A rotating pack of Broadway favorites is heading to The Triad Theater, where man’s best friend finally gets the last word.

Anyone who has ever looked into a dog’s eyes and wondered what was going on behind that innocent expression is about to get an answer. Whether it’s an answer we actually want is another matter entirely.

Thirteen-time Emmy winner and two-time Grammy winner David Javerbaum, the deliciously irreverent mind behind The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the wildly popular @TheTweetOfGod and Broadway’s An Act of God, starring Jim Parsons, has turned his attention from divine intervention to canine contemplation. His latest comedy, The Dog Show: Come. Sit. Stay., gives our four-legged companions something they’ve been denied for centuries: the opportunity to tell us exactly what they think.

Now the production is adding some serious theatrical pedigree to its rotating pack. Scott Adsit (30 Rock, Veep), Todd Cerveris (South Pacific, Let Me Spell It Out For You), Danielle Ferland (Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George) and Julia Murney (Wicked, The Wild Party) are joining the company at The Triad Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

They join an already impressive roster that includes Broadway favorite and SiriusXM personality Seth Rudetsky, Jordan Matthew Brown (The Book of Mormon, Into the Woods), Gizel Jiménez (Wicked), Angela Reed (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, A Doll’s House, Part 2) and Tony nominee A.J. Shively (Paradise Square, Bright Star).

The premise is wonderfully absurd. Through a series of monologues delivered entirely from a dog’s perspective, Javerbaum imagines the private thoughts, opinions and peculiar obsessions of creatures who have spent thousands of years observing humanity without being invited into the conversation.

What do dogs really think about baths? Is sticking one’s head out of a moving car window the ultimate expression of freedom? How does a police dog feel about having an actual job? And why, in the name of everything civilized, is sniffing another dog’s backside considered an acceptable form of introduction?

Under the direction of Richard Israel, whose credits include Violet and A Very Brady Musical, these canine confessions promise a mixture of sharp comedy and affectionate observation. Beneath the jokes lies something rather touching: our tendency to recognize our own desires, insecurities and capacity for unconditional devotion in the animals who share our lives.

Of course, anyone who lives with an animal knows that unconditional love does not necessarily mean unconditional obedience. Sometimes the creature running the household is the one with four legs.

Produced by Mark F. Kaplan of 30 Minutes From Broadway Entertainment in association with Julius Gaudio, The Dog Show features casting by Stephanie Klapper, C.S.A., with general management by Aidan Cleary and Labhaoise Magee of Fair Play Productions.

The Dog Show: Come. Sit. Stay. plays The Triad Theater, 158 West 72nd Street. Because the cast rotates, audiences should consult www.DogShowNYC.com for individual performance dates, casting schedules and tickets.

After all, Broadway has given us singing cats, dancing mice and more theatrical animals than one could reasonably count. It seems only fair that the dogs finally get their say.

Knowing Javerbaum, they’re unlikely to be particularly polite about it.

Broadway has always been an art form built on reinvention, with each generation of composers finding new ways to tell stories through music. Now Lincoln Center Theater is bringing some of musical theater’s most influential contemporary voices together with the artists who may shape its next chapter.

The inaugural Composer Series, presented at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, will feature three one-night-only events headlined by Tony, Grammy and Academy Award-winning songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul on November 30, Lin-Manuel Miranda on December 14, and Sara Bareilles on June 21, 2027. Rather than traditional concerts devoted exclusively to established hits, these evenings will pair celebrated songwriters with emerging composers they have personally selected, offering audiences an unusual opportunity to hear musical theater’s present and future in the same room.

It is an intriguing proposition. Broadway has never lacked talented young writers, but developing a new musical requires far more than a memorable melody. It takes mentorship, opportunity, financial support and, perhaps most importantly, someone willing to recognize a distinctive voice before the industry has decided what to do with it. The Composer Seriesplaces that relationship at the center of the evening.

