Today’s Highlights:
Crooked Cross, world premiere by Sally Carson, directed by Jonathan Bank, featuring Samuel Adams, Liam Craig, Katie Firth, Lily Ganser, Jack Mastriani, Gavin Michaels, Ben Millspaugh, Douglas Rees, and Jakob Winter, opens at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.
Little Boy Little Man, world premiere by Rudi Goblen, directed by Nancy Medina, featuring Alex Hernandez, Dee Simone, Tonya Sweets, and Marlon Alexander Vargas, opens at LA’s Geffen Playhouse.
Truman vs. Israel: Abzug and the Undressing of Truman, world premiere by William Spatz, directed by Randy White, featuring , featuring Willy Falk (Truman) and Sasha Edec (Bella Abzug), with Matt Caplan and Mark Lotito, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Theatre at St. Clements.
The Very Thought of You: Steve Ross sings Love Songs concert at 8 PM at London’s PizzaExpress.
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LA Theatreworks has released Jessica Dickey’s Searching for Galileo’s Daughter, directed by Anna Lyse Erikson.
Ginnifer Goodwin (Maria Celeste) and Gregory Harrison (Galileo).
The first child of the great astronomer Galileo entered a Tuscan convent in her teens. He’d taught her much about the heavens as a child, and during her years as a nun she remained scientifically curious while maintaining close contact with her father, even as the Catholic Church condemned him for promoting a sun-centered universe. Many of the letters she wrote to Galileo survive, and served as inspiration for Jessica Dickey’s play, which takes us on a freewheeling, time-shifting journey through Florence, Italy.
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Red Bull Theater will present a reading of José Cruz González’s Invierno will take place Mon. Oct. 20 at at 7:30 PM (in person & simulcast & streaming on demand) at Off-Broadway’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, directed by Madeline Sayet. The stream-on-demand option will be available Oct. 21-26.
Carlo Alban, Bailey Frankenberg, Zachary Lopez-Roa, Alfredo Narciso, Tanis Parenteau, Stephen Michael Spencer, and more TBA.
The Winter’s Tale’s presents themes of resilience, revitalization, and repair in order to consider how the past reverberates in the current moment. Set in California’s Central Coast, Invierno toggles between the twenty-first century and a period of time leading up to the U.S. invasion of Mexico that would end in 1848 with the Mexican cession of more than half of its territory to the United States, thus redrawing the border between the two countries. In the Prelude, a Young Woman and a Young Man fall back in time into the world of the nineteenth-century California ranchos, becoming witnesses to tragic events of the past that resonate in unexpected and sometimes uncomfortable ways with their present situation. In the nineteenth-century plotline, Don León is a prominent Californio ranchero, and Hermonia is a Chumash mestiza whose people have endured generations of Spanish colonial violence. Her half-sister, Paulina, is a Chumash healer, who serves as a bridge between past and present throughout the play. As the Young Woman and Young Man eventually step into the roles of Perdida and Florentino, they help to facilitate the reunion at the end of the play while also beginning their own healing journeys as a result.
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CA’s Musical Theatre West has announced its 2026 season:
Creative teams and casting TBA.
Man of La Mancha (Feb. 13 – Mar. 1)
In The Heights (Apr. 10-26)
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (July 10-26)
Little Women (Nov. 6-22)
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Donna Walker-Kuhne’s “Champions for the Arts” will be released Oct. 21 on most platforms.
At a moment when arts organizations and theatres are grappling with building sustainable audiences in challenging political and economic conditions, “Champions for the Arts” offers a much-needed roadmap. Donna distills decades of groundbreaking practice into accessible strategies and case studies for leaders across the nonprofit and cultural sector.
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Cal Silberstrein & Paul Hode’s The Great Emu War continues through Oct. 26 at CT’s Goodspeed, directed & choreographed by Amy Anders Corcoran.
LaRaisha DiEvelyn