Garden, one of New York City's most popular and photogenic locations for pre-wedding couples, is the entryway to a modernist, Corbusier-style Delhi house and courtyard, alive with Punjabi aunties rehearsing wedding songs for the celebration to come. As the festivities unfurl, expectation, reality, and class collide, creating what Nair describes as "a crackling tale of all kinds of love."
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King James
Manhattan Theatre Club
Performances begin May 2, 2023
Manhattan Theatre Club is presenting the New York premiere of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Center Theatre Group's production of King James, written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) and directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, Fences), starring Glenn Davis (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Downstate) and Chris Perfetti ("Abbott Elementary"). This wonderfully funny and remarkably moving new play chronicles the unexpected friendship between two men whose intertwined fortunes are tied to those of their idol.
The Great Gatsby
The Gatsby Mansion
Performances begin May 23, 2023
Immersive Everywhere's critically immersive production of The Great Gatsby will now begin performances on May 23, and will open on June 15, 2023. Created and directed by Alexander Wright, the UK's longest-running immersive production will make its American and New York debut at The Gatsby Mansion at the Park Central Hotel New York (870 Seventh Avenue), a Highgate managed hotel.
Bernarda's Daughters
The Pershing Square Signature Center
May 2 - June 4, 2023
Amid gentrifying construction, street protests and a sweltering summer in Flatbush, the five Abellard sisters take refuge in their family home. Simmering in the losses of their father and their neighborhood, they clash over how to contend with the legacy of their Haitian parents in a city that is no longer theirs. Inspired by Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba but with a breathtaking immediacy, playwright Diane Exavier brings to life a powerful ensemble of women to create this sensual and entrancing portrait of a family at a crossroads. The world premiere of Diane Exavier's play stars Pascale Armand, Alana Raquel Bowers, Kristin Dodson, Malika Samuel, Taji Senior and Tamara Tunie.
The Comeuppance
Signature Theatre
May 16 - June 25, 2023
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' world premiere of The Comeuppance, a self-proclaimed "Multi-Ethnic Reject Group" reconvenes for the first time in years to pregame for their twentieth high school reunion. They refamiliarize themselves with new versions of old selves over drinks, other substances, and a not-so-innocent truth-telling game. From the start, Death looms over and speaks through them, describing their disquieting and darkly comedic fates. The Comeuppance marks Jacobs-Jenkins' prolific decade as a Signature Premiere Resident playwright.
Bees & Honey
May 4 - June 11, 2023
Inspired by Juan Luis Guerra's Como Abeja Al Panal, Bees & Honey is written by Guadalís Del Carmen (Not For Sale) and directed by Melissa Crespo (Espejos: Clean). The play is a Washington Heights love story that follows married couple Manuel and Johaira as they enter new phases in their lives. But as the challenges of life and marriage mount, the young and ambitious couple must answer the age-old question: Is Love enough?
A Simulacrum
Atlantic Theater Company
May 25 - June 25, 2023
Atlantic Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of A Simulacrum, written by Tony Award nominee Lucas Hnath (Dana H.) with Steve Cuiffo, and directed by Lucas Hnath. Lucas is a playwright. Steve is a magician. Lucas asked Steve to show him some magic tricks. Steve did. And this is what happened.
This Land Was Made
May 18 - June 25, 2023
History and imagination collide with vibrant humor and echo into our present moment in this stirring new play from Tori Sampson (If Pretty Hurts, Ugly Must Be A Muhfucka) and directed by LPTW Lucille Lortel Award and 2023 Obie Award winner Taylor Reynolds (Tambo and Bones). Oakland in 1967 is a powder keg of social activism ready to boil over into radical action. For the patrons of Miss Trish's bar, it's all just talking points - until the explosive and seductive force of the revolution walks through the door.
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