The series opens Monday, November 30, at 8 p.m. with Pasek & Paul, whose work on Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman, La La Land and A Christmas Story has helped redefine the relationship between Broadway songwriting and contemporary popular music. Joining them are five emerging artists whose backgrounds reflect just how dramatically the musical theater landscape is evolving: Barlow & Bear, Marie Dresselhuis, Joriah Kwamé, Oliver Richman and Jaheem King Toombs.

Among the most recognizable are Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, the Grammy-winning duo who turned a social media phenomenon into The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album. Their subsequent work on Disney’s Moana 2 established them as significant voices in film songwriting, while their ability to move between classical composition, pop and theatrical storytelling represents a generation less concerned with traditional artistic boundaries. Barlow also returns to Broadway in SIX this November.

Joriah Kwamé brings an equally compelling trajectory. His viral song Little Miss Perfect became the foundation for a stage musical that premiered at Olney Theatre Center in 2026. He previously collaborated with Pasek & Paul on “Top of the World” for Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and is now working with Siedah Garrett on the Broadway-bound Polly: The Musical, with direction and choreography by Debbie Allen. His honors include a Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2026 Stephen Schwartz Award.

Canadian singer-songwriter Marie Dresselhuis approaches storytelling through a distinctive blend of gospel, classical and contemporary influences, having shared stages with artists including Jacob Collier and Jensen McRae. Oliver Richman, a 2022 NYU Tisch graduate, has taken a more unconventional route, writing more than 1,000 songs through a self-imposed daily songwriting practice. His subjects range from the wonderfully absurd to the anxieties of finding human connection in an increasingly artificial world.

Jaheem King Toombs represents another increasingly important crossover between television, film and theatrical songwriting. Having begun his career as a performer on Nickelodeon’s 100 Things to Do Before High School, he has since contributed music to Disney projects including Zombies 4 and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. He is currently developing the stage adaptation of Zootopia with Disney Theatrical Group, alongside his original musical Oakwood.

What makes this first evening particularly appealing is the diversity of its participants. These are not five composers following an identical career path. Some emerged through social media, others through television, recording studios or traditional musical theater development. Their common denominator is an understanding that songwriting must communicate something personal, regardless of the platform on which it is first heard.

The series continues December 14 at 8 p.m. with Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose In the Heights and Hamilton transformed Broadway’s musical vocabulary while introducing new audiences to the possibilities of contemporary musical storytelling. Miranda’s ability to combine theatrical structure with hip-hop, Latin rhythms and densely layered lyricism makes him an especially fascinating figure to lead an evening devoted to artistic mentorship.

Sara Bareilles takes the stage June 21, 2027, at 8 p.m., bringing the melodic sophistication and emotional directness that made Waitress such an important addition to the contemporary musical theater canon. Her transition from successful recording artist to Broadway composer offers another perspective on how musical theater continues to expand beyond its traditional borders.

The emerging composers and additional guest performers for the Miranda and Bareilles evenings will be announced at a later date.

At its best, musical theater is a conversation between generations. Rodgers and Hammerstein did not write like the composers who preceded them. Sondheim challenged the conventions he inherited. Jonathan Larson helped open another door, and the writers who followed have continued reshaping what a musical can sound like and whose stories it can tell.

The significance of The Composer Series lies in its recognition that the next generation deserves more than applause after it has already succeeded. It deserves an opportunity to be heard while its artistic identity is still taking shape.

And for audiences, there is something irresistible about the prospect of discovering tomorrow’s Broadway composers before their names become familiar above the marquee.

Tickets for the November 30 Pasek & Paul performance go on sale to Lincoln Center Theater members Monday, November 2, at 10 a.m., and to the general public Tuesday, November 3, at 10 a.m. Tickets are available through LCT.org, by calling 212-239-6200, or at the Lincoln Center Theater box office. Ticket information for the Miranda and Bareilles performances will be announced subsequently.

The Composer Series is presented by special arrangement with Creative Partners Productions, with Lincoln Center Theater season support from Daryl Roth and American Airlines.

