Broadway
In Memoriam: Honoring Those We Lost in 2025
Times Square Chronicles remembers the voices, legends, leaders, and creators we lost this year. Their lives helped shape culture, ignite imagination, and move the world. May their memory be a blessing.
David Lynch
January 2025
1/1: Wayne Osmond (73) – A member of the famous Osmond family band, Wayne brought joy to millions with his vocals and infectious stage presence.
1/7: Peter Yarrow, singer, songwriter, and political activist. Part of the music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, who earned five Grammys, released two No. 1 albums, and scored six top-10 hits.
1/12: Leslie Charleson, General Hospital veteran, who has been part of the series since 1977, died at age 79.
1/15: David Lynch, the filmmaker behind the monumental mystery series Twin Peaks and films like Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet.
1/16: Dame Joan Plowright, stage and screen actress and widow of Laurence Olivier. Her more than 65-year career was in films such as Equus and in plays such as John Osborne’s The Entertainer, which saw her work alongside Olivier, and her Tony-winning turn in A Taste of Honey. Plowright and Olivier later reprised their roles for the 1960 film adaptation of The Entertainer, and were married a year later. When Plowright was not onstage, she could likely be found onscreen, appearing in several film and television projects including Mike Newell’s 1991 historical drama Enchanted April, for which her performance as Mrs. Jane Fisher saw her both nominated for an Oscar and win a Golden Globe. Plowright also won a second Golden Globe that same evening for her for her performance in HBO’s made-for-television film, Stalin.
1/17: Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and author who f illustrated Norton Juster’s beloved children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth. He joined The Village Voice in 1956, penning his own weekly comic book strip, Feiffer, at the publication until 1997. In addition to his career as a cartoonist, Feiffer wrote more than 35 works throughout his lifetime, including his 1958 comic strip collection Sick, Sick, Sick, the 1963 novel Harry the Rat with Women, and the screenplay for the 1960 animated film Munro, which won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. He also illustrated several children’s books like The Phantom Tollbooth and The Odious Ogre. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his political cartoons in 1986 and was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers Guild of America.
1/30: Dick Button – Legendary American figure skater and Olympic champion, a pioneer of modern men’s skating, died January 30, 2025.
1/30: Marianne Faithfull, the Grammy-nominated singer and actress known for hits like “As Tears Go By” and “Come and Stay With Me.” . Her relationship with Jagger dominated the tabloids from 1965 until 1970, during which time she penned her own albums and starred in several films, including the 1968 erotic drama The Girl on a Motorcycle.
Gene Hackman
February
2/7: Tony Roberts, best known for playing Woody Allen’s best friend in Annie Hall. Roberts made his Broadway debut in 1962’s Something About a Soldier. He went on to act in Barefoot in the Park and earned a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for How Now, Dow Jones. Roberts first collaborated with Allen in the 1960s plays Don’t Drink the Water and Play It Again, Sam, earning another Tony nom for the latter and reprising his character in the 1972 film adaptation. Roberts later reteamed with Allen in Stardust Memories, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Radio Days. His other notable films included the 1973 crime drama Serpico and the 1974 subway thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Roberts also appeared in movies like Million Dollar Duck, Amityville 3-D, and Switch, as well as on TV shows like The Love Boat, Matlock, The Carol Burnett Show, and Law & Order.
2/24: Roberta Flack, one of R&B’s most beloved singers, with hits like”The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” and “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”
2/26: Michelle Trachtenberg had been found unresponsive in a New York City apartment, and announced that the former child star had died at age 39.
2/26: Gene Hackman was found dead at age 95 along with his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home.
March
3/21: George Foreman, the boxing legend and grill entrepreneur, was a two-time world heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist.
3/26: Denis Arndt, a Tony-nominated actor who appeared in Basic Instinct and S.W.A.T. Arndt worked on David E. Kelley shows, beginning with L.A. Law and Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Public, Boston Legal, and Mr. Mercedes. On the film side, he had roles in Distant Thunder (1988), How to Make an American Quilt(1995), Metro (1997), Bandidas (2006), and Undisputed (2006). Though he appeared in many regional theater productions throughout the years, his first and only Broadway stint earned him a Tony nomination for his turn opposite Mary-Louise Parker in Heisenberg.
3/29: Richard Chamberlain, NBC’s Dr. Kildare, hour-long medical drama was an immediate hit, airing until 1966. Chamberlain’s success continued from there: He starred in 1978’s Centennial, originated the role of John Blackthorn in 1980’s Shōgun, and found further success with 1983’s The Thorn Birds. His work across the three projects earned him the nickname “King of the Miniseries.” Chamberlain also appeared in such notable films as Petulia, Julius Caesar, The Music Lovers, The Last Wave, The Three Musketeers, and The Towering Inferno.
3/31: Patty Maloney, the diminutive actress known for her work on the Star Wars Holiday Special, Little House on the Prairie, and the projects of producers Sid and Marty Krofft,.
Val Kilmer
April
4/1: Val Kilmer – Iconic actor (Top Gun, Batman Forever)
4/6: Jay North, star of the classic CBS sitcom Dennis the Menace.
4/7: William Finn, composer, book writer Finn won two Tonys for Falsettos, for the score he wrote and for its book, and it was revived in 2016. Spelling Bee, which debuted on Broadway in 2005, ran for nearly three years and has since been produced more than 7,000 times, per Music Theater International. “In Trousers”, “March of the Falsettos”, and “Falsettoland” follow the life of a gay, Jewish man in New York during the AIDS epidemic. “Elegies” — celebrated deceased loved ones — in the wake of the September 11 attacks. A New Brain won the 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical.
4/13: Jean Marsh, who co-created and co-starred in the 1970’s PBS drama Upstairs, Downstairs — a forerunner of Downton Abbey. Marsh portrayed Rose, the head parlor maid of the house, on the series that aired from 1974 to 1977. She won the Emmy for best actress in a drama in 1975, after having spent 20-plus years acting in lower-profile projects. After the success of Upstairs, Downstairs, Marsh appeared in guest spots on shows including The Waltons, Doctor Who, and Murder, She Wrote. Her final credited appearance was in the 2022 Disney+ series Willow.
4/15: Patrick Adiarte, an actor known for The King and I, Flower Drum Song, and M*A*S*H, died April 15 at 82. Adiarte first broke out in the 1952 stage production of The King and I opposite Yul Brynner as one of the royal children. When the show was adapted for the screen in 1956, Adiarte took part again, this time in the role of Prince Chulalongkorn. He also earned acclaim for the Broadway show Flower Drum Song and starred in its 1961 film adaptation. Adiarte is best known for his recurring role in the beloved series M*A*S*H as Korean orphan Ho-Jon. Brady Bunch fans will also remember his role in the show’s three-part Hawaiian vacation storyline.
4/15: Wink Martindale, radio and TV personality known for hosting game shows like Tic-Tac-Dough and Gambit. His first stint as game show host came on NBC’s What’s This Song?
4/21: Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Francis was also the subject of Pope Francis: A Man of His Word, a 2018 Wim Wenders documentary based on his life, in addition to 2020’s Francesco and 2022’s In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis.
4/22: Lar Park Lincoln, known for playing the scheming Linda Fairgate on Knots Landing and Tina Shepard in the movie Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood in the ʼ80s. The actress amassed dozens of credits on TV movies and series, including Beverly Hills, 90210, Hunter, Highway to Heaven, Freddy’s Nightmares, and Murder, She Wrote.
4/28: Priscilla Pointer, the star of Carrie, Dallas, and the mother of actress Amy Irving. She made her theatrical film debut alongside daughter Amy in Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of Carrie. She went on to star in Blue Velvet, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and ER.
Ruth Buzzi,
May
5/1: Ruth Buzzi, who made herself a household name on the series Laugh-In. She was the only cast member to appear in every season, winning a Golden Globe and earning two Emmy nominations for her work. She was also a fixture on the Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart-hosted The Entertainers, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, and The Dean Martin Show. Buzzi appeared in episodes of The Monkees, Emergency, CHiPs, Days of Our Lives, The Love Boat, and Sesame Street, and in such movies as The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, Freaky Friday, and Bad Guys. She performed on stage as well, and was in the original Broadway production of Sweet Charity.
5/15: Charles Strouse American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to the Broadway musicals Bye Bye Birdie, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman, Applause, and Annie.
5/20: George Wendt, appeared as the lovably coarse barfly Norm Peterson on each of Cheers‘ 275 episodes, picking up six consecutive Emmy nominations from 1984 to 1989.
