It’s taken years, but Broadway has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels in ticket sales, on the strength of several strong revivals and plenty of nostalgic hooks. This year promises several more high-profile shows: musical adaptations of The Notebook and Water for Elephants, the Broadway debuts of Steve Carell and Rachel McAdams, Succession’s Jeremy Strong in an Ibsen revival, an Alicia Keys jukebox musical and more. Here are 11 of the most anticipated shows of 2024:
Days of Wine and Roses
The new year kicks off with the tale of a hard-drinking couple in Days of Wine and Roses, which transfers from a well-reviewed off-Broadway run to Studio 54 on 6 January. Based on the 1962 film of the same name, itself based on a 1958 teleplay, Days of Wine and Roses stars Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James as Kirsten and Joe, an attractive couple whose lives disintegrate via alcoholism in 1950s New York. This jazzy, rueful spin on a piece of mid-century addiction canon comes from Adam Guettel (music and lyrics) and Craig Lucas (book), the duo behind the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza.
The Notebook
The appeal of The Notebook, the 2004 film starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, still isn’t over with a new musical adaptation coming to Broadway in March. This version of the decade-spanning Nicholas Sparks romance has music and lyrics from pop singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson, as well as tearjerker credentials, with a book by This Is Us’s Bekah Brunstetter. Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal, Rent) and Schele Williams (Aida, The Wiz) will direct this tale of star-crossed lovers and rain-soaked reunions, starring Joy Woods (Six) and Jordan Tyson as Allie and Ryan Vazquez and John Cardoza as Noah.
Mary Jane
Speaking of McAdams, the Mean Girls star turned A-list actress will make her Broadway debut in April in Mary Jane, a play by Amy Herzog. McAdams plays a struggling single mother caring for her chronically ill young son, who bonds with several women to form a makeshift family. The play drew critical acclaim when it premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 2017, and will be led for its Broadway premiere by Anne Kauffman, who directed last year’s celebrated Broadway run of Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.
Water for Elephants
Another romance novel turned Hollywood movie turned Broadway musical: Water for Elephants, based on the book by Sara Gruen that became the 2011 movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson, which opens in March at the Imperial Theatre. Directed by Tony nominee Jessica Stone (Kimberly Akimbo) with a book from three-time Tony nominee Rick Elice (Jersey Boys), this high-octane romance set at a 1930s traveling circus, where a veterinarian falls for a star performer, promises plenty of spectacle (though presumably no real elephants).
An Enemy of the People
Fresh off the end of Succession (and potentially another Emmy win for his portrayal of tragic number one boy Kendall Roy), Jeremy Strong returns to Broadway for the first time in 16 years in Henrik Ibsen’s classic 1882 drama, newly adapted by the very busy Herzog, who also helmed the 2023 adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House starring Jessica Chastain. Strong takes on the role of Dr Thomas Stockmann, a medical officer in a small Norwegian spa town who becomes the target of public opprobrium after he threatens the town’s reputation by exposing contamination in its lucrative spa baths. (The play is loosely based on events in Ibsen’s life; Stockmann is considered a stand-in for the playwright.) The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli and You’s Victoria Pedretti also star as Peter and Petra Stockmann.
Uncle Vanya
In other classic revival-meets-Hollywood news: a new iteration of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya – the first on Broadway since 2000 – starring Steve Carell in his Broadway debut. This production boasts an all-new, “strikingly immediate” (according to Playbill) translation of Chekhov’s story of a family upended by new arrivals, from Pulitzer and Tony-nominated writer Heidi Schreck. Schreck’s version, which also stars Love Life’s William Jackson Harper and is directed by Lila Neugebauer (most recently of the acclaimed play Appropriate), will open at Lincoln Center in April.
The Wiz
The Wiz, the groundbreaking 1975 musical that put an all-Black, soul spin on the Wizard of Oz, returns to Broadway this spring for its first major revival. Schele Williams (Disney’s Aida) directs this extravagant outing, which already launched a national tour last September and will reprise its cast on Broadway: Nichelle Lewis as Dorothy, Deborah Cox as Glinda, Melody A Betts as Aunt Em and Evillene, Kyle Ramar Freeman as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tinman and Wayne Brady as The Wiz himself. JaQuel Knight, who worked with Beyoncé on Single Ladies and Black is King, will choreograph the production, which opens at the Marquis Theatre in April.
The Outsiders
The remarkable life of The Outsiders – the bestselling 1967 novel by an actual high schooler about rival high school gangs, which became an iconic Francis Ford Coppola film in the 80s – continues as a folk musical starting in April at the Bernard B Jacobs Theatre. With a book by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine and music from Texas folk duo Jamestown Revival (Zach Chance and Jonathan Clay), the new adaptation of S E Hinton’s book will, according to the logline, reinvigorate “the timeless tale of ‘haves and have nots’, of protecting what’s yours and fighting for what could be”.
Mother Play
With a name like Mother Play, you can imagine a show self-described as “bitingly funny” and “unflinchingly honest”, and also starring Jessica Lange. She’s the matriarch, Phyllis, a DC suburbanite we meet in 1962 who has strong ideas for the future of her two teenage children, Carl (The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger). This new family drama from heralded playwright Paula Vogel – winner of the Pulitzer in 1998 for How I Learned to Drive, and one of the leading teachers of the craft – with direction from Tina Landau (Spongebob Squarepants) is produced by Second Stage Theater, a non-profit dedicated to work by living American writers that recently staged Appropriate, starring Sarah Paulson, to rave reviews at the Helen Hayes Theater.
Hell’s Kitchen
Alicia Keys’ semi-autobiographical jukebox musical, which drew favorable reviews (and five stars from the Guardian’s Lauren Mechling) during its sold-out off-Broadway run at the Public Theater, transfers to Broadway this spring at the Shubert. The coming-of-age story directed by Michael Greif, loosely based on Keys’s own upbringing in Manhattan, depicts a short chapter in the life of a 17-year-old growing up in a New York housing development subsidized for performers; she falls in love with piano, develops an attraction to an older man and resists her single mother’s efforts to protect her. The musical features reworked versions of many Keys hits, including Fallin’, Empire State of Mind, No One and Girl on Fire. The 15-time Grammy winner, who worked on the musical for over 10 years, has promised to continue refining Hell’s Kitchen as it heads to the main stage. “Of course, you always are able to refine, you’re always able to find places that you want to bring more, bring less, try this, do that, and that’s going to, of course, happen as we transfer to make it just better and better and better,” she said upon news of the transfer, which has yet to announce its cast.
Doubt: A Parable
John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning 2004 play about abuse within the Catholic Church, later turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Meryl Streep, Viola Davis and Philip Seymour Hoffman, returns to Broadway in February at the American Airlines Theatre. This first revival, directed by Scott Ellis, stars Tony winner Tyne Daly as Sister Aloysius, the principal at a Catholic school in a working-class area of the Bronx who wrestles with how to handle suspected abuse by Father Flynn, played by Liev Schreiber, of young students. Zoe Kazan also stars Sister James, with Quincy Tyler Bernstine as Mrs Muller.