Sea Wall/A Life snuck in over the summer, giving Broadway a magnificent head start to a stellar 2019/20 season, filling the Hudson Theatre with an audience eager to hear the two stories told by these two fantastic actors on that grand stage. It’s an impressive construction, beautifully aligning two one-act plays by two different, but exceptional playwrights into an evening’s meditation on fatherhood drenched in grief and love. Sea Wall clicks instantly into place with the Tony Award nominee Tom Sturridge (Broadway’s 1984, Orphans), snapping the lights on to shed light on his third collaboration with Tony and Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens (Heisenberg, On the Shore…, Wastwater). His sentences drop off leaving us dangling like a swimmer at the Sea Wall. It’s a truly mesmerizing performance, pulling us towards his love and hurt like a strong undertow that will leave us gasping for air and battling the waves to survive. After we catch our broken hearted breath at intermission, Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal (Broadway’s Sunday in the Park..) saunters onto the stage in a similar fashion, flipping the power switch but then struggling to find his circle of light. It’s a perfect re-entry, keeping us at bay wondering what his own grand artistic collaboration with the fantastical detailed Nick Payne (Broadway’s Constellations) will be, and how if would expand or contrast with the previous confessional. The two dive in deep, swerving back and forth between waves, dousing themselves to the bone with the condition of what it is like to swim in a father’s ocean of pain, anger, joy and the hopefulness of humanity. If you haven’t bought into Sea Wall/A Life, then you must, and not just for Jake.

But the first true show of the new season is and was the already shuttered Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune which played with our hearts at the Broadhurst Theatre, closing far too early on July 28th.  The two leading ‘love birds’; the gloriously heart-breaking Audra McDonald (Broadway’s Lady Day…, Shuffle Along…) and the phenomenally determined Michael Shannon (Broadway’s Long Day’s Journey…), square off in this classic play, face to face before diving in and shedding all of their superfluous armor in an intense coming together that is, simply, a fucking great start to this engagement. It’s clear from that first scene, after coming to its natural climax, that the two, dynamically played with a clarity for realistic pain and discomfort, are on a difficult journey forward. But the play rolls out with passion and a solid preciseness that could only be lead by exceptional pros, but unfortunately, their difficult journey was matched by the box office ticket sales in the middle of the summer.  It’s a tough time I guess, those hot summer months, unless of course, you’re Jake Gyllenhall.

BETRAYAL
• Theatre: Jacobs
• First Preview: August 14
• Opening: September 5
• Written by Harold Pinter
• Directed by Robert O’Hara

These three aren’t matinee idols, but these three actors bring a pedigree of excellence in an assortment of genres. All three were present when I saw this production of Pinter’s Betrayal in London earlier this year, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that it has flown over the pond to Broadway. It’s breathtakingly simple in concept and design, ending just as it is beginning, as this play is about an affair, in reverse. “A triangle within a circle against a rectangular wall, poised for interaction, one by one, as directed with precision by Jamie Lloyd (Trafalgar Studio’s The Maids). The pairs unwrap a series of betrayals between friends, lovers, and partners, as the clock turns backwards, beautifully structured and balanced, facing off against the things they don’t know are coming, but strangely we do”.

It’s a powerful altercation, starring the fantastically elegant Tom Hiddleston (Cheek by Jowl’s The Changeling), having reached fame as Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leaning in quite brilliantly as Robert, the husband; Zawe Ashton (Royal Court’s Rhinoceros) as the sensual Emma, the deceiving wife; and the gloriously sexy and intense Charlie Cox (MTC’s Incognito) as Jerry, the best friend of Robert and the lover of Emma. Strikingly heavy with the stillness breathing loud, Betrayal was first staged in 1978 featuring Penelope Wilton, Michael Gambon, and Daniel Massey, but seen on Broadway in the 2013 revival starring Daniel Craig, his real-life wife Rachel Weisz, and Rafe Spall at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. And even though that production broke records in weekly revenue, the play felt fussy and overly produced, oddly stripped of its power and its passion.  Here void of locational references, the triangulational impact of the secrets and lies told within an extra-marital affair by all three, lash out harder and pin point the pain of love and deception with an exacting punch. Take your best friend, or your partner, or both, if you dare, as this Betrayal is as seductive as one can imagine.