5/27: Devin Harjes, an actor on series like Boardwalk Empire, Daredevil, and Gotham, Orange is the New Black and Blue Bloods led to a substantial role as Pete Baylor on seasons 2 and 3 of the Netflix supernatural drama Manifest.
5/30: Loretta Swit, played Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on M*A*S*H, winning two Emmys for the role.
June
6/9: Sly Stone, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who led his band the Family Stone to make an indelible mark on music history. They fused genres and pioneered a sound that would lay track for funk and soul music throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Their first hit single was, “Dance to the Music.” Their string of acclaimed singles, included, “Everyday People,” “Stand!,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” and “Family Affair.”
6/11: Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) – Legendary musician, songwriter, and co‑founder of The Beach Boys.
6/19: Lynn Hamilton, a renowned actress who starred on The Waltons. At 29, she made her Broadway debut in 1959’s Only in America and went on to appear in numerous Broadway and Off Broadway productions, while also taking her talents to the small screen with roles on the television series Gunsmoke and Room 222.
6/24: Bobby Sherman, the pop singer and actor who rose to fame as a teen heartthrob in the 1960s, with Here Come the Brides. He also embarked on a music career during that launched his teen idol status, recording more than 100 songs, including such chart hits as “Little Woman,” “Easy Come, Easy Go,” “La La La,” and “Julie, Do Ya Love Me.” He continued to act, appearing on such shows as The Partridge Family and its short-lived spinoff Getting Together; The Love Boat; Murder, She Wrote; and Sanchez of Bel Air.
6/26: Composer, pianist, and conductor Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the iconic theme song for the TV series Mission: Impossible. He wrote for dozens of films, including Dirty Harry, Cool Hand Luke, The Sting 2, The Amityville Horror, and the Rush Hour franchise. Over his 40-year career, the prolific musician won four Grammys and was nominated for six Oscars. He was given an honorary Oscar in 2019.
Cleo Laine
July
7/1: Jimmy Swaggart, the reverend who rose to prominence before a prostitution scandal rocked his evangelical empire. His ministry reached up to 2 million households and raised $150 million a year in revenue before his fall from grace in the late ‘80s, after he was photographed with a prostitute at a motel. The cousin of the late rock n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley, Swaggart was recently inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame Class of 2025 the month before his death.
7/4: Julian McMahon, the Australian actor best known for headlining Nip/Tuck. In 1994, he joined the American soap Another World, and played Detective John Grant on NBC’s primetime crime drama Profiler. McMahon gained further recognition when he joined the cast of the WB’s Charmed in 2000, playing the half-demon assassin Cole Turner.
7/14: Eileen Fulton, who was one of the first “bad girls” of daytime television, Fulton began her rise to daytime stardom in 1960, when she was cast as Lisa Miller on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns.
7/15: Tom Troupe, a prolific character actor who appeared in dozens of series, including Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and Frasier
7/17: Alan Bergman, the award-winning songwriter and lyricist who teamed with his wife, Marilyn, to write lyrics for some of television’s most memorable theme songs. The husband-wife duo wrote lyrics for stars like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Barbara Streisand — the latter of whom even released an album in 2011 titled, What Matters Most: Barbra Streisand Sings the Lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Their music has been featured in films such as Yentl, Tootsie, and Sabrina, scoring a myriad award nominations and wins.
7/ 17: Connie Francis died at age 82 after she had been hospitalized due to “extreme pain.
7/18: Kenneth Washington, the last surviving cast member of TV’s Hogan’s Heroes,
7/ 20: Malcolm-Jamal Warner former Cosby Show actor had died during a family trip to Costa Rica after being “caught in high current.” He was 54.
7/22: Ozzy Osbourne – Heavy metal icon and frontman of Black Sabbath.
7/22: Chuck Mangione, the Grammy-winning jazz artist. As a trumpeter and flugelhorn player, Mangione gained acclaim for his work in the Jazz Brothers but it was his mega-hit single, “Feels So Good,” that catapulted him to worldwide recognition. He also garnered attention for composing and performing “Give it All You Got,” which was the theme song for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.
7/22: Alfie Wise, a frequent costar of Burt Reynolds in movies such as 1981’s Cannonball Run and 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit.
7/24: Celebrated jazz singer and actress Cleo Laine who went on to perform onstage and record popular albums, often working with her late husband, Sir John Dankworth, who died in 2010. She won a Grammy in 1986, for her album Cleo At Carnegie — The 10th Anniversary Concert, and she was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1997.
7/24: Hulk Hogan, the charismatic wrestler who brought the sport to the mainstream. In , the ‘80s, he ushering in the period of Hulkamania. He headlined WWE’s flagship WrestleMania eight times and won the WWE championship six times.
7/25: Paul Sorvino made his Broadway debut in the 1964 musical Bajour, and six years later he appeared in his first film, Carl Reiner’s Where’s Poppa?. Sorvino was known for his roles as Lucchese crime family caporegime Paulie Cicero in the 1990 gangster film Goodfellas and as NYPD Sergeant Phil Cerreta on the second and third seasons of the TV series Law & Order. He also played a variety of father figures, including Juliet’s father in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, as well as guest appearances as the father of Bruce Willis’ character on the TV series Moonlighting and the father of Jeff Garlin’s character on The Goldbergs.
7/26: Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-trained mathematician and musical satirist. Some of his earliest songs inspired by Broadway show tunes he loved. Songs by Tom Lehrer ultimately sold an estimated half-million copies. He released several more albums before he stopping and teaching math.
Loni Anderson
August
8/3: Loni Anderson, the two-time Emmy-nominated star of the classic CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.
8/4: Jane Morgan Weintraub, a singer, Broadway performer, and TV star. On the stage, she appeared in the Broadway productions of Ziegfeld Follies of 1957, The Jack Benny Show (1963), and in the titular role of Mame (1968-69). Weintraub made her TV debut on Celebrity Time in 1951. Her television credits include The Victor Borge Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, Cavalcade of Stars, The Jack Benny Program, The Jimmy Dean Show, The Jonathan Winters Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and The Hollywood Palace. She made more than 50 appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, and also starred in a number of TV specials, including three of her own.
8/11: Former child star Danielle Spencer, who became a household name playing Dee Thomas on the ABC sitcom What’s Happening. The series was revived as What’s Happening Now from 1985-88. Spencer reprised her role as a college-aged Dee.
8/15: Tristan Rogers, the soap star known for his long run playing Robert Scorpio on more than 1,400 episodes of General Hospital. He later portrayed Colin Atkinson on more than 100 episodes of The Young and the Restless. Rogers’ other screen credits included The Love Boat, The Rescuers Down Under, Babylon 5, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and Aaahh! Real Monsters.
8/17: Terence Stamp, the English star of international masterpieces like Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema and Federico Fellini’s Toby Dammit and the memorable villain of Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman and its sequel, Superman II.
8/23: Jerry Adler, six seasons as Herman “Hesh” Rabkin on The Sopranos. After starting his career as a stage and production manager on several Broadway shows, Adler pivoted to acting in his 60s. He appeared on episodes of True Colors, One Life to Live, and Northern Exposure; and booked regular gigs on Mad About You, Hudson Street, and Alright Already. He would later play Bob Saget’s father on Raising Dad and crude lawyer Howard Lyman on CBS’ The Good Wife.
Robert Redford
September
9/9: Polly Holliday best known for her portrayal of sassy waitress F “Flo” on the 1970s sitcom Alice, a role for which she earned two Golden Globe Awards. the series Alice. She appeared in Alice Childress’ play Wedding Band at the Public Theater. Then in the Broadway hit All Over Town. Holliday joined the cast of the CBS sitcom Private Benjamin as a temporary replacement. Holliday’s film roles include appearances in All the President’s Men, Moon over Parador, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Parent Trap and others. On Broadway, she appeared in revivals of Arsenic and Old Lace, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play and Picnic. In 2000, she appeared at Lincoln Center in a revival of Arthur Laurents’s The Time of the Cuckoo.
9/10: Charlie Kirk – American political activist, assassinated during a public event.
9/14: Pat Crowley, appeared on the ABC soap Dynasty and the ’60s sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.
9/16: Oscar-winning actor and director Robert Redford died at age 89 in his Sundance, Utah, home.
9/20: Jim Mitchum, who costarred as a teenager with father Robert Mitchum in the movie Thunder Road. The younger Mitchum was cast in movies such as The Victors, with Albert Finney and George Hamilton in 1963, and the 1965 John Wayne film In Harm’s Way, which was directed by Otto Preminger. His last acting credits were in the ‘90s and included 1990’s Enemy, in which he acted alongside Peter Fonda.
