Something's Coming: Fall Season Preview- Off-Broadway!
By: BWW Special Coverage Sep. 02, 2013
This Fall will bring with it ten new Broadway plays and five new Broadway musicals, and yet there is even more on the way for Off-Broadway, including: ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, ARGUENDO, THE OLD FRIENDS, FETCH CLAY MAKE MAN, BIKE AMERICA, NATURAL AFFECTION, FUN HOME, BAD JEWS, LADY DAY, ANTHEM, GRASSES OF A THOUSAND COLORS, THE PATRON SAINT OF SEA MONSTERS, THE JACKSONIAN, HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED, CHERI, DOMESTICATED, LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME, THE (CURIOUS CASE OF THE) WATSON INTELLIGENCE, and THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA.
Get the scoop on all nineteen incoming Off-Broadway shows below!
ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON
Starring: Mike Daisey
Where: Joe's Pub
Opening Night: 9/5
Mike Daisey returns to The Public with a breathtakingly epic theatrical event: a story told over the course of a lunar month, a new monologue every night, in 29 unique consecutive performances. Each evening stands alone as a single episode, but together they create a living theatrical novel set against the secret history of New York City - a city that is loved and loathed and larger than life. From Pentecostal church services held in IKEA showrooms to Nikola Tesla's laboratories in the Lower East Side, from the infamous Mole People's convocations deep beneath the subway lines to the hidden and terrifying plans of Robert Moses, Daisey weaves a story of ordinary magic in a most extraordinary city. Night after night he will strive like Scheherazade to tell the largest story ever attempted in the American theater.
More information HERE.
ARGUENDO
Where: LuEsther Hall
Opening Night: 9/10
ARGUENDO is a playful riff on the 1991 Supreme Court case Barnes v. Glen Theatre. In this provocative case, a group of exotic dancers, citing the First Amendment, challenged a ban on public nudity. ERS stages the oral argument of the case verbatim with their signature theatricality, wit and physical precision. The production design features a breathtaking swirl of animated text projections by celebrated visual artist, Ben Rubin.
More information HERE.
THE OLD FRIENDS
Starring: Betty Buckley, Veanne Cox, Adam LeFevre, HAllie Foote, Sean Lyons, Novella Nelson, Melle Powers, Cotter Smith, and Lois Smith
Where: Pershing Square Signature Center
Currently in previews
Opening Night: 9/12
In this World Premiere play by Signature Legacy Playwright Horton Foote, matriarch Mamie Borden and the remaining members of two longtime Texas farming families await a visit from Mamie's son Hugo and his wife Sybil. When Sybil arrives with alarming news, old friends on opposing sides must confront the issues surrounding legacy, loyalty, and the meaning of happiness that have hounded them for generations.
More information HERE.
FETCH CLAY, MAKE MAN
Starring: Ray Fisher, K. Todd Freeman, Anthony Gaskins, Nikki M. James, John Earl Jelks, Richard Masur, Jeremy Tardy
Where: New York Theatre Workshop
Currently in previews
Opening Night: 9/12
FETCH CLAY, MAKE MAN explores the improbable bond that forms between two drastically different and influential cultural icons. One a vibrant and audacious youth, the other a resentful and almost forgotten relic, together as they fight to form their public personas and shape their legacies amidst the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-1960s. This true story is as powerful and poetic as Clay himself while also humorous and irreverent like Fetchit's signature act. Finding commonality in contradiction, FETCH CLAY, MAKE MAN examines the true meaning of strength, resilience and pride.
More information HERE.
BIKE AMERICA
Starring: Nick Choksi, Jessica Digiovanni, Melanie Nicholls-King, David Shih, Marilyn Torres, Tom White, and Landon G. Woodson
Where: St. Clements Thetare
Opening Night: 9/24
BIKE AMERICA is a wildly picturesque journey that crams the 48 contiguous states onto one stage. The play unfolds as a cross-country bike trip from Boston to Santa Barbara, with stops in big cities and small towns along the way. Our feckless heroine Penny is looking to bring more meaning into her life, so she drops her clingy boyfriend and takes off for the Pacific. Along the way, she befriends a colorful crew of bikers in this multi-state, multi-generational, Blue and Red mash-up.
More information HERE.
NATURAL AFFECTION
Starring: Alec Beard, Eve Bianco, Victoria Mack, Tobi Aremu, Chris Bert, Kathryn Erbe, and John Pankow
Where: Beckett Theatre
Beginning Previews: 9/17
Opening Night: 9/26
A lost treasure from an American icon, in celebration of his centennial. A violent love triangle that tests the ties that bind. William Inge's dark domestic drama caused a controversy with its incestuous overtones, latent homosexuality, and brutal machismo backlash against feminism. Not seen in New York since its 1963 Broadway debut.
