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16 New Musicals to See Beyond Broadway This Fall

By: Raven Snook
Date: Sep 20, 2024
Off-Broadway

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Catch a musical memoir from three Hairspray stars, a campy romp by the co-creator of Titanique, RuPaul's Drag Race alums in Drag: The Musical and more

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Broadway isn't the only destination for exciting new musicals this fall. You'll also find intriguing new tuners on NYC's smaller stages, including an indie rock take on the cult film Safety Not Guaranteed, a campy romp by the co-creator of Titanique, RuPaul's Drag Race alums in Drag: The Musical and a musical memoir from original Hairspray costars Laura Bell Bundy, Marissa Jaret Winokur and Kerry Butler.

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Ghost of John McCain - begins September 3

Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street in Soho

Previews begin September 3. Opens September 24. Closes October 13. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Newsies' Ben Fankhauser and Jason Tam (Be More Chill, If/Then) headline this musical satire about the late Republic senator discovering heaven is located inside Donald Trump's brain. There he joins a group of rebels, including Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, Eva Perón, Teddy Roosevelt, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Grizabella from Cats, fighting against 45's constant demands. Drew Fornarola and Scott Elmegreen's loopy show arrives just in time for the presidential election madness.

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Red Bull Theater and Bedlam: Medea: Re-Versed - begins September 12

Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker Street between Mott and Elizabeth Streets in Noho

Previews begin September 12. Closes September 23. Opens October 13. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Red Bull Theater and Bedlam are behind this rap battle reimagining of mythology's maddest mom, which comes to NYC from the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Written by Luis Quintero, who also serves as emcee, it's a high-energy, hip-hop take on Euripides' ancient tragedy about an enraged wife who exacts terrifying revenge on the husband who abandoned her.

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The Big Gay Jamboree - begins September 14

Orpheum Theatre, 126 Second Avenue at 8th Street in the East Village

Previews begin September 14. Opens October 6. Closes January 19, 2025. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Marla Mindelle, the co-creator and original star of the long-running spoof Titanique, cowrote and headlines The Big Gay Jamboree, a campy new romp about a modern-day woman trapped in a Golden Age musical (shades of Schmigadoon!). We anticipate suggestive send-ups of classic show tunes and lots of outrageous laughs, especially since the cast includes Saturday Night Live alum Alex Moffat.

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BAM: Safety Not Guaranteed - begins September 17

BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street between Ashland and Rockwell Places in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Previews begin September 17. Opens October 3. Closes October 20. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Ryan Miller from the indie rock band Guster wrote the songs for this quirky chamber musical, based on the cult movie of the same name. When an oddball places an ad looking for a time-traveling companion, an aspiring journalist answers. Two-time Obie winner Lee Sunday Evans directs this tale of unexpected connection and the weight of regret.

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Playwrights Horizons: Magnificent Bird / Book of Travelers - begins September 24

Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street between Ninth and Dyer Avenues in Midtown West

Begins September 24. Closes October 13. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Singer-songwriter-storyteller Gabriel Kahane (February House) performs a pair of concept albums on alternating evenings: one about the strangers he encountered on a long train ride through a polarized nation, the other chronicling the year he spent offline. Annie Tippe directs these mini-musicals for Playwrights Horizons.

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Distant Thunder: A New American Musical - begins September 25

A.R.T./New York Theatres, 502 West 53rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Midtown West

Previews begin September 25. Opens October 3. Closes October 27. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

After a successful world premiere at the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, this passion project from Tony-nominated choreographer-director Lynne Taylor-Corbett and her son, actor Shaun Taylor-Corbett, arrives Off Broadway. Distant Thunder centers on Darrell Walters, who was taken from his Blackfeet Nation home as a child but returns as a lawyer to help his impoverished tribe. Shaun Taylor-Corbett is of Blackfeet descent and this musical was inspired by his research into his lineage. He stars in and cowrote the show with his mother, along with songwriters Chris Wiseman and Robert Lindsey-Nassif and Michael Moricz, who fuse pop-rock with Native drumming and dancing.

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Audible Theater: I'm Almost There - begins September 26

Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street in the West Village

Begins September 26. Closes October 5.

After a lauded run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, singer-songwriter-storyteller Todd Almond (Girl From The North Country, On the Levee) brings his almost-solo musical to Audible Theater. A fantastical and funny tale of fighting for love in NYC, Almond must battle his unstable neighbor, a sex cult, a narcissistic vampire and a demon cat in order to connect with his soulmate. Tony winner David Cromer (The Band's Visit) directs.

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Drag: The Musical - begins September 30

New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West

Previews begin September 30. Opens October 21. Open run.

RuPaul's Drag Race alum Alaska Thunderf*ck cowrote and stars in this campy musical comedy about two competing drag clubs locked in a bitchy battle. A long-running hit in Los Angeles, Drag: The Musical arrives Off Broadway with quite the cast of queens, including Lagoona Bloo, Jujubee and Luxx Noir London, as well as Broadway and boy band vet Joey McIntyre. Spencer Liff (So You Think You Can Dance) directs and choreographs.