9/22: The Wizard of Oz actress Elaine Merk Binder, one of the last surviving Munchkin performers.
9/22: Lee Weaver, a character actor with more than 140 acting credits, was 95. A working actor for six decades, some of Weaver’s most recognizable appearances were as exhibitionist Buck Naked on Steven Bochco’s Hill Street Blues and again on NYPD Blue; as the brother of Bill Cosby’s gym teacher on 1969-71’s The Bill Cosby Show
Diane Keaton
October
10/1: Jane Goodall, the legendary zoologist who dedicated her life’s work to the study of chimpanzees.
10/3: Dame Patricia Routledge, the award-winning British actress and singer best known for her role as Hyacinth Bucket on Keeping Up Appearances. The actress won a Tony Award for her 1968 Broadway appearance in the musical Darling of the Day (a tie with Leslie Uggams, for Hallelujah, Baby!) and its British equivalent, the Laurence Olivier Award, as the Old Lady in a 1988 production of Candide at the Old Vic.
10/10: Ted Hartley, an actor and producer, known for High Plains Drifter, Race to Witch Mountain, and Mighty Joe Young,
1o/11: Diane Keaton died at 79, leaving a stylish and legendary legacy behind.
10/14: Penelope Milford, best known for her Oscar-nominated role in Coming Home. Milford played Vi Munson in the Hal Ashby film, the roommate of Jane Fonda’s Sally Hyde and sister to Robert Carradine’s Bill Munson. Her other film roles included Valentino (1977), Endless Love (1981), and Heathers (1988).
10/15: Samantha Eggar, the English actress who starred in such films as Doctor Dolittle, The Collector and The Brood.
10/19: Musician Dave Burgess, a prolific songwriter and producer best known for contributing the track “Tequila” to the 1985 movie Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
10/20: Michael DeLano, the actor known for his work on TV shows like Rhodaand films such as Ocean’s Eleven.
10/23: June Lockhart, the veteran Hollywood star famous for projects like Lassie and Lost in Space.
10/24: Dawn Little Sky, a pioneering teacher, actress, and Disney artist
10/27: Prunella Scales, the British actress who became a household name playing the long-suffering and domineering Sybil Fawlty on the Britcom Fawlty Towers
10/29: Maria Riva, the only child of old Hollywood starlet Marlene Dietrich, who herself was an actress and writer known for Scrooged and Suspense
Elizabeth Franz
November
11/3: Oscar-nominated actress Diane Ladd died at age 89, her daughter is Laura Dern.
11/3: Dick Cheney, the former vice president and polarizing political figure whose life inspired the 2018 Oscar-winning film Vice.
11/4: Tony-winning actress Elizabeth Franz won a Tony Award for the 1999 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which she starred as Linda Loman, wife to Willy Loman, played by Brian Dennehy. She also starred on Broadway as the character Kate Jerome in two Neil Simon comedies, including a Tony-nominated turn in 1983’s Brighton Beach Memoirs costarring Matthew Broderick. She scored another Tony nod for 2002’s Morning’s at Seven. Her other stage credits include The Cherry Orchard, The Cemetery Club, and The Miracle Worker.
11/11: Sally Kirkland, the legendary star of films like Anna, JFK, and Bruce Almighty.
11/14: Dan McGrath, a comedy writer for series like Saturday Night Live and King of the Hill who won an Emmy for his work on The Simpsons.
11/21: Lamarr Wilson – Tech influencer, creator and voice in gaming/tech media, died October 2025 (family announced December 13).
11/29: Tom Stoppard, the legendary playwright and screenwriter, died at 88,
Rob Reiner
December
12/10: Jeff Garcia, the stand-up comedian who voiced Sheen Estévez on The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, died at 50
12/14: Rob Reiner – Actor, director (This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally), died December 14, 2025 alongside his wife under investigation.
12/14: Anthony Geary, the actor who portrayed Luke across five decades of General Hospital and earned eight Daytime Emmy Awards during his tenure.
12/16: Gil Gerard, known for his starring role as Capt. William “Buck” Rogers on the TV series Buck Roger
12/17: Peter Arnett – Pulitzer Prize‑winning war correspondent chronicling global history, died December 17, 2025.
12/19: James Ransone – Actor (b. 1979) known for roles including Ziggy Sobotka on The Wire and Eddie Kaspbrak in It: Chapter Two, died on December 19, 2025 in an apparent suicide at age 46 — a tragic loss for film and television storytelling.
12/21: Imani Smith, played a young Nala in Disney’s “The Lion King” on Broadway, died from stab wounds at a home.
12/22: Betty Reid Soskin – Oldest National Park Service ranger and civil rights advocate who used her platform to share African American contributions to American history, died at age 104 with family by her side.
12/22: Pat Finn – Actor (best‑known for The Middle, Friends, Seinfeld), died December 22, 2025 after battling bladder cancer; remembered fondly for his warmth, humor, and decades of character work.
Broadway packed a weekend bag, left Times Square behind and headed north. On Friday, August 14, the inaugural The Festival opened at Hutton Brickyards Riverfront Hotel + Venue in Kingston, New York, transforming the Hudson River waterfront into something Broadway has rarely attempted: a true destination festival built around the people, music and community of the theatre.
Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Produced by Joshua Saltman and David B. Schwartz, The Festival ultimately drew 2,875 attendees from 48 states over its three-day debut, with 165 performers taking part in more than 30 programs. There were 30 musicians, 14 ensemble members and 13 apprentices, but numbers only begin to describe the ambition of what Saltman and Schwartz were attempting. This wasn’t Broadway presenting another concert. It was Broadway borrowing the language of the great music festivals and asking what happens when musical theatre gets out of the theatre.
Campfire Stage photo by Austin Ruffer
The answer, at least on Friday, was that it rather liked the fresh air. At the center of the sprawling weekend was the Broadway Direct Stage, an open-air covered venue surrounded by the Hudson Valley landscape. Instead of velvet seats, chandeliers and the compressed electricity of a Broadway house, audiences found themselves experiencing some of the theatre world’s most recognizable voices against water, sky and the industrial remnants of the historic brickyards. There was something wonderfully incongruous about it: Broadway glamour meeting Hudson Valley earthiness without either having to apologize to the other. The opening day’s lineup immediately established that this wasn’t going to be a modest experiment.
Gianmarco Soresi. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Gianmarco Soresi. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Comedian and actor Gianmarco Soresi hosted the inaugural “The Festival”(The Broadway Festival). He served as the host and emcee
Alex Newell. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Alex Newell. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Alex Newell. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Alex Newell
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez
Christopher Jackson. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson and Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson and Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson
Javier Muñoz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson and Javier Muñoz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Javier Muñoz
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Solea Pfeiffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers
Cara Rose DiPietro. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Cara Rose DiPietro
Tyler Joseph Ellis. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Tyler Joseph Ellis and Matt Rodin were among the artists helping launch the weekend, while SiriusXM’s Seth Rudetsky did what Rudetsky does particularly well—turn Broadway history, personalities and musical obsession into entertainment.
Tommy Bracco Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
One of Friday’s most charming ideas belonged to Tommy Bracco, the Newsies alum and Big Brother favorite, who hosted a celebration of Disney music. Bracco began with “Out There” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but it was Solea Pfeiffer who provided one of the afternoon’s genuine reminders of how much extraordinary music remains trapped inside Disney’s animated catalogue. Her performances of “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas and “Reflection” from Mulan made a fairly persuasive argument for why Broadway has yet to get its hands on either score.
Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Eva Noblezada. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Then came Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada, whose musical and personal history has become its own little piece of contemporary Broadway mythology. They originated Orpheus and Eurydice together in Hadestown, fell in love, married, and have continued sharing stages since. At Hutton Brickyards, the scale shifted. Away from the machinery of a Broadway production, the two were able to offer something more intimate—a reminder that before scenery, costumes and theatrical spectacle arrive, musical theatre begins with people telling stories through music.
Campfire Stage 2 photo by Austin Ruffer
That intimacy was one of the more intriguing elements of The Festival’s concept. Broadway normally asks audiences to enter its buildings. Here, Broadway entered the audience’s world. People wandered between performances, conversations and events rather than sitting obediently in one seat for two and a half hours. Artists who normally disappear through stage doors after a performance were suddenly part of a larger weekend community.