THE INHERITANCE 
• Theatre: Barrymore
• First Preview: September 27
• Opening Night: November 17
• Written by Matthew Lopez
• Directed by Stephen Daldry

The show I’m most excited to see this fall though is also a show that I have already seen in London’s West End last November (I feel I’ve made some good choices over in London). Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance, winner of the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Play, is a queer-themed, two-part play loosely inspired by E. M. Forster’s Howards End. Set in New York City a generation after the HIV/AIDS crisis of the ‘80s and ‘90s, the play follows a group of gay men as they struggle to connect to the past and maintain a sense of history. Paying a certain homage to the fore-bearers of gay culture, The Inheritance tackles a tremendous amount of complicated territory, pushing its place onto the fireside mantle somewhere beside Kushner’s far more ethereal Angels in America. With a slightly aggressive and pompous stance of an overly confident pretty boy, Lopez dares us to look away from its imperfect but devastatingly emotional six acts and seven hours, even as the play pretends to be a bookend to the angelic. Even in comparison to that, The Inheritance is most decidedly a masterpiece, almost measuring up to Kushner’s triumphant Angels as it dives head first into 21st Century queer politics and the economic discrepancies within modern culture and society. It’s epic in its journey, and even with the hours that one must commit to seeing it, I’m looking forward to donating that time once again.

SLAVE PLAY
• Theatre: Golden
• First Preview: September 10
• Opening: October 6
• Written by Jeremy O. Harris (Broadway debut)
• Directed by Robert O’Hara

Just as powerful, and maybe even more daring, Slave Play rides into town, determined to throw convention off balance with its stark examination of the lasting impact of white supremacy through the lens of sexuality. With it’s complicated satirical approach, Jeremy O. Harris (Daddy) throws a reflective mirrored light on slavery, power dynamics, sexuality, and class, while trying with desperation to find the shades in between stances of racism, the power of internal music, and the ability to let it flow wild, fast and free. It’s all “work, work, work, work, work” when it ran Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in 2018 where the play earned Harris the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences and the 2018 Paula Vogel Award. Most of the Off-Broadway cast joyfully returns for another session: Ato Blankson-Wood, James Cusati-Moyer, Sullivan Jones, Chalia La Tour, Irene Sofia Lucio, Annie McNamara, and Paul Alexander Nolan, with Joaquina Kalukango joining in the festivities to play Kaneisha. Based on the viewing at NYTW, Harris seems to want to ask a lot of complex questions at this Slave Play colloquium, some more pointed than others, poking at our funny bones and our deep sexual fantasies, making us wiggle in our seat because of numerous observations that cling to our skin and our seminar materials. So sign up for this sexy and dynamic experiment and become engaged in a conversation that will likely continue long after the last group member leaves the stage. You all are “making such great progress” Broadway so keep up the great work bringing this level of dissection to the stage for all to see.

GRAND HORIZONS
• Theatre: Helen Hayes
• First Preview: December 20
• Opening Night: January 23, 2020
• Written by Bess Wohl
• Director: Leigh Silverman

Bess Wohl is certainly having quite the year. I just saw her fascinating Make Believe at Second Stage‘s off-Broadway Tony Kiser Theater where the four central kid characters’ games foreshadow a dangerous despair and a rupture that will have them ‘howling at the moon” in hunger while making our own hearts skip a few beats from nervousness. It gives a vantage point of historical painfulness that resides under the ghostly bruises that have since vanished. It’s a powerful view that left me triggered in its authenticity, and with her Broadway premiere, Grand Horizons, this time at Second Stage‘s Helen Hayes Theater, it sounds like inside the comfortable suburban home there is an equally uncomfortable breakdown to navigate. With Michael Urie (2ST’s Torch Song), Thomas Sadoski (Public’s White Noise), Ashley Park (Broadway’s Mean Girls), Maulik Pancholy (TNG’s Good for Otto), and Priscilla Lopez (the original Diana Morales in A Chorus Line) aligning themselves under the direction of Leigh Silverman (Broadway’s The Lifespan of a Fact) the foreshadowing feels all positive and exciting. Wohl, once again, wants us to bare down on that familial difficulty, a moment when Bill and Nancy, after spending numerous full years as husband and wife find some desperate trouble in their partnership. They have just settled down comfortably into their new home when Nancy suddenly announces she wants out. And their two adult sons must struggle to cope with the shocking news and what it all means. Forced to question everything they had assumed about the two people they thought they knew the deepest and the best, the two struggle on, and we join them in observance.

THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM
• Theatre: Samuel J. Friedman
• First Preview: September 10
• Opening: September 24
• Written by Florian Zeller and translated by Christopher Hampton
• Directed by Jonathan Kent

The conceptual and emotional setup feels somewhat similar to Florian Zeller’s The Height of the Storm. For 50 years the lives of André and Madeleine, portrayed by the legendary Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins, have been filled with the everyday pleasures and unfathomable mysteries of an enduring marriage. That is until suddenly their life as a couple begins to unwind, and their loving relationship faces the difficult inevitability of change. Amanda Drew and James Hillier join these two formidable stars to reprise their performances from the spellbound London production. Lucy Cohu and Lisa O’Hare also co-star in The Height of the Storm, a translation by Christopher Hampton. This collaboration should crackle with tension and finesse, as it has done before when Hampton translated, to acclaim, Zeller’s The Mother, The Father, and The Son. I’ve seen two out of three of those, and will also hold my breath waiting for The Son to also arrive stateside. Or must I go to London’s West End to see it as it makes a transfer there?

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY
• Theatre: Nederlander Theatre
• First Preview: March 7
• Opening: March 26
• Written by Stefano Massini and adapted, English-language script by Ben Power
• Directed by Sam Mendes

Like The Height of the Storm which I was panting over when I was in London this past year, The Lehman Trilogy is another play that I’ve been holding my breath for.  The Broadway production has been bouncing around, back and forth across the pond. This transfer follows a sold-out premiere at London’s National Theatrein 2018, an acclaimed North American debut at the Park Avenue Armory earlier this spring (which sadly I was unable to fit into my schedule), and a subsequent West End engagement. Now as it makes plans to return to NYC, directed by Academy Award and Tony Award winner Sam Mendes, The Lehman Trilogy will once again, dazzle, as it follows the 163-year saga that begins with a young man in Bavaria dreaming of a new life and ends encased, literally (I believe) inside one of the world’s largest financial crises.

Reprising their performances for the Broadway run will be Adam Godley, Ben Miles, and Simon Russell Beale, who play the three title brothers, their sons, and grandsons. This is the one to make sure you see. I couldn’t get it scheduled last time, and I’m not going to let that happen this go-round.

THE GREAT SOCIETY
• Theatre: Vivian Beaumont
• First Preview: September 6
• Opening: October 1
• Written by Robert Schenkkan
• Directed by Bill Rauch

I’m looking forward to seeing Brian Cox star as former President Lyndon B. Johnson in this sequel to Schenkkan’s All the Way, a play I never did get to see. I might have to do a bit of homework for this Great Society. Brush up on my political history but also some theatrical, as this show begins right after Johnson’s landslide victory in the 1964 election, and then exploring his full four-year term against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement. Also appearing will be Tony nominee Marc Kudisch as Richard J. Daley, Grantham Coleman making his Broadway debut as Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Thomas as Hubert Humphrey, Barbara Garrick as Ladybird Johnson, and David Garrison as Richard Nixon. Maybe after I read up a bit on both the time and the play, I’ll be more intrigued, but right now my interest revolves around the stellar cast.

BIRTHDAY CANDLES
• Theatre: American Airlines
• First Preview: April 2, 2020
• Opening Night: April 21, 2020
• Director: Vivienne Benesch

I’ve never seen Debra Messing on stage, so I’m going to be excited to see her in the New York premiere of Noah Haidle’s play, Birthday Candles about a woman striving for significance in her life.  That’s about all I know about this new play by Haidle (Mr. Marmalade) but I’ll gladly show up to help her celebrate her birthday and blow those candles out. Here’s hoping we all get our wish.

BLUE
• Theatre: TBA
• Target Opening: Spring 2020
• Written by Charles Randolph-Wright
• Music and lyrics by Nona Hendryx
• Directed by: Phylicia Rashad

This one feels a bit up in the air, as no theatre has been named just yet, but with Phylicia Rashad named as director, this play, Blue, about three generations of a small-town South Carolina family, will surely find the light of day. First premiering at Arena Stage in April 2000, with music by Nona Hendry and starring Rashad as the feisty matriarch, the revival, as written by Charles Randolph-Wright (Cuttin’ Up), sounds like a winner.

THE MINUTES
• Theatre: TBA
• Target Opening: Spring 2020
• Written by Tracey Letts
• Directed by: Anna D. Shapiro

Tracy Letts, as playwright, is back on Broadway again with The Minutes, a 2018 Pulitzer Prize finalist, reuniting him with his August: Osage County director, the incomparable Anna D. Shapiro. They wow’d us back then, winning  five 2008 Tony Awards for their August, giving us ample reason to be excited about this scathing new comedy about small town politics. The Minutes premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in 2017 with a cast of eleven. It was filled to the brim with back-stabbing manipulation and perhaps a few authentic power dynamic mistruths, leading us to believe that the Broadway version will dive in as tight and strong as we could hope, and give us a compelling and powerful vantage point on the current state of America by peering inside the politics of the very small fictional city of Big Cherry. That’s one town hall I’ll gladly attend this spring.