There are people who change our lives without ever realizing the magnitude of their influence. They encourage a talent, open a door, introduce us to a world we never knew existed, or simply make us feel that who we are is enough. In Good Time Charlie, receiving its world premiere at The Public Theater, playwright and performer Ryan J. Haddad pays tribute to one such person: his beloved Uncle Charlie, a man whose own theatrical ambitions were discouraged but who made certain his nephew’s would not suffer the same fate.

Haddad, a 34-year-old gay man with cerebral palsy whose previous autobiographical work has explored identity, sexuality and disability with considerable candor, plays himself in this affectionate comedy-drama. Set primarily in a backyard garden in suburban Ohio, the play moves between generations, revealing how two gay men within the same family experienced radically different degrees of acceptance. The result is a heartfelt examination of family, missed opportunities, unexpected happiness and the people who help us become ourselves.

Nael Nacer, Artemis Pebdani, Ryan J. Haddad, and Jonathan Raviv Photo by Joan Marcus

Jonathan Raviv brings warmth and an appealing lack of self-pity to Charlie, a man some thirty years older than Ryan who adores movies, theater and everything connected to the performing arts. As a young man, Charlie dreamed of studying theater, but his parents, Charlie Sr. and Joan, played by Nael Nacer and Artemis Pebdani, had other plans. Their son would pursue a respectable profession, and dentistry became his career. When Charlie’s sexuality became known, the same parents who had already dictated his professional future withdrew their acceptance of him.

Ryan J. Haddad, Beth Malone, Photo by Joan Marcus

The contrast with Ryan’s upbringing is striking. His parents, Bob and Judy, also played by Nacer and Pebdani, embrace their son’s identity, and his coming out is treated with such casual acceptance that the moment becomes amusing rather than traumatic. His gay aunt Janice, played by Beth Malone, adds another layer of familial support. There is an inherent unfairness in watching one generation receive the understanding denied to another, although the play might have explored that disparity with greater complexity. Families do change, but the emotional consequences of their earlier decisions do not simply disappear.

Charlie, however, refuses to be defined by what he was denied. A natural caretaker, he builds a fulfilling life and discovers love with Lou, played by Tim Bagley, a divorced film studies professor twenty years his senior. Their relationship offers Charlie companionship and an expanded world of artistic friendships. Through Lou, he meets Sheldon, portrayed by Michael Cristofer, who operates an art-house cinema and becomes Charlie’s closest friend and another important figure in Ryan’s extended family of gay mentors.

Ryan J. Haddad, Tim Bagley, Beth Malone, Jonathan Raviv, and Michael Cristofer Photo by Joan Marcus

Cristofer is particularly wonderful, bringing a wonderfully dry wit, intelligence and emotional depth to Sheldon. He knows how to land a line without announcing the joke, and his presence gives the production an additional level of theatrical sophistication. Bagley is equally engaging as Lou, while Raviv makes Charlie’s generosity feel entirely natural rather than saintly. Under Danny Sharron’s direction, the ensemble works beautifully together, creating the sense of a family whose connections have developed over decades rather than over the course of a rehearsal period.

Jonathan Raviv Photo by Joan Marcus)

One of the play’s greatest pleasures is its affection for show business. References to Mame, A Star Is Born and Fun Home provide amusing little rewards for theater lovers, while a recurring device in which the characters question and revise Haddad’s script adds a playful layer of self-awareness. These moments allow the production to acknowledge its own construction without sacrificing its emotional sincerity. They also remind us that memory is never entirely objective. We shape the stories of our lives each time we tell them.

Haddad is an engaging presence, and there is something particularly moving about watching him share the stage with a theatrical representation of the uncle who encouraged his ambitions. The affection is unmistakable. This is not a playwright settling scores or revisiting childhood grievances for dramatic effect. It is an artist recognizing that the freedom he enjoys was made possible, in part, by someone who had to negotiate a far more restrictive world.