By evening, however, subtlety was finished.
The Big Show. Photo by Austin Ruffer
The Big Show. Photo by Austin Ruffer
The Big Show Night 1 Company photo by Austin Ruffer
Friday culminated with The Big Show, and the Broadway Direct Stage became exactly what its name promised: a full-scale concert designed to let Broadway voices loose. Cara Rose DiPietro, Tess Soltau and original Rent star Adam Pascal opened with an inspired piece of theatrical mischief, turning Stephen Sondheim’s “A Weekend in the Country” into a self-referential welcome to the weekend, accompanied by more than a dozen Broadway dancers.
It was an appropriate choice. Sondheim’s number is itself about people converging upon a destination carrying expectations, desires and complications with them. Here came thousands of Broadway devotees doing essentially the same thing, only their weekend in the country involved considerably more belting.
And that may be the cleverest thing about The Festival. Broadway has spent decades trying to expand beyond the geographic boundaries of Broadway while still treating the Broadway theatre as the center of the universe. Touring companies travel. Cast albums travel. Stars perform concerts. BroadwayCon created its own gathering place for fans. But the great American music-festival model—travel somewhere beautiful, stay for several days and immerse yourself in the music and the people who make it—has largely belonged to other genres.
Saltman and Schwartz decided musical theatre deserved one too.
They assembled an astonishing inaugural roster across the weekend: Audra McDonald, Kelli O’Hara, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Norbert Leo Butz, Jason Robert Brown, Lena Hall, Tom Kitt, Andrea McArdle, Alex Newell, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Jenn Colella, Andrew Barth Feldman, Lauren Patten, Denée Benton and many more, culminating in something irresistible to Broadway devotees—a 30th anniversary reunion of the original Broadway cast of Rent.
Behind that amount of talent was an equally formidable creative operation. Tony winner Jerry Mitchell and Jon Rua choreographed the event, with Mitchell and D.B. Bonds directing. Dan Lipton handled musical supervision, Julie McBride served as musical director, and Michael Downs oversaw creative direction and experience design. David Rees provided lighting, Cody Spencer sound, Caite Hevner video and Ryan Park costumes, while Lana Schwartz directed The Festival Apprentices. Chris Gratton served as production manager, technical director and site manager, with Lisa Iacucci as production supervisor.
That is an enormous amount of Broadway infrastructure to transport to the banks of the Hudson, and Friday proved that the concept could actually work.
By the time the weekend ended Sunday, Saltman and Schwartz were already prepared to announce that The Festival will return in 2027.
“We are absolutely thrilled with how The Festival went this weekend,” the producers said following its conclusion, thanking both the fans who had created the weekend’s community and the artists who had filled it. “We couldn’t be prouder of the experience and the incredible team that put it all together. We can’t wait to see you in 2027!”
Neither, apparently, can Broadway. Friday was only the overture.
Next: Day Two of The Festival — when Broadway’s weekend in the country really got underway.
For most of musical theatre history, getting a Broadway musical onto the big screen meant Hollywood had arrived to transform it. Sets became locations. Stage actors were frequently replaced by movie stars. Songs disappeared, new scenes appeared, orchestrations expanded and the musical that audiences had loved in the theatre could emerge from the process either gloriously cinematic—or almost unrecognizable. But something fascinating has happened over the past year.
Hollywood is once again mining Broadway for material, with Kiss of the Spider Woman and Wicked: For Good reaching movie theatres and adaptations including Octet and Merrily We Roll Along underway. Yet simultaneously, another model has moved decisively into the mainstream: don’t adapt the Broadway show at all. Film the damn thing.
Hamilton went to movie theatres. Suffs went to PBS. Frozen went to Disney+. Hadestown went to cinemas. And this weekend, SIX The Musical Live! arrived on American movie screens.
Suddenly the interesting question isn’t simply which Broadway musical Hollywood will adapt next. It’s whether some Broadway musicals need Hollywood at all.
Kiss of the Spider Woman: Prestige Doesn’t Guarantee an Audience
Bill Condon’s film of Kander and Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman arrived October 10, 2025, starring Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna and Tonatiuh. On paper, it made enormous sense. Condon understands movie musicals. Lopez possessed exactly the old-fashioned movie-star glamour required for Aurora, and the show’s fantasies seem almost designed for cinema. Audiences, however, largely stayed home.
The result demonstrated one of the persistent problems facing Broadway adaptations: theatrical prestige doesn’t automatically translate into mainstream recognition. Theatre people know Kiss of the Spider Woman. That doesn’t mean millions of moviegoers were waiting for it.
Sometimes Broadway’s enthusiasm exists almost entirely inside the Broadway bubble.
Wicked: For Good: When Broadway Becomes a Brand
Then there was Wicked: For Good, released November 21, 2025. Wicked presented Hollywood with the opposite situation. After more than two decades onstage, Elphaba and Glinda had escaped Broadway long before Hollywood came calling. “Defying Gravity” was already part of popular culture. The characters were recognizable. Generations had grown up with the musical.
Hollywood wasn’t introducing Wicked. It was delivering something audiences already believed belonged to them. That distinction matters enormously when trying to understand why some Broadway properties explode cinematically while others disappear.
Hamilton: Broadway Invades the Multiplex
Perhaps the more consequential development came September 5, 2025, when Disney finally put the filmed original Broadway production of Hamilton into American cinemas. Audiences had been able to watch the production on Disney+ since 2020, but the theatrical version added “Reuniting the Revolution,” a special prologue featuring new interviews with Lin-Manuel Miranda and members of the original company reflecting on the show’s extraordinary cultural journey.
Suddenly something filmed at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2016 was playing movie theatres nearly a decade later. Think about that. No Hollywood recasting. No attempt to turn Revolutionary America into a sprawling location shoot. No replacing Broadway actors with stars considered more commercially recognizable.
There was Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Christopher Jackson, Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Jonathan Groff, Anthony Ramos, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Okieriete Onaodowan and Miranda—the people who created the phenomenon. Hollywood wasn’t remaking Broadway. It was exhibiting it.
Frozen: Broadway Comes Home to Disney
Disney made a similarly interesting decision with Frozen: The Hit Broadway Musical. Rather than create another movie adaptation of a stage musical that was itself adapted from a movie—a cultural hall of mirrors if ever there was one—Disney captured the West End production starring Samantha Barks as Elsa and released it on Disney+ in June 2025.
It preserved something audiences outside London might otherwise never have experienced while allowing Disney’s stage version—with its additional songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez—to exist independently from the animated film that created it.
Suffs: PBS Does What PBS Has Always Done Best
Then came Suffs. Shaina Taub’s Tony-winning musical about the American suffragist movement was recorded during its Broadway run in December 2024 and premiered on PBS’s Great Performances on May 8, 2026.
That recording preserved Taub, Nikki M. James, Jenn Colella, Hannah Cruz, Grace McLean, Emily Skinner and the Broadway company rather than allowing those performances simply to disappear after the production closed. Suffs particularly demonstrates why filmed theatre matters. Broadway is expensive. Geography is limiting. A production can run for months and still be inaccessible to most of the country.
PBS effectively removed the theatre walls. Suddenly a musical about American history wasn’t available only to people capable of buying a Broadway ticket and getting themselves to West 45th Street.
Hadestown: Don’t Reinvent It—Capture It
That argument becomes even stronger with Hadestown. Anaïs Mitchell’s folk opera depends upon theatrical artifice. The musicians, lighting, movement and physical descent into the underworld aren’t limitations cinema needs to overcome. They’re part of the language of the piece.
Preserving performers intimately associated with the show’s original Broadway success gives audiences something Hollywood adaptations frequently take away: the performances that helped make people fall in love with the musical in the first place.
Perhaps some shows don’t need to become more cinematic. Perhaps cinema needs to become better at capturing theatre.
SIX: The Queens Have Entered the Building
Now comes SIX The Musical Live! The live capture opened in American cinemas August 14, reuniting the six original West End Queens—Jarnéia Richard-Noel, Millie O’Connell, Natalie Paris, Alexia McIntosh, Aimie Atkinson and Maiya Quansah-Breed—at London’s Vaudeville Theatre. Of all Broadway and West End musicals, SIX may be particularly suited to this treatment because it has always existed somewhere between theatre and pop concert.
There is comparatively little cinematic realism to gain by transforming it into a conventional movie. The audience is part of its electricity. The lighting is part of it. The band is part of it. Six women standing on a stage behaving like Tudor history’s most improbable girl group is the concept.