LINDA VISTA
• Theatre: Helen Hayes
• First Preview: September 19
• Opening Night: October 10
• Written by: Tracy Letts
• Director: Dexter Bullard

And that’s not all for the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Tracy Letts, who also takes a brutally comedic look at a simple man’s troubles. Wheeler, a 50-year-old divorcee is in the throes of a mid-life spiral in Second Stage‘s Linda Vista. Just out of his ex-wife’s garage and into a place of his own, the path toward self-discovery is a complicated reconciling, one full of exploratory opinions, while somehow falling short of complete understanding and self awareness. Sounds too good to miss.

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
• Theatre: Samuel J. Friedman
• First Preview: January 6, 2020
• Opening Night: January 15, 2020
• Written by Elizabeth Strout and adapted by Rona Munro
• Director: Richard Eyre

My Name is Lucy Barton is another one flying over the pond on the wings of great reviews after a brief run at the Bright Theatre, UK. The namesake of the play, portrayed by the uber-talented Laura Linney, who enraptured the same MTC audiences with the alternating dual roles in The Little Foxes, wakes after an operation to find, much to her surprise, her mother at the foot of her bed. They haven’t seen each other in years, and during their visit, Lucy tries to come to terms with her past and family with the hope that would lead to finding her true self. Based on the Elizabeth Strout’s bestselling novel “My Name Is Lucy Barton” the play doesn’t scream theatrical adaptation as it is basically a rumination on a writer’s blurry remembrance of her life growing up all from the tight confines of a hospital bed. It’s a compelling challenge, to bring energy into and out of stillness and confinement, but the formidable director, Richard Eyre seems to have found a way to unearth the kernel of truth inside its quietness. With the exquisite Laura Linney leading Barton’s personal exploration, something bigger and more profound is said to have been found in the play that has scored Linney some of the best reviews of her career. I’m game for a visit to that hospital bed.

THE SOUND INSIDE
• Theatre: Studio 54
• First Preview: September 14
• Opening: October 17
• Written by Adam Rapp
• Directed by David Cromer

One of my all time favorite stage actors Mary-Louise Parker, who sparked fire inside the small but magnificent Heisenberg in 2016, returns to Broadway in Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside. Directed by phenomenal David Cromer (Broadway’s The Waverly Gallery) , the engaging Will Hochman (CSC’s Dead Poets Society), making his Broadway debut, plays a student named Charlie who gets entangled in an Ivy League professor’s dramatic trouble. With Parker playing that challenged professor, the play, that first premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2018, is sure to fire up some similar sparks when it opens at Studio 54 this fall, and I’ll be more then happy to attend that lecture.

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
• Theatre: Samuel J. Friedman
• First Preview: March 27, 2020
• Opening Night: April 22, 2020
• Written by Paula Vogel
• Directed by Mark Brokaw

Broadway is wisely being given a double dose of Mary-Louise Parker (HBO’s Angels in America) this theatrical season, when she joins her former co-star, David Morse (Broadway’s The Iceman Cometh) to reprise their roles more than 20 years later after the 1997 Off-Broadway debut of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer-prize winning play, How I Learned to Drive. It follows Li’l Bit (Parker) as she looks back in time in order to make sense of an uncle (Morse) who impacted every part of her self and her being. It’s a play I have never had the opportunity to see, and a perfect example of what makes theatre so powerful and dynamic. It is the idea that once a production closes, the opportunity to bare witness to that particular event ceases to exist. But here, by the grace of whatever god you choose to pray to, this supposedly astounding play has returned giving us the rarest of opportunities. It’s not just a revival, but a chance to see these two stellar actors play it out once again, probably with an even greater edge and a more mature response to the tragedy in the driver’s seat. I’ll gladly sit in the back seat for that ride.

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
• Theatre: TBA
• First Preview: March 2, 2020
• Opening Night: April 9, 2020
• Director: Joe Mantello

Here’s another that expresses the power of theatre: a great play reimagined once again by another crew of talented artists. This play never gets tired. I’ve seen it at least three times and counting, but all I really have to say is Laurie Metcalf (Broadway’s Hillary and Clinton) opening another play, her fifth consecutive on Broadway, in the spring just before the Tony deadline. Joining the Tony winner is Eddie Izzard (Broadway’s A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), Russell Tovey (West End’s Angels in America), and Patsy Ferran (Almeida Theatre’s Summer and Smoke) bringing the booze and the acid to the Broadway revival party with the classic Edward Albee drama.