The play is not without its weaknesses. Much of the territory surrounding coming out, chosen families and the importance of artistic expression has been explored extensively in contemporary theater. Haddad’s personal connection gives the material its individuality, but there are moments when the writing underlines emotions the actors have already communicated. Sheldon’s concluding speech about art and chosen family, although sincere, becomes overly emphatic. Cristofer is a sufficiently accomplished actor to convey the sentiment without having to explain quite so much of it.

Still, what distinguishes Good Time Charlie is its refusal to turn Charlie’s life into a tragedy simply because his original dreams were interrupted. He did not become the performer he once imagined, but that does not mean his life was wasted. He found love, friendship, purpose and the satisfaction of helping someone else pursue the possibilities that had once been closed to him. His contentment is not presented as resignation. It is a recognition that a meaningful life does not always resemble the one we planned.

Near the conclusion, Ryan tells Charlie that there is no curtain, an observation that carries significance beyond the theatrical setting. The relationship between these two men cannot be contained within the beginning and ending of a play. Charlie’s influence continues in the person Ryan has become, in the work he creates and in the opportunities he has embraced.

Good Time Charlie occasionally says more than it needs to, but its emotional foundation is genuine. In a theatrical landscape that often confuses suffering with dramatic importance, Haddad has written something refreshingly generous: a love letter to a man who helped another person’s dreams flourish without demanding that his own life be regarded as a sacrifice.

Ultimately, that is what makes this production so touching. Charlie may never have become the star he once dreamed of being, but in Ryan Haddad’s story, he is finally given center stage.

Good Time Charlie: The Public Theatre….closed

Tom Hanks is heading back to Broadway, and this time he’s bringing Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara along for a little time travel. This World of Tomorrow, the new romantic drama by Hanks and James Glossman, will arrive for a strictly limited engagement in fall 2027 at a Shubert theater to be announced. Directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon and produced by Brian Anthony Moreland in association with The Shed, the play enjoyed a sold-out eight-week engagement at The Shed last year. Based on Hanks’ short stories, the play follows Bert Allenberry, a man living at the end of the 21st century who repeatedly travels back to one extraordinary day at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Queens, discovering that love, rather than technology, may hold the key to changing his future. The production marks Hanks’ return to Broadway more than 14 years after his Tony-nominated performance in Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy. With Hanks and O’Hara reunited under Leon’s direction, this romantic journey through time is already shaping up to be one of Broadway’s most anticipated arrivals of 2027. Additional casting and creative team details are forthcoming.

Jonathan Groff

Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff returns to Broadway this spring in The Amish Project, beginning performances February 10, 2027, at the Broadhurst Theatre. Directed by Sarna Lapine, Jessica Dickey’s powerful solo play revisits the devastating 2006 shooting at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, just minutes from where Groff grew up. Exploring grief, compassion, and the extraordinary power of forgiveness, the work premiered Off-Broadway in 2009 and has since been performed internationally. Groff, who earned a Tony for Merrily We Roll Along and most recently starred as Bobby Darin in Just in Time, calls Dickey’s writing an exploration of the idea that “sometimes the most radical human act is forgiveness.”

Some plays are ahead of their time. Others are so audacious they dare time to catch up. Fiasco Theater resurrects Susan Glaspell’s electrifying 1921 masterpiece The Verge, beginning performances October 27. Tony Award winner Miriam Silverman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) stars as a brilliant botanist determined to defy nature itself by creating a plant unlike anything the world has ever seen. Directed by Jessie Austrian, this intoxicating collision of ambition, obsession, and rebellion features Noah Brody, Paul L. Coffey, Devin E. Haqq, Amara Leonard, Paco Tolson, and Emily Young. More than a century later, Glaspell’s theatrical experiment still refuses to play by the rules.

Broadway is about to discover that silence can be absolutely deafening. Bess Wohl’s deliciously unconventional Small Mouth Sounds is arriving earlier than expected, with previews now beginning February 10, 2027, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and opening night set for March 11.

Directed by three-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello, the production boasts a star-studded ensemble featuring Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson, Martin Freeman, Greta Lee, and Isaac Powell. Freeman makes his Broadway debut, while Roberts and Rudd reunite on the Great White Way for the first time since 2006’s Three Days of Rain.