Why dismantle something that already works? Film it beautifully and let another audience into the room.
Octet: Of All the Musicals…This One?
Hollywood, however, isn’t abandoning traditional adaptations. Perhaps the most intriguing forthcoming example is Dave Malloy’s Octet.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is directing the film with a formidable cast including Amanda Seyfried and Jonathan Groff. I admit it: strange choice. Octet is an intimate chamber musical built around a cappella singing and people confronting their relationship with technology. It is deliberately enclosed, cerebral and theatrical—not exactly material screaming for panoramic cinema. Which may be precisely why Miranda finds it interesting.
A conventional adaptation of something already cinematic presents one challenge. Taking a piece that seemingly doesn’t want to be a movie and discovering its cinematic language presents another.
Octet’s examination of technological dependency certainly hasn’t become less relevant since its stage premiere. Strange choice? Absolutely. But potentially a fascinating one.
Merrily We Roll Along: Ask Me Again in Twenty Years
Then we have Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along. Linklater is filming it across approximately two decades so Paul Mescal, Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein actually age as the film moves through its characters’ lives.
It sounds insane. It could also be brilliant. Merrily has always been about what time does to people—how ambition, compromise and disappointment gradually transform the idealistic young people we once were. Allowing actual time to alter the actors could give Sondheim’s musical something makeup and prosthetics never could.
There is only one obvious drawback. Some of us would actually like to see the thing.
And Still Waiting in the Wings…
Adaptations of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Sunset Boulevard, Once on This Island and Guys and Dolls remain somewhere in Hollywood’s famously elastic development process. Some will happen. Some may not.
Sunset Boulevard remains the most wonderfully absurd proposition of all: Billy Wilder made a movie about Hollywood, Andrew Lloyd Webber turned the movie about Hollywood into a Broadway musical, and Hollywood now wants to make a movie of the Broadway musical based on the movie about Hollywood. Norma Desmond really is ready for her close-up.
The Real Revolution May Be the Pro-Shot
The most significant development may not be any individual adaptation. It may be the increasing legitimacy of the professionally filmed stage production. For years, theatre fans begged producers to film Broadway shows before they closed. The answer was invariably some combination of economics, union agreements, rights issues and the fear that a filmed version might cannibalize ticket sales. That thinking appears to be changing.
Recent pro-shots are demonstrating that filmed theatre can itself become commercially valuable, with Hadestownreportedly surpassing $20 million theatrically and SIX adding further evidence that audiences will pay to experience captured stage productions on movie screens.
That changes the equation. A Broadway production no longer necessarily has to choose between being ephemeral and becoming a Hollywood movie. There is now a third possibility: Preserve the Broadway production itself.
Let someone in Iowa see what New York saw. Let a teenager who cannot afford a $200 Broadway ticket encounter a performance that might change what they believe theatre can be. Let extraordinary performances survive beyond closing night. Let future generations see not merely what Hamilton or Suffs or Hadestown was, but something remarkably close to what it felt like when those actors stood on that stage.
Hollywood will continue adapting Broadway, and it should. Some musicals genuinely demand the possibilities of cinema, but others don’t need helicopters, locations, movie stars or $100 million budgets. They need the actors. They need the orchestra. They need the stage. They need someone to have the foresight to turn on the camera before the lights go out.
Broadway
Broadway Takes Over Bryant Park With The Book of Mormon, The Great Gatsby, Heathers and Heated Rivalry
One of New York’s favorite summer traditions continued this week as Broadway in Bryant Park once again turned the Midtown lawn into an open-air theatre, bringing together performers from The Book of Mormon, The Great Gatsby, Heathers: The Musical and Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody for an afternoon of free performances.
Helen Little
Ashley De La Rosa
Ashley De La Rosa, Helen Little
Presented by 106.7 LITE FM, the afternoon was hosted by the station’s Helen Little, with Ashley De La Rosa joining as co-host. Broadway in Bryant Park has long been one of those quintessentially New York events: office workers on lunch breaks, theatre lovers and tourists gathering on the lawn while Broadway performers trade their usual proscenium arches for sunshine, skyscrapers and a decidedly less formal audience.
J. Casey Barrett. Vance Klassen, Andrew Nelin, Kevin Clay. Andrew Stevens Purdy, Thomas Doelger, Diego Enrico, Joshua Keen and Henry McGuiness
Diego Enrico and Kevin Clay
Thomas Doelger and Charlie Franklin
Diego Enrico and Kevin Clay
The Book of Mormon, still one of Broadway’s most irreverent long-running hits, was represented by J. Casey Barrett, Vance Klassen, Andrew Nelin, Kevin Clay, Andrew Stevens Purdy, Thomas Doelger, Diego Enrico, Charlie Franklin, Joshua Keen and Henry McGuinness. More than a decade after arriving on Broadway, the musical continues to demonstrate the remarkable staying power of a show that turned religious satire, outrageous comedy and an unexpectedly traditional musical-theatre heart into a theatrical phenomenon.
Alex Prakken, Brandon J. Large, Nathaniel Hunt, Traci Elaine Lee, Drew Lake, Justin Keats, Emily Anne Nester, Matt Wiercinski and Kurt Csolak
The Cast of The Great Gatsby that includes, Brandon J. Large, Nathaniel Hunt, Traci Elaine Lee, Drew Lake, Justin Keats, Emily Anne Nester, Matt Wiercinski and Kurt Csolak
Alex Prakken
Alex Prakken
Alex Prakken
The Cast of The Great Gatsby that includes, Brandon J. Large, Nathaniel Hunt, Traci Elaine Lee, Drew Lake, Justin Keats, Emily Anne Nester, Matt Wiercinski and Kurt Csolak
The glamour of the Jazz Age arrived courtesy of The Great Gatsby, with Alex Prakken, Brandon J. Large, Nathaniel Hunt, Traci Elaine Lee, Drew Lake, Justin Keats, Emily Anne Nester, Matt Wiercinski and Kurt Csolak taking the Bryant Park stage. The Broadway musical, inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quintessential American novel, brought a splash of Gatsby excess to the lawn—a fitting contrast to the decidedly democratic pleasure of seeing Broadway for free in the middle of Manhattan.
John Cardoza, Thalia Atallah, Ava DeMary, Jackera Davis, Zan Berube, Kiara Michelle Lee, Emma Benson and Syd Sider
John Cardoza and Kiara Michelle Lee
John Cardoza and Kiara Michelle Lee
John Cardoza
Jackera Davis, Zan Berube and Ava DeMary
Things became considerably darker—and deliciously more dangerous—with Heathers: The Musical. John Cardoza, Kiara Michelle Lee, Thalia Atallah, Ava DeMary, Jackera Davis, Zan Berube, Emma Benson and Syd Siderrepresented the cult musical, whose wicked combination of teenage cruelty, black comedy and infectious pop-rock music has given Heathers a devoted following that has only grown since the show first arrived in New York.
Jay Armstrong Johnson and Ryann Redmond
Kevin Clay
Ryan Duncan
Daniel Brackett, Ryan Duncan, Shelby Acosta, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Cherry Torres and Ryann Redmond
Daniel Brackett
Jay Armstrong Johnson
Ryann Redmond
Then came one of the afternoon’s cheekier offerings, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody. Daniel Brackett, Ryan Duncan, Shelby Acosta, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Cherry Torres and Ryann Redmond brought the parody to Bryant Park, adding another flavor entirely to a program that happily jumped from established Broadway blockbusters to cult favorites and irreverent new work.
Jane Fujita
Daielle Dellilo
Eyllah Babbitt, Danielle Dellilo and Kelly Branco
Also participating in the afternoon were Eyllah Babbitt, Danielle Dellilo and Kelly Branco, along with Jane Fujita
and representatives from Taiwan Tourism, adding to an event that has increasingly become as much a Midtown summer gathering as a theatrical sampler.
That has always been the particular charm of Broadway in Bryant Park. Broadway can be expensive, carefully scheduled and sometimes intimidating to those who don’t regularly venture inside its theatres. Here, the walls disappear. There is no velvet rope separating the initiated from the curious. Someone can wander through Bryant Park, hear an extraordinary voice coming from the stage, sit down on the lawn and discover a show they had never considered seeing.
And for Broadway itself, that matters. A few songs performed on a summer afternoon can accomplish what an advertisement sometimes cannot: they allow an audience to experience the performers themselves. The theatre becomes immediate, accessible and wonderfully difficult to ignore.
