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After a 2005-06 season that saw Broadway attendance zoom past 12 million, New York's theater community is gearing up for what insiders describe as one of the most eclectic and exciting fall lineups in years.
Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the League of American Theaters and Producers, trumpets a "tremendous array of new musicals and plays," noting, "We predict the diversity and vitality of these shows will continue to attract both New Yorkers and tourists."
Aside from Thursday's return of fabled A Chorus Line, productions include new works from two leading playwrights: Tom Stoppard's sweeping trilogy The Coast of Utopia, being unveiled in a star-studded series at Lincoln Center; and David Hare's The Vertical Hour, which marks Julianne Moore's Broadway debut and the return of celebrated director Sam Mendes.
Robert Simonson, editor of Playbill.com, also points to a revival of Simon Gray's Butley, in which musical-comedy star Nathan Lane will "get a meaty role in a play again," and a new reading of Stephen Sondheim's '70s musical Company by director John Doyle, whose stripped-down Sweeney Todd earned raves last season.
Simonson is most excited about a couple of new musicals transferring from off-Broadway: Spring Awakening, which features a score by pop singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik, and Grey Gardens, adapted from a quirky cult film. "People thought Spring Awakening was the closest thing to Rent since Rent; it has that youthful rock sensibility. And Grey Gardens is fascinatingly peculiar, with a great performance by Christine Ebersole. Nobody could deny that the (show) creators were trying to take the musical form in a new direction, and the results were invigorating."
Lincoln Center Theater artistic director Andre Bishop, who not long ago championed another acclaimed, story- and song-driven Broadway musical in The Light in the Piazza, agrees.
"The transfer of two musicals from off-Broadway companies has not happened a lot traditionally,'' Bishop says. "I don't think that could have happened even five years ago, and I imagine those who transferred them are aware of the risks involved. So that's an incredibly healthy sign."
Todd Haimes, artistic director of the Roundabout Theatre Company, which is reviving George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, is also looking forward to a new musical adaptation of Nick Hornby's beloved novel High Fidelity.
"Many of us in the not-for-profit world are still sad there aren't more new American plays on Broadway," Haimes says. Still, "it's an exciting fall. Normally you have 700 things open in March, right before the Tony (nominations). To have all this going on before Christmas is incredible."
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