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New York Theatre Workshop: We Live in Cairo - begins October 9

New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue in the East Village

Previews begin October 9. Opens October 27. Closes November 24.

Brothers Daniel and Patrick Lazour (Hound Dog) have spent more than a decade working on We Live in Cairo, their heartfelt and deeply personal portrait of six young Egyptian students participating in the Arab Spring uprisings of the early 2010s. The musical received its world premiere at Massachusetts' American Repertory Theatre in 2019. Taibi Magar directs this brand-new production at New York Theatre Workshop featuring an all-MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) cast, including recent Tommy star Ali Louis Bourzgui.

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Little House on the Ferry: The Musical - begins October 15

Ferry's Landing NYC, 61 Christopher Street at Seventh Avenue South in the West Village

Previews begin October 15. Opens October 30. Closes January 5, 2025. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Two years after a fire destroyed the upstairs theatre at the beloved comedy and cabaret haven The Duplex, the venue reopens with a new name, Ferry's Landing, and a campy new musical comedy: Little House on the Ferry: The Musical by Rob Gould. Set in 2011 as the New York Senate prepares to vote on marriage equality, the show follows four gay friends frolicking on Fire Island as their civil rights hang in the balance. Expect divas, drag queens and lots of quips!

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Teeth - begins October 16

New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West

Previews begin October 16. Opens October 31. Open run.

After a smash run at Playwrights Horizons last spring, this edgy musical transfers Off Broadway for a commercial run. The brainchild of A Strange Loop Pulitzer Prize and Tony winner Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs, Teeth is based on the 2007 cult flick of the same name about an evangelical Christian teen who discovers her vagina has a set of chompers hell-bent on protecting her. Broadway vet Alyse Alan Louis reprises her powerhouse lead performance and Andy Karl joins the cast as her pastor stepdad. Sarah Benson directs this dark musical comedy about consent and bodily autonomy.

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Bedlam: Music City: A New Musical - begins October 27

West End Theatre at St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church, 263 West 86th Street between Broadway and West End Avenue on the Upper West Side

Begins October 27. Closes December 1.

Bedlam is known for its daring reinventions of classics, both literary (Sense and Sensibility) and theatrical (The Crucible, Pygmalion). So Music City, the company's first new musical, is quite the departure. Set in Nashville in the early 21st century, it follows a group of aspiring country stars trying to make it big as they navigate a city ravaged by America's drug crisis. Celebrated songwriter J.T. Harding supplies new numbers alongside hits he wrote for Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Uncle Kracker and other country crooners. Bedlam's artistic director, Eric Tucker, helms the production.

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Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now! - begins November 2

New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West

Previews begin November 2. Opens November 13. Closes December 8.

The original stars of Broadway's Hairspray, Tony Award winner Marissa Jaret Winokur, Kerry Butler and Laura Bell Bundy, reunite for this collective musical memoir featuring backstage stories and hit songs from their careers. With 16 Broadway shows between them, including Beetlejuice, Mean Girls, Legally Blonde and Wicked, plus film and TV appearances, they have a lot of material to mine!

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Theatre for a New Audience and Rattlestick Theater: We Are Your Robots - begins November 7

Theatre for a New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place between Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Previews begin November 7. Opens November 21. Closes December 8.

Obie-winning playwright-songwriter Ethan Lipton (No Place to Go, Tumacho) and two-time Tony-nominated director Leigh Silverman (Suffs) have been developing We Are Your Robots for the last few years. The premise feels particularly timely right now: Lipton and his band are robots answer the question, "What do humans want from their machines?" in song. Brain mapping, consciousness, violence and surveillance are all on their AI minds. Rattlestick Theater coproduces.

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NYU Skirball: Sex Variants of 1941: A Study of Homosexual Patterns - begins November 14

NYU Skirball, 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square South in the West Village

Begins November 14. Closes November 24.

The audacious collective The Civilians (Gone Missing, Pretty Filthy, This Beautiful City) crafts a music-filled fantasia inspired by a Depression-era medical study of LGBTQ+ sexuality. Co-conceived by writer-director Steve Cosson with multimedia artist Jessica Mitrani, the genre-defying show features scenes, songs and stunning images to conjure a forgotten queer community. Martha Redbone, Hedwig's Stephen Trask and the late, great Michael Friedman (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) contributed songs.

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The York Theatre Company: Welcome to the Big Dipper - begins November 19

The York Theatre Company at Theatre at St. Jean's, 150 East 76th Street near Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side

Previews begin November 19. Opens November 26. Closes December 29.

Inspired by Catherine Filloux's play All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, this musical comedy tells the true story of a group of Amish folks and a busload of cross-dressers stranded together at a historic inn near Niagara Falls during a blizzard. Hilarity and epiphanies ensue. Jimmy Roberts (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) wrote the songs, and the book is by Filloux and John Daggett.

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Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her on Facebook at @Raven.Snook. Follow TDF on Facebook at @TDFNYC.