Broadway in Bryant Park continues throughout the summer at Bryant Park, located along Sixth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets. Lawn seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
In a city where Broadway normally begins when the house lights go down, Bryant Park continues to prove that sometimes the best way to sell the magic of theatre is simply to bring it outside and let New York stumble upon it.
The curtain may come down, a production may close, and a performance may disappear into theatrical memory, but the cast album is where musical theatre gets its second life. This summer and fall, an unusually rich group of recordings is arriving across streaming platforms, CDs and increasingly coveted vinyl editions, preserving everything from intimate new musicals and Off-Broadway discoveries to major Broadway revivals, conceptual works and a Cats recording unlike any Andrew Lloyd Webber has made before.
Already available is Alone, a new concept album featuring music and lyrics by John Ertman and Joseph Mathusek and an impressive company that includes Taylor Iman Jones, Linedy Genao, Zachary Noah Piser, Adi Roy, Rachel Webb, Kim Onah, Michael Nigro, Nathan Levy, Claire Kwon, Cassidy Sledge, Ellis Gage, Andy Harman and Gray Watson. Released digitally August 7 by Picardee Records, the album introduces its musical world without waiting for a full production to arrive—a reminder that increasingly, new musicals are finding audiences through headphones before they ever find a theatre.
Also newly released is Sappho: The Poetess, a London EP written and performed by Hayley Canham. The August 12 Center Stage Records release gives the ancient Greek poet a contemporary musical voice, joining the continuing wave of theatre composers rediscovering women whose lives have survived history largely through fragments, mythology and the interpretations of others.
August 14 brought two dramatically different recordings. Good Guy With A Gun!, a concept album by Philip Labes and Micah O’Konis, arrives with one of the most eclectic casts of the season, including Chris Sullivan, Kimiko Glenn, Anthony Rapp, Yvette Nicole Brown, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jason Alexander, Richard Kind, Kristen Schaal and Paul Walter Hauser. Even before a full stage production, that roster alone gives the project considerable curiosity value.
The same day, Center Stage Records and Yellow Sound Label released Empire: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording, preserving Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull’s musical about the creation of the Empire State Building. Directed Off-Broadway in 2024 by Tony winner Cady Huffman, Empire looks at the audacity required to build upward during one of the most precarious moments in American history. Its characters include industrialists, immigrants and Mohawk ironworkers, turning the construction of a skyscraper into a story about ambition, labor and New York’s almost pathological refusal to believe something cannot be done.
The recording features Danny Iktomi Bevins, Devin Cortez, Morgan Cowling, Kaitlyn Davidson, Joel Douglas, Alexandra Frohlinger, Albert Guerzon, Kiana Kabeary, Howard Kaye, April Ortiz, Jessica Ranville, Paul Salvatoriello, J Savage, Robbie Serrano and Ethan Saviet, with an ensemble including Joseph Fierberg, Kennedy Perez, Matt Gibson, Julia Louise Hosack and TJ Newton. For a musical whose central character is essentially New York itself, the album gives Empire a chance to continue climbing long after its Off-Broadway run.
Then comes one of the most intriguing releases of August. Night Side Songs, Daniel and Patrick Lazour’s deeply human musical produced by Lincoln Center Theater at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater earlier this year, arrives digitally and on streaming platforms August 21 through Octoverse Media and Warner Music Group’s Arts Music. The first single, “My Stuff,” is already available, with CD and vinyl editions planned later in the year.
Night Side Songs occupied an unusually delicate place in the theatrical landscape when it played LCT3 from February 14 through March 29. Rather than treating illness, caregiving and mortality as dramatic devices, the Lazours created a folk-inflected musical concerned with the conversations that happen around bedsides, the things people say and cannot say, the jokes that break unbearable tension and the strange community that forms around someone whose life has suddenly changed. The recording features the original Lincoln Center Theater company of Robin de Jesús, Brooke Ishibashi, Jonathan Raviv, Kris Saint-Louis and Mary Testa, joined in the studio by an audience that sings along in keeping with the score’s communal folk tradition.
The album is produced by Mara Isaacs, Todd Sickafoose and Andy Einhorn, with Daniel and Patrick Lazour co-producing. The stage production earned nominations from the Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel Awards, including recognition for its music, ensemble and production. The album should allow one of the season’s quieter musicals to find the larger audience intimate work sometimes struggles to reach during a limited theatrical run.
Also arriving August 21 is Schmigadoon! (Original Broadway Cast Recording), with music and lyrics by Cinco Paul. The Joy Machine Records release features Alex Brightman, Sara Chase, Ana Gasteyer, Ann Harada, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla, Ivan Hernandez, Maulik Pancholy, Max Clayton, McKenzie Kurtz and Ayaan Diop. What began as a television series lovingly skewering—and embracing—the conventions of classic musical theatre has now completed the circle by becoming a Broadway musical with its own cast recording. There is something wonderfully appropriate about a show born from affection for cast albums becoming one itself.
On August 28, Evita gets another major recording, this time preserving Jamie Lloyd’s London production starring Rachel Zegler, alongside Diego Andres Rodriguez, James Olivas, Aaron Lee Lambert and Bella Brown. The full album will be released digitally and as a triple-vinyl edition through The Other Songs. With Zegler bringing her acclaimed Eva Perón to Broadway in 2027, the recording arrives as both documentation of the London production and something of a preview for New York audiences. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s score has been recorded many times, but Evita has always been unusually dependent upon the personality of the performer standing at its center. Zegler now gets her own place in that lineage.
August 28 also brings Sara Bareilles’ Good Grief through Epic Records on CD, digital and vinyl. Bareilles long ago crossed the line between pop songwriter and major theatrical voice with Waitress, and anything she releases now carries interest for both audiences. Her music has always lived comfortably in the space between confessional singer-songwriter intimacy and theatrical storytelling, making a new Bareilles album part of the broader musical-theatre conversation whether or not every song is headed for a stage.
September 4 brings the physical release Broadway collectors have been waiting for: the 2025 Broadway cast recording of Chess on CD and vinyl from Ghostlight Records, following its April digital release. The album preserves Nicholas Christopher, Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, Hannah Cruz, Bradley Dean, Sean Allan Krill and Bryce Pinkham in Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice’s gloriously oversized Cold War musical. Whatever one thinks of Chessdramatically, that score remains one of musical theatre’s great guilty-not-guilty pleasures, and this cast gives it formidable vocal ammunition.
On September 18, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody enters the recording studio canon with a digital and triple-vinyl release from Center Stage Records. Dylan MarcAurele’s score is performed by Jay Armstrong Johnson, Jimin Moon, Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, Ryan Duncan, Shelby Acosta and Daniel Brackett. The fact that a knowingly outrageous Off-Broadway parody is getting a triple-vinyl edition tells you almost everything you need to know about the current cast-album market: audiences increasingly want theatre not simply as something they attended, but as something they can collect.
September 25 brings another kind of theatrical souvenir with Rise Up! Hamilton: The Anthology, arriving from Atlantic/Rhino on CD, digital and vinyl. More than a decade after Hamilton permanently altered the commercial expectations for Broadway cast recordings, the musical remains one of the rare modern theatre properties capable of generating the kind of ancillary releases normally associated with major recording artists.
And then there is CATS: The Jellicle Ball.
Atlantic Records has opened pre-orders for the forthcoming Original Broadway Cast Recording of the Tony-winning revival, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alana da Fonseca. No firm release date has yet been announced, but this is arguably the recording collectors will be most curious to hear because The Jellicle Ball did something almost unimaginable: it made Cats culturally dangerous again.
The Broadway production reimagined Lloyd Webber’s musical through New York ballroom culture, transforming the Jellicle competition into a glittering collision of fashion, dance, queer history and theatrical spectacle. The company includes André De Shields, Ken Ard, Kya Azeen, Bryson Battle, Jonathan Burke, Baby Byrne, Tara Lashan Clinkscales, Bryce Farris, Elisa Galindez, Sydney James Harcourt, Dava Huesca, Dudney Joseph Jr., Junior LaBeija, Leiomy, Robert “Silk” Mason, Ernest Mingo, Tempress Chasity Moore, Primo Thee Ballerino, Xavier Reyes, Nora Schell, Bebe Nicole Simpson, Emma Sofia, Phumzile Sojola, Kendall Grayson Stroud, B Noel Thomas, Kalyn West, Garnet Williams, Teddy Wilson Jr., Darius Wright and Donté Nadir Wilder.