The premise is irresistible: six strangers retreat to an upstate spiritual sanctuary, hoping to escape their troubles through silence, self-discovery, and enlightenment. Naturally, human nature has other plans. Beneath the quiet, Wohl exposes the absurdity, vulnerability, and desperate longing for connection that make us human.

First produced by Ars Nova in 2015 under Rachel Chavkin’s direction, Small Mouth Sounds now receives a Broadway staging with scenic design by Chloe Lamford, costumes by An D’Huys, lighting by Jack Knowles, sound by Tom Gibbons, music by Caroline Shaw, and movement by JA Collective.

With Mantello also directing this season’s Downstate, the celebrated director is having quite the Broadway moment. And with Wohl returning following Liberation, Small Mouth Sounds promises something increasingly rare in our noisy world: a theatrical evening in which what remains unsaid may be the most revealing thing of all.

Tickets go on sale to the general public October 25 at 10 a.m. ET through Telecharge.

New York City is about to become one exhilarating, dangerous playground as Lin-Manuel Miranda and Pulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis bring Warriors to Broadway in spring 2027. Inspired by Sol Yurick’s novel and Walter Hill’s cult-classic 1979 film, the adrenaline-fueled musical follows a Coney Island gang falsely accused of murdering a charismatic leader at a Bronx summit. Their mission? Survive one treacherous night crossing New York City and make it home alive. Directed by Jenny Koons, with co-direction and choreography by Hamilton’s Andy Blankenbuehler, the production features an electrifying ensemble including Jasmine Cephas Jones, Amber Gray, Sasha Allen, Aneesa Folds, Julia Harriman, Casey Likes, and Donald Webber Jr. Born from Miranda and Davis’ star-studded concept album, Warriorspromises a pulse-pounding theatrical collision of music, movement, loyalty, and survival. Tickets went on sale October 22 through Broadway Direct, with further production details to be announced.

Long before women were encouraged to have it all, they were fortunate if they were permitted to have anything beyond marriage, motherhood, or a respectable position in someone else’s household. In Cicely Hamilton’s 1913 social comedy Phyl, now receiving its American premiere courtesy of Mint Theater Company at Theatre Row, one young woman decides that the options society has so generously provided are simply not good enough. And who can blame her?

Lily Ganser and Anthony Michael Martinez. Photo by Todd Ceveres

For 35 seasons, Mint Theater Company has made something of an art form out of rediscovering forgotten theatrical treasures, particularly plays that illuminate the social attitudes and restrictions of earlier generations. Under the direction of Britt Berke, Phyl emerges as a charming, quietly rebellious comedy whose questions about women’s independence remain surprisingly recognizable more than a century after it was written.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser as Phyl. Photos by Todd Cerveris

Our heroine is Phyllis, affectionately known as Phyl (a fabulous Lily Ganser), a young governess employed in the country home of the formidable Mrs. Ponsonby (Katie Firth). Trapped in a gloomy schoolroom, Phyl spends her days attempting to educate two thoroughly disagreeable little girls, Olive (the adorable Charlotte Van Ledtje) and Betty (the formidable Tessa Bilmes), while contemplating a future that offers little beyond more of the same.

Charlotte Van Ledje. Anthony Michael Martinez and Tessa Bilmes.Photo by Todd Ceveres

The children are dreadful, their mother is insufferable, and Phyl is understandably miserable. As she declares, “I want more. And I can’t have it!”

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Enter Jack (Anthony Michael Martinez), a wealthy, charming bachelor visiting the Ponsonby household for the weekend. Unlike the rest of the family, Jack recognizes that the young governess possesses intelligence, spirit, and a personality worth discovering.

Katie Firth, Tessa Bilmes and Charlotte Van Ledtje.Photo by Todd Ceveres

Mrs. Ponsonby is horrified when Jack’s attention turns toward the hired help rather than her eligible daughter Mabel (Livvy Marcus). Phyl finds herself dismissed from her position due to Jack’s attention.