More information HERE.
FUN HOME
Starring: Griffin Birney, Michael Cerveris, Roberta Colindrez, Noah Hinsdale, Judy Kuhn, Sydney Lucas, Beth Malone, Joel Perez, and Alexandra Socha
Where: Newman First Floor
Opening Night: 9/30
From four-time Tony Award-nominated composer Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change) and Tony-nominee Lisa Kron (In The Wake, Well) comes a fresh, daring new musical based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. When her father dies unexpectedly, graphic novelist Alison dives deep into her past to tell the story of the volatile, brilliant, one-of-a-kind man whose temperament and secrets defined her family and her life. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family's Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father's hidden desires. Directed by Sam Gold, FUN HOME is a groundbreaking, world-premiere musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes.
More information HERE.
BAD JEWS
Starring:Tracee Chimo, Philip Ettinger, Molly Ranson and Michael Zegen
Where: Laura Pels Theatre
Beginning Previews: 9/19
Opening Night: 10/3
Bad Jews is a world-premiere comedy about the holy and the holier-than-thou. Daphna Feygenbaum is a Real Jew- just ask the Israeli boyfriend she met on Birthright. So when her cousin Liam brings home his shiksa girlfriend Melody and declares ownership of their grandfather's Chai necklace, it sparks a viciously hilarious brawl over family, faith and legacy.
More information HERE.
LADY DAY
Starring: Dee Dee Bridgewater, David Ayers, Rafael Pouerietin, Jim Cammack, Ken Hitchcock, Jerome Jennings and Bill Jolly
Where: Little Shubert Theatre
Beginning Previews: 9/19
Opening Night: 10/3
The original play with music on the life of Billie Holiday, "Lady Day" features a cavalcade of Holiday hit songs and tells the inspired and heart-wrenching story of how Billie attempts a final comeback performance. With a newly revised book by Mr. Stahl, "Lady Day" brings the essence and spirit of the late, great Billie Holiday to the stage. Told through onstage triumphs and backstage personal trials, the production features over twenty-five standards including: "Don't Explain," "Good Morning Heartache," "A Foggy Day (In London Town)," "Them There Eyes," "Strange Fruit," "My Man," "God Bless the Child," and "Mean to Me."
More information HERE.
ANTHEM
Starring: Matthew Christian, Lelund Durond Thompson, Tina Johnson, Sofia Lauwers, Sarah Walker Thornton, and Alex Teicheira
Where: Baryshnikov Arts Center
Beginning Previews: 9/25
Opening Night: 10/4
ANTHEM is the story of a young man, EQUALITY 7-2521, who is born into a future world that has banished all individuality. Not satisfied with a world lighted by candles, EQUALITY fosters his love of discovery in an abandoned subway, a relic of the past. In solitude, EQUALITY rediscovers electricity and a new source of light. Above ground he meets and falls in love with LIBERTY 5-3000, committing a further 'sin of preference.'
More information HERE.
GRASSES OF A THOUSAND COLORS
Starring: Wallace Shawn, Emily Cass McDonnell and Jennifer Tilly
Where: Shiva Theater
Opening Night: 10/7
Shawn's most outlandish work to date, GRASSES OF A THOUSAND COLORS, is a disturbing and anomalously beautiful play that explores the role of human beings in nature and the role of nature in human beings, sexuality being as Shawn says, 'nature's most obvious footprint in the human soul.' The play's central character is a doctor who believes he has solved world hunger when he figures out how to rejigger the metabolisms of animals to tolerate eating their own kind. This has unexpected consequences. The play tells a story about the doctor, his wife, and his lovers, that is also a story about human beings and animals and the planet we live on.
More information HERE.
THE PATRON SAINT OF SEA MONSTERS
Starring: CAndy Buckley, Rob Campbell, Haynes Thigpen, Danny Wolohan, and Jacqueline Wright
Where: Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
Opening Night: 10/18
Aubrey, a very determined romantic, believes she's met her soul-mate in Calvin, a boozing womanizer. But in this tilted, thoughtful comedy, true love is an even more tangled predicament. Peopled by an assortment of eccentrics, mystics and front porch philosophers, this new play from Marlane Meyer is a sweet polemic, an unexpected love story, and a deliciously cockeyed view of the sustaining--and destructive--power of belief.
More information HERE.
