WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE, INTO THE WOODS & More Lead Top Off-Broadway Shows for May 2022
Each month we're rounding up 10 off-Broadway recommendations for audiences not to miss!
By: Team BWW May. 01, 2022
Off-Broadway is back and better than ever, with countless new shows soon opening across Manhattan and beyond. BroadwayWorld is helping you pick what to see next by rounding up our top recommended theatre each month. Coming up this May is a Sondheim classic, a world premiere, and so much more!
WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE
MCC's Newman Mills Theater
Now through May 22, 2022
The year is 2015 and Jeff and Judy are right where they're supposed to be: waiting outside the stage door of If/Then to get an autograph from the star. But the experience they have while they wait will change the course of their decades-long friendship forever. Warning: Beware of Tourists.
INTO THE WOODS
New York City Center
May 4-15, 2022
The New York City Center Encores! production of Into the Woods, directed by Encores! Artistic Director Lear deBessonet with music direction by Encores! Music Director Rob Berman and choreography by Lorin Latarro, is dedicated to the memory of the legendary Stephen Sondheim. The star-studded cast includes: Neil Patrick Harris plays The Baker in a cast that also features Sara Bareilles, Denée Benton, Gavin Creel, Jordan Donica, Ta'Nika Gibson, Annie Golden, Albert Guerzon, Ann Harada, Heather Headley, Brooke Ishibashi, Kennedy Kanagawa, David Patrick Kelly, Julia Lester, Lauren Mitchell, Shereen Pimentel, Cole Thompson, and David Turner.
TWO BY SYNGE
The Irish Rep's W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre
Now through May 22, 2022
Two by Synge pairs early masterpieces by JM Synge, inspired by the stories he heard and witnessed while living among poor Irish peasants (at the behest of none other than WB Yeats) at the turn of the twentieth century. Synge celebrates the hardscrabble lives of country people, especially the headstrong and powerful women.
ISLANDER
Playhouse 46 at St. Lukes
Now through July 31, 2022
Acclaimed and award-winning UK musical, Islander, comes to Off-Broadway's newest theatre, after debuting at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019. There is a girl. She stares out to sea and dreams of a new life beyond her lonely island. Myth and reality collide when the tide washes a mysterious stranger onto her beach. Findlay and Tennick create a world of characters while live-mixing and layering their voices, harnessing looping technology to create an astonishing soundscape.
GOLDEN SHIELD
New York City Center - Stage I
Now through June 12, 2022
From international playwright Anchuli Felicia King comes a riveting new play about loyalties, intrigue and the delicate art of translation. When enterprising American lawyer Julie Chen files a class-action lawsuit involving a multinational technology corporation and the Chinese government, she hires her strong-minded sister Eva as her translator. But what compromises will they make in order to win? And can they put aside their past differences to speak the same language? Directing this fast-paced production is May Adrales.
EXCEPTION TO THE RULE
Roundabout's Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
Now through June 26, 2022
Playwright Dave Harris's new play crackles with humor and suspense-confronting the tactics for surviving institutions that were not built for you. How do you make it through detention? In the worst high school in the city, six Black students are stuck in Room 111. They flirt. They fight. They tease. Should they follow the rules and stay put, or find an escape? Are the walls keeping them in, or are stronger forces at play?
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
Signature Theatre's Irene Diamond Stage
Now through May , 2022
Inside a cubicle in a small office in southern Idaho, two men struggle to meet the confounding terms on a loan. MacArthur Fellow Samuel D. Hunter launches his residency with this thoughtful meditation on human resilience, directed by David Cromer (Tony Award- winner, The Band's Visit).
SUFFS
The Public Theater's Newman Theater
Now through May 29, 2022
The new musical by Shaina Taub is one hundred years in the making, bringing to life a complicated chapter in the ongoing battle for the right to vote: the American women's suffrage movement. The star-studded cast includes Jenn Colella, Nikki M. James, Phillipa Soo and many more.
TRUE STORIES
Cherry Lane Theatre
May 3-22, 2022
For nearly a decade, Gretchen Cryer has imagined a group of solo performers coming together under one roof to tell their funny, sad, sexy, shocking, and most importantly True Stories. Her dream has come to fruition at the gorgeous, historic Cherry Lane Theatre - a treasure in Greenwich Village. Performers/playwrights include two-time Emmy award winner Jon Cryer, Linda Manning, Alex Petrullo, Abby Stokes, and Steve Wruble.
¡AMERICANO!
New World Stages
Now through June 19, 2022
Straight from a record-setting run at Arizona's Phoenix Theater Company, the new musical is the true story - the life, the challenges, and the trials - of Tony Valdovinos, a DREAMer brought to America by his parents when he was two years old. Inspired by 9/11, on his 18th birthday Tony walked into a Marine Corps recruitment office to enlist, only to discover his parents hadn't told him he was an undocumented immigrant.
Check out even more off-Broadway listings here!
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