Albee’s powerful drama premiered in 1962 winning multiple Tonys including best play, lead actor Arthur Hill and lead actress Uta Hagen. Albee himself directed a 1976 revival that earned Tony nominations for its leads; Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara. There is of course the iconic movie version in 1966 directed by Mike Nichols in his first feature and written by Ernest Lehman. It starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis, and was nominated for 13 Oscars winning five, including best actress for Taylor and supporting actress for Dennis, as well as best cinematography for Haskell Wexler’s richly textured black-and-white visuals.

I personally was around to see the astounding revival starring Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Harbour and Mireille Enos in a 2005 with Irwin taking home best actor honors. I also was blessed to see the 2012 revival that flew over from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre earning Tonys for best revival, lead actor Tracy Letts and director Pam MacKinnon, with fellow cast Amy Morton and Carrie Coon also being nominated. I have a feeling this revival and that wild drunken night of lies and attacks are going to play out similarly.  And I can’t wait.

TAKE ME OUT
• Theatre: Helen Hayes
• First Preview: March 31, 2020
• Opening Night: April 23, 2020
• Director: Scott Ellis

I saw this play many many moons ago at the Walter Kerr Theatre, probably sometime in 2003 after it transferred there from an off-Broadway run at The Public Theater. Wowing us at every turn, Denis O’Hare and Daniel Sunjata triumphed in this excitingly deep Richard Greenberg play about the coming out of a gay baseball player and his wonderfully geeky lawyer/friend. Frederick Weller co-starred as the redneck homophobe that adds trouble and drama to the game.

The revival of the Tony-winning comedy-drama stars the handsome and sexy Jessie Williams (ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy“) as Darren Lemming, a popular and successful mixed-race baseball player at the peak of his career, alongside the talented and funny Jesse Tyler Ferguson (PH’s Log Cabin) as his lawyer. Between the two and the other players and team mates, the themes of homophobia, racism, class, and masculinity in sports play out on the baseball diamond to a horrific conclusion. I’m game.

THE ROSE TATTOO
• Theatre: American Airlines
• First Preview: September 19
• Opening: October 15
• Written by Tennessee Williams
• Directed by Trip Cullman

Under the astute director Trip Cullman, Oscar winning actress Marisa Tomei takes on the pivotal role of Serafina Delle Rose, a recovering widow and dedicated mother looking forward into the next unwritten chapter of her life. This is the fourth time The Rose Tattoo has made it to Broadway after productions in 1951 (when it won the Tony for Best Play), 1966 and 1995. With a cast that includes Emun Elliott, Cassie Beck, Alexander Bello, Tina Benko, Susan Cella, Paige Gilbert, Greg Hildreth, Isabella Iannelli, Jacob Michael Laval, Antoinette Lavecchia, Kecia Lewis, Ellyn Marie Marsh, Portia, Ella Rubin, Jennifer Sánchez, Constance Shulman, and Burke Swanson, this four time Tony Award winning play from Tennessee Williams is sure to impress, and with Tomei, who is, for me, a mostly underrated actress will do what she always does, find intricate depth in every movement she makes. The Rose Tattoo is sure to blossom powerfully this time around and I’m looking forward to smelling its perfume.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS
• Theatre: TBA
• Target Opening: 2019
• Director: Amy Morton

With the venue, exact dates and casting information for the 2019 revival of David Mamet’s Pulitzer-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross still needing to be announced, the powerful classic hangs in limbo. Here’s hoping that two-time Tony Award nominee Amy Morton gets her chance to direct this exciting play with an exciting gender-swapping twist. Similarly to the  Tony Award-winning director Marianne Elliott’s production of Company coming to Broadway (check out my Broadway Musical preview post) hopefully around the same time, Morton hopes to reinvigorate the text with an all-female production, with women taking over all the parts traditionally played by men. The ruthless environment of salespeople competing to sell mostly worthless properties to unwitting customers in a cutthroat Chicago real estate office is the perfect setup to examine preconceived notions of female vs male stereotypes. One that I’m crossing my fingers will find the space and the placement in this year’s competitive theatrical market.

There will be no unwitting customers this 2019/20 theatre season, and hopefully no worthless properties to be sold.

Fingers crossed. So now let’s dance like we’ve inherited the best, and drink it all down in one exciting gulp.