Lily Ganser and Jennifer Blood. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Her older sister, played with warmth and understanding by Jennifer Blood, represents another possible future: respectable employment, endless work, and a life largely devoid of pleasure, living in cramped quarters. Phyl wants neither the drudgery of domestic service nor the narrow existence society has prescribed for her.

Lily Ganser and Jennifer Blood. Photos by Todd Cerveris

Phyl follows Jack, on a adventure to Europe.

Lily Ganser and Jennifer Blood Photo by Todd Ceveres

For a respectable unmarried woman in 1913, accepting such an invitation would have been scandalous. For Phyl, it offers the possibility of experiencing life rather than merely enduring it.

Tessa Bilmes, Livvy Marcus and Charlotte Van Ledtje. Photos by Todd Cerveris

The second act transports us from the oppressive English country house to an elegant hotel suite on the French Riviera, where Phyl’s newfound freedom is tested by the reappearance of the obnoxious Ponsonby family.

Tessa Bilmes, Charlotte Van Ledtje and Jennifer Blood.Photos by Todd Cerveris

What makes Hamilton’s writing particularly interesting is that she does not present her heroine as a helpless innocent waiting to be rescued. Phyl is impatient, outspoken, occasionally reckless, and fully aware that the rules governing her existence have been written by people who will never have to live under them.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Hamilton herself was a remarkable woman. A prominent suffragette, journalist, novelist, actress, and playwright, she devoted much of her life to challenging the social and economic restrictions imposed upon women. Her own theatrical experience included appearing in the original company of George Bernard Shaw’s Fanny’s First Play. Her advocacy for women’s self-determination is woven into Phyl without overwhelming the comedy or turning the evening into a political lecture.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser Photo by Todd Ceveres

Ganser makes an appealing heroine, beginning the play tightly wound, her hair severely arranged and her dark clothing reflecting the limitations of her circumstances. Ganser becomes like Pretty Woman and visibly relaxes, allowing the character’s humor and enthusiasm to emerge. Her transformation is one of the production’s most enjoyable elements. Ganser is also an actress to watch.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Curzon Dobell. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Martinez is equally engaging as Jack, bringing a breezy, hands-in-pockets confidence to a man whose wealth has afforded him the luxury of treating life as an adventure. The chemistry between Martinez and Ganser gives the comedy its romantic appeal.

Anthony Michael Martines and Katiie Firth Photo by Todd Ceveres

Firth, a familiar and welcome presence in Mint productions, is deliciously disagreeable as Mrs. Ponsonby. With a perfectly controlled smile and an ability to deliver an insult as though offering a compliment. Bilmes and Van Ledtje are young actress that know how to command a stage.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser as Phyl . Photos by Todd Cerveris

Berke keeps the action moving at an agreeable pace, allowing the comedy to unfold without forcing contemporary attitudes onto the material.

Katie Firth with Lily Ganser. Photos by Todd Cerveris

The Mint always delivers in the creative aspects. Brittany Vasta’s scenic design provides an effective contrast between the two acts. The dark-paneled schoolroom feels appropriately oppressive, a physical representation of the narrow life Phyl is desperate to escape. The Riviera hotel suite, with its cream-and-gilt elegance and airy atmosphere, offers a visual liberation that mirrors the heroine’s changing circumstances. Jane Shaw’s piano music and subtle ambient sound add to the period atmosphere without calling unnecessary attention to themselves.

Alicia J. Austin’s costumes establish the era and the characters’ social positions.

What ultimately makes Phyl worthwhile is not that it is a revolutionary piece of dramatic writing. It is a pleasant, intelligently constructed romantic comedy with a quietly subversive heart. Its significance lies in the woman who wrote it and the heroine she dared to imagine at a time when female independence was still treated as a threat to the established order.

Sometimes the most radical thing a woman can say is simply, “I want more.”

Phil: Mint Theatre Company at Theatre Row, 310 West 42nd Street until November 7th