2023-2024 Broadway Season Preview – Part Two

First up is Obie Award winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Appropriate. The show which first premiered Off-Broadway in 2014, is set to begin previews at the Hayes Theatre on November 29, with opening night scheduled for December 18. Appropriate will star Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Sarah Paulson in her first return to Broadway since her performance in 2010’s Collected Stories. Starring alongside the celebrated actor is Sarah Gold, Alyssa Emily Martin, Cory Stoll, and recent addition Elle Fanning. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, the play tells the story of the broken Lafayette clan who return to their family home in Arkansas prepared to go to war over their late father’s estate. Only to discover that not only is it falling apart, but that a slew of hidden secrets is about to be revealed that threaten to tear this already crumbling family even further apart. Sounds like my kind of play? I expect this show to be a big Tony contender next Spring.  

Next up? Prayer For The French Republic. Written by Drama Desk Award winner Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews, Significant Other) and directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer (The Band’s Visit, The Sound Inside), the 2002 Drama Desk Award winner for Best Play of the Year, made it’s Off-Broadway debut in February 2022 at New York’s City Center and was produced by Manhattan Theater Club. Starring Betsy Aidem, Francis Benhamou, Ari Brand, Anthony Edwards, Molly Ranson, Nancy Robinette, and Arai Shahghasemi, the show is scheduled to begin previews on Broadway at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on December 19, with opening night set for January 9. Set in Paris, France during the height of World War II, the play follows a young Jewish couple who await the news as to the whereabouts of their missing family. As the story continues, we are soon introduced to the couple's great-grandchildren who are faced with the very same question their grandparents were asked some seventy years ago. “Are we safe? Like most MTC shows, it is set to play a limited run with performances on sale through February 4. Which means you only have seven weeks to catch what is sure to be one of the favorites next Spring for Best Play of the Year.  

Now as you will recall in my opening paragraph, I mentioned that there is a brand-new musical set to open this season starring two of Broadway’s most loved performers. O.K. O.K., I won’t leave you in suspense. It is none other than Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara (The King and I, Kiss Me Kate), and four-time Tony Award nominee Brian d’Arcy James (Into the Woods, Something Rotten) Told you, didn’t I? Not only that, but the show, Days of Wine and Roses, will mark the first time they have shared a Broadway stage together since 2002’s Sweet Smell of Success. Written by the same creative team behind 2005’s Tony Award winning A Light in the Piazza, book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, the show is based on the 1958 television film of the same name as part of the Playhouse 90 series on CBS. Full disclosure. I have never seen the critically acclaimed 1958 film or the Academy Award nominated feature film version that came out four years later. Which is why I needed to do a little research on my part to see what this new musical was all about. According to the show’s website, Days of Wine and Roses is a “searing new musical about a couple falling in love in 1950’s New York and struggling against themselves to rebuild a family.” Directed by four-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Rent), and co-choreographed by Tony Award winner Sergio Trujillo (Ain’t Too Proud, Jersey Boys) and Karla Puno Garcia (tick, tick...BOOM!), Days of Wine and Roses is scheduled to begin previews at Studio 54 on January 6, 2024, with opening night set for January 24. Now I don’t know about you, but I think that Mr. D'Arcy James is set to receive his fifth Tony nomination, with Ms. O’Hara scoring her eighth overall. We shall see.  

Finally, is John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt. Winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, this new revival produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company is set to begin previews at the American Airlines Theatre on February 2, 2024, with opening night scheduled for February 29. This new production which will mark its first revival since the 2005 original will star Tony Award winners Liev Schrieber as Father Flynn and Tyne Daly as Sister Aloysious. Directed by nine-time Tony Award nominee Scott Ellis (Take Me Out, Kiss Me Kate) the show is also set to star Obie Award winner Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Our Lady of 121st Street, Ruined) as Mrs. Muller and Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick, Deuce) as Sister James. The original production was a personal favorite of mine that starred Tony winners Cherry Jones, Brian F. O'Byrne, Heather Goldenhersh, and Adriane Lennox in her Tony Award winning performance as Mrs. Muller. As was the 2008 Academy Award nominated film version that starred Academy Award winners Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, and Academy Award nominee Amy Adams.