The production earned nine Tony nominations and won three, including Best Direction of a Musical, Best Choreography and Best Costume Design. Qween Jean’s costume win also marked a Broadway milestone as the first openly trans woman to win a Tony Award. The recording now has the unusual task of capturing a production whose impact was profoundly visual and physical—ballroom movement, fashion, attitude and audience energy—through sound alone.
Several other recordings remain on the horizon without firm release dates. Joy Machine Records will release Beau The Musical, with music by Ethan D. Pakchar and Douglas Lyons and lyrics by Lyons, featuring Matt Rodin, Jeb Brown, Max Sangerman, Miyuki Miyagi, Andrea Goss, Amelia Cormack, Ryan Halsaver and Derek Stoltenberg.
Ghostlight Records is also preparing a London concept album of Death Note, The Musical, with Frank Wildhorn’s music and Jack Murphy’s lyrics performed by a company including Adam Pascal, Joaquin Pedro Valdes, Dean John Wilson, Aimie Atkinson, Frances Mayli McCann, Rachel Clare Chan and Christian Ray Marbella. Wildhorn and Death Notehave long seemed destined for one another—large emotions, operatic stakes and characters who consider moderation an unacceptable personality trait.
JAY Records has two particularly traditional theatre recordings waiting in the wings. A new studio cast recording of The Fantasticks features Brad Oscar, Telly Leung, Elizabeth Teeter, Lewis Cleale and Ron Raines, arriving just as the famously long-running Off-Broadway musical prepares, astonishingly, for its first Broadway production. The label will also release Lovesong, Michael Valenti’s setting of lyrics by Dorothy Parker and Sir Walter Raleigh, performed by Jenn Gambatese, Lauren Molina, Matt Bogart and Jeff Kready.
Also forthcoming is the studio EP Salem, with music and lyrics by Amanda Ribnick and Jennifer Lucy Cook and performances by Bryce Pinkham, Kuhoo Verma, John-Andrew Morrison, Gabi Carrubba, Lizzy Murray and Katherine Lynn-Rose, while PS Classics will release Ricky Ian Gordon’s Sycamore Trees, featuring a mouthwatering company of Farah Alvin, Marc Kudisch, Judy Kuhn, Jessica Molaskey, Matthew Risch, Diane Sutherland and Tony Yazbeck.
What makes this particular stretch of releases interesting is how thoroughly the cast album has escaped its old definition. Once, the recording primarily existed to preserve the score of a Broadway musical. Now we have concept albums creating audiences before productions exist, limited-run Off-Broadway shows finding permanence after closing, London productions introducing themselves to American listeners, parody musicals getting elaborate vinyl editions and established Broadway properties becoming collectible objects in multiple formats.
Streaming should theoretically have made albums less precious. Instead, vinyl has made them objects again.
And musical theatre, perhaps more than almost any other form, understands why that matters. A performance is ephemeral by design. The actor sings the note, the orchestra plays the chord, the audience hears it—and then the moment is gone.
A cast album refuses to let it disappear.
This fall, there will be quite a lot worth keeping.
Broadway never really sleeps anymore, but the 2026–2027 season is beginning to reveal itself as something considerably more interesting than another procession of movie adaptations and celebrity vehicles. There are certainly stars—Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Billy Crystal, Tom Hiddleston, Hayley Atwell, Rosamund Pike, Rachel Zegler and Raúl Esparza among them—but there is also an unusually strong concentration of playwrights: Molière, Shakespeare, Clifford Odets, Aaron Sorkin, Jon Robin Baitz, Jocelyn Bioh, Dominique Morisseau and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
Musically, the season travels everywhere from Dolly Parton and Prince to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rodgers and Hammerstein and the long-delayed Broadway arrival of The Fantasticks. Some productions arrive carrying enormous expectations; others may prove to be the surprises nobody saw coming. Here, in opening-night order, are the dates worth putting on the calendar now.
August
Photo credit: Cher Álvarez and Travis A. Knight in Paranormal Activity. (Photos by Teresa Castracane Photography)
8/25 — Paranormal Activity: August Wilson Theatre: Previews began 8/14
Broadway begins the fall by turning off the lights. Levi Holloway’s Paranormal Activity, inspired by the extraordinarily profitable horror-film franchise, stars Cher Álvarez, Travis A. Knight, Shannon Cochran and Andrea Syglowski under the direction of Felix Barrett. Barrett, the co-founder and artistic director of Punchdrunk, is the intriguing element here: this is a director whose career has been built around immersive theatrical experiences and the manipulation of space, expectation and audience anxiety. A horror film can control precisely what the camera allows us to see. Theatre cannot. The question—and potentially the thrill—is how Paranormal Activity makes an entire Broadway house afraid of what might be standing just outside our field of vision.
September
9/28 — School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre: Previews 9/8 – Through 10/1
Jocelyn Bioh’s wickedly funny examination of beauty, colorism, ambition and teenage hierarchy gets its Broadway debut in a new Manhattan Theatre Club production directed by Whitney White. Set at an elite girls’ boarding school in Ghana, the comedy follows a group of students competing for the chance to enter the Miss Ghana pageant—and the social warfare that erupts when a new girl threatens the established queen bee. Denée Benton and Patina Miller lead an excellent company that also includes Lucia Aremu, Erin Morton, Nia Otchere-Sarfo, Jordan Rice, Jasmine Amy Rogers and Heather Alicia Simms. Bioh knows how to make an audience laugh before quietly revealing exactly what it has been laughing about.
October
10/18 — Other Desert Cities: Hudson Theatre: Previews 10/29 – 1/17
One of the season’s most formidable casts gathers for the first Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s family drama: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery and Lily Rabe, directed by John Benjamin Hickey. The setting is Palm Springs, where a politically prominent family gathers for Christmas only to discover that daughter Brooke is preparing to publish a memoir exposing a secret everyone else would prefer remain buried. Baitz’s play is essentially civilized warfare conducted over cocktails, and with Louis-Dreyfus, Harris and Janney occupying the same room, this could become one of the acting events of the season.
10/21 — 860: Imperial Theatre: Previews 10/1 – 1/3
Billy Crystal returns to the form that gave Broadway 700 Sundays, this time beginning with the loss of the Pacific Palisades home where his family lived for 46 years before it was destroyed in the 2025 fires. Written and performed by Crystal and directed by Scott Ellis, 860 uses one house—and everything accumulated inside it—as the doorway into family, memory, grief and the peculiar emotional geography of home. Crystal has always understood that laughter and loss need not cancel each other out. That makes this considerably more intriguing than a conventional celebrity memoir placed onstage.
10/22 — The Imaginary Invalid: Todd Haimes Theatre: 9/25 – 11/22
Give Bill Irwin Molière and immediately the possibilities become interesting. Irwin adapts and stars in The Imaginary Invalid, Molière’s 1673 comedy about a wealthy hypochondriac surrounded by doctors, opportunists and relatives with competing interests in his supposed illnesses. Brandon J. Dirden directs. Irwin’s extraordinary physical intelligence makes him particularly suited to Molière’s collision of verbal wit and bodily absurdity—and a 353-year-old satire about medicine, money and people obsessed with their health may turn out to be rather less antiquated than expected.
10/29 — A Few Good Men: Vivian Beaumont Theater: Previews 10/8 – Through 1/10
Before Aaron Sorkin gave television The West Wing, there was A Few Good Men. Now his breakthrough military courtroom drama returns to Broadway with Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth under the direction of Michael Arden. The play’s questions about institutional loyalty, obedience, accountability and the moral compromises made in the name of protecting powerful systems have hardly lost their bite. The famous courtroom confrontation may be embedded in popular culture thanks to the film, but Sorkin wrote A Few Good Men for the stage. Broadway gets it back.
November
11/8 — Wanted: James Earl Jones Theatre: Previews 10/15
Previously titled Gun & Powder, Wanted arrives with music by Ross Baum and a book and lyrics by Angelica Chéri, inspired by the story of Mary and Martha Clarke, African-American twin sisters who became outlaws in 1890s Texas while attempting to free their mother from crushing sharecropper debt. Solea Pfeiffer, Liisi LaFontaine and Grammy winner Ledisi star, with Stevie Walker-Webb directing. It has the bones of an American myth—the Western, the outlaw, the pursuit of freedom—but told through people traditionally erased from that mythology. That alone makes it one of the season’s original musicals worth watching.
11/16 — The Fantasticks: Hayes Theater: Previews 10/22 – 2/7
Here is one for the theatrical history books. Sixty-six years after The Fantasticks began the legendary Off-Broadway run that ultimately lasted more than four decades, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s little musical finally reaches Broadway. Christopher Gattelli directs a new version reimagining its central romance as a contemporary gay love story. The score still contains “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” but the fascinating question is whether a musical famous for its simplicity can retain its intimacy on Broadway while allowing its story to speak to another generation.
11/19 — Much Ado About Nothing: Winter Garden Theatre: Previews 10/31 – 1/10
Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell arrive from London as Benedick and Beatrice in Jamie Lloyd’s exuberant reinvention of Shakespeare’s great romantic battle of wits. Lloyd turns Messina into something approaching a party, but beneath the production’s exuberance remains one of Shakespeare’s sharpest observations about pride, vulnerability and two people desperately attempting not to fall in love. Hiddleston and Atwell already proved their chemistry in London; Broadway now gets ten weeks to see what all the fuss was about.
December
12/1 — Inter Alia: Music Box Theatre: Previews 11/10 – 2/21
Rosamund Pike makes her Broadway debut in Suzie Miller’s Inter Alia, following its London premiere. Miller and director Justin Martin, the team behind Prima Facie, return to the legal world through Jessica Parks, a Crown Court judge accustomed to weighing evidence, imposing order and dispensing justice—until an event inside her own family makes those principles brutally personal. After Jodie Comer’s astonishing Broadway success in Prima Facie, expectations for Miller and Martin’s next legal drama will be understandably high.
12/6 — Galileo: Shubert Theatre: Previews 11/10
The return of Raúl Esparza to a new Broadway musical is reason enough to circle December 6. He stars as Galileo Galilei opposite Joy Woods and Jeremy Kushnier in a new musical with music and lyrics by Zoe Sarnak and Michael Weiner and a book by Danny Strong. Michael Mayer directs. Galileo’s collision with the Catholic Church over a universe that refused to behave according to accepted doctrine gives the musical an enormous subject: what happens when observable truth threatens institutions whose authority depends upon another version of reality?
January
1/7 — Awake and Sing!: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre | Previews 12/16
Clifford Odets returns to Broadway with Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht and Jeremy Shamos leading Tyne Rafaeli’s revival of Awake and Sing!. Set inside a struggling Jewish family in Depression-era Brooklyn, Odets’s 1935 masterpiece examines money, generational conflict, thwarted ambition and the stubborn insistence upon hope when economic reality keeps crushing it. In an age once again consumed by questions of economic survival and what one generation owes another, Odets may sound unnervingly contemporary.
1/19 — DOLLY: A True Original Musical: St. James Theatre: Previews 12/7
Dolly Parton gets the Broadway bio-musical treatment—but importantly, she is telling the story herself. Parton and Maria S. Schlatter have written the book, with Bartlett Sher directing the musical journey from a childhood in the Smoky Mountains to one of the most remarkable careers in American popular culture. The inevitable hits will be there, but Parton’s life contains something richer than a jukebox score: poverty, ambition, authorship, image-making, business acumen and a woman who understood very early that appearing unserious could be an extraordinarily effective way of being underestimated.
1/27 — Mix and Master: Todd Haimes Theatre | Previews 1/5
Dominique Morisseau turns toward Brooklyn’s musical ecosystem with Mix and Master, starring Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Kara Young and directed by Kamilah Forbes. The new play follows a rising DJ attempting to save the neighborhood’s last record store—a premise that opens naturally into questions of ownership, memory, gentrification and what disappears when a neighborhood’s cultural institutions become economically inconvenient. With Morisseau writing and two actors of this caliber involved, this is one to watch.
March
3/25 — Evita: Winter Garden Theatre: Previews 2/27
Rachel Zegler brings her acclaimed Eva Perón to Broadway in Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita. The musical has always existed in the dangerous space between political history, celebrity and spectacle: Eva constructs herself before the public while Che keeps puncturing the mythology. Lloyd is a director fascinated by performance itself—who is watching, who is being watched and what happens when image overtakes reality—which makes him particularly well matched to this material. Zegler reprises the performance that won her an Olivier Award.
April
4/5 — Gloria: Hayes Theater: Previews 4/17
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer finalist Gloria finally reaches Broadway after its acclaimed 2015 Off-Broadway premiere. Evan Cabnet again directs the dark comedy about ambitious editorial assistants working at a prestigious New York magazine, where professional resentment, status anxiety and the hunger to turn experience into intellectual property collide after catastrophe strikes the office. Eleven years later, in an era even more obsessed with monetizing personal trauma and controlling narratives, Gloria may have become sharper with age.
4/12 —Purple Rain: Majestic Theatre: Previews 3/12
And suddenly the Majestic turns purple. Prince’s Purple Rain arrives on Broadway with more than 20 Prince songs performed by musicians onstage, including “When Doves Cry,” “I Would Die 4 U,” “Take Me With U” and “The Beautiful Ones.” Peter Duchan writes the book, Saheem Ali directs and Ebony Williams choreographs. The original film wasn’t simply a delivery system for hit songs; it was instrumental in transforming Prince into a global icon. Broadway therefore has a considerable challenge: capture the danger, sexuality and musical electricity of Purple Rain without turning Prince into a museum exhibit.
4/15 — The Sound of Music: Vivian Beaumont Theater: Previews 3/23
Lear deBessonet follows Once Upon a Mattress and Ragtime with one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved musicals, starring Jasmine Amy Rogers. The Sound of Music has been so thoroughly absorbed into popular culture that it is easy to forget how much darkness surrounds those familiar songs. This is a musical about a family confronting fascism and ultimately choosing what it refuses to become. At the Vivian Beaumont, with deBessonet at the helm, there is an opportunity to rediscover the dramatic stakes beneath the edelweiss.
4/18 — Paddington The Musical: Al Hirschfeld Theatre: Previews 3/30
After becoming a West End hit, everyone’s favorite marmalade-obsessed bear crosses the Atlantic. Tom Fletcher supplies music and lyrics, Jessica Swale writes the book and Luke Sheppard directs the adaptation inspired by Michael Bond’s books and the enormously successful films. The great challenge, of course, is Paddington himself: the London production’s theatrical realization of the bear became part of its magic. If Broadway audiences surrender to him as thoroughly as London did, the Hirschfeld may have a formidable family hit on its hands.
4/25 — The Full Monty: Todd Haimes Theatre: Previews 4/3
David Yazbek and Terrence McNally’s The Full Monty returns to Broadway in a new Roundabout production directed by Leigh Silverman. Beneath the famous strip-show premise has always been something more tender: unemployed men confronting economic displacement, masculinity, body image and the humiliations of discovering that the world no longer values the labor that once defined them. McNally’s humanity and Yazbek’s terrific score are reasons enough to welcome it back.
Still To Come…
The calendar isn’t finished. Broadway seasons never are this early.
Manhattan Theatre Club has David Hare’s Montauk slated for the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, while Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis’s Warriors has claimed the Lunt-Fontanne but has yet to announce the opening date. And between now and the Tony eligibility cutoff, more productions will inevitably appear, theatres will change hands, casts will be announced and at least a few projects currently described as “Broadway-bound” will either materialize unexpectedly or quietly disappear.
What we can already see is a season unusually interested in memory, truth and reinvention. Other Desert Cities asks who owns a family’s history. 860 asks what remains when the physical container of memory disappears. Galileo pits truth against institutional authority. Evita interrogates the manufacture of public mythology. Gloria asks who gets to own catastrophe. The Sound of Music places private conscience against political power. Even The Fantasticks, after 66 years, is being asked to tell its love story differently.
Then there are the glorious theatrical curveballs: a paranormal horror franchise invading the August Wilson, Paddington arriving with his marmalade sandwiches, Prince taking over the Majestic, Bill Irwin tackling Molière and Dolly Parton finally putting Dolly Parton on Broadway.
The 2026–2027 season isn’t finished announcing itself. But it has already given us plenty of dates worth circling.
Sydnie Christmas Has the Voice. Now She Needs the Right Showcase
Hayden Panettiere Is Dead at 36. What Could We Have Done Better?
Broadway Heads Up the Hudson: The Festival Takes Over Hutton Brickyards
Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: A Labrador Doctor’s Ad Astra Audiobook narrated by Princess Antonia
Diesel Just Hit a Record and This Matters More Than the Price at Your Local Gas Station
My View: Another Win For Sydnie Christmas…..This Time at Sony Hall
How Gold Bali Kratom Stands Out Among Popular Gold Kratom Varieties
Minimalist Interiors and Epoxy Furniture: A Perfect Match
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