THE JACKSONIAN
Starring: Ed Harris, Glenne Headly, Amy Madigan, Bill Pullman
Where: Acorn Theatre
Opening Night: 10/25
Jackson, Mississippi, 1964. When his wife kicks him out, respectable dentist Bill Perch (Ed Harris) moves into the seedy Jacksonian Motel. There, his downward spiral is punctuated by encounters with his teenage daughter, a gold-digging motel employee (Glenne Headly), a treacherous bartender (Bill Pullman), and his now estranged wife (Amy Madigan). Set against the investigation of a recent murder and climaxing in a crime of passion, The Jacksonian, brimming with suspense and dark humor, unearths the eerie tensions and madness in a town poisoned by racism. This play premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in February 2012 in a production directed by Robert Falls, featuring Ed Harris, Glenne Headly, Amy Madigan and Bill Pullman.
More information HERE.
HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED
Starring: Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Where: Pershing Square Signature Center
Opening Night: 11/1
In this solo show, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson shares stories about his first few jobs, a stint in jail, an early relationship, his first kiss, his foray into cinema, and the friends he has had his entire life. Directed by long-time collaborator Todd Kreidler and featuring Ruben Santiago-Hudson, director of the acclaimed The Piano Lesson, How I Learned What I Learned charts one man's journey of self-discovery through adversity, and what it means to be a black artist in America.
More information HERE.
CHERI
Starring: Herman Cornejo, Alessandra Ferri, Suzanne Bertish, Sarah Rothenberg
Where: Pershing Square Signature Center
Beginning Previews:
Opening Night: 11/1
Inspired by the classic 1920 novella by controversial French author Colette, Cheri is Martha Clarke's newest interdisciplinary work, an exciting fusion of theatre, live music, and dance featuring American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Herman Cornejo, prima ballerina assoluta Alessandra Ferri, actor Suzanne Bertish, pianist Sarah Rothenberg, and text by Tina Howe. This tragic story of forbidden love between a young man and an older woman in Belle Epoque Paris is a timeless, powerful exploration of sensuality, love, and our preoccupations with youth and age.
More information HERE.
DOMESTICATED
Starring: Vanessa Aspillaga, Mia Barron, Robin De Jesus, Jeff Goldblum, Lizbeth MacKay, Emily Meade, Laurie Metcalf, Mary Beth Peil, Karen Pittman, Misha Seo
Where: Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre
Beginning Previews: 10/10
Opening Night: 11/4
DOMESTICATED, by Bruce Norris, the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning author of CLYBOURNE PARK, dives into the conflagration of gender, power, sexuality and politics that emerges in a private relationship after a public humiliation. In this prescient new play, Laurie Metcalfand Jeff Goldblum play Judy and Bill Pulver whose marriage is thrust into the public eye by scandal. As told by Norris, their story is wickedly funny, deeply serious and anything but predictable.
More information HERE.
LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME
Where: Baruch Performing Arts Center
Opening Night: 11/10
LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME is a new whimsical and moving coming-of-age musical based on the 1975 Academy-Award-nominated, Golden Globe winning film. Following three generations in an immigrant family living in Montreal during the 1920s, when North American Immigration pushed forward in its final great wave and an assimilated country pushed back even harder, LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME recounts David's childhood memories of the people and occurrences that would shape his life.
More information HERE.
THE (CURIOUS CASE OF THE) WATSON INTELLIGENCE
Starring: John Ellison Conlee, David Costabile, Maggie Siff
Where: Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theatre
Opening Night: 11/17
Watson: trusty sidekick to Sherlock Holmes; loyal engineer who built Bell's first telephone; unstoppable super-computer that became reigning Jeopardy! champ; amiable techno-dweeb who, in the present day, is just looking for love. These four constant companions become one in this brilliantly witty, time-jumping, loving tribute (and cautionary tale) dedicated to the people--and machines--upon which we all depend.
More information HERE.
THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA
Starring: Blythe Danner, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zoe Levin, Ali Marsh, Michael Stahl-David, and Nilaja Sun
Where: NY City Center
Beginning Previews: 10/22
Opening Night: 11/21
Judith (Blythe Danner) has been divested of her assets and forced to leave her luxurious New York life after her husband's Wall Street scam became headline news. When her daughter Becca (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Becca's filmmaker boyfriend (Michael Stahl-David) pay Judith a visit to the one bedroom condo Judith now occupies in Pensacola, Florida, everyone's motives are called into question. How will past and present circumstances inform how this family moves into the future?
More information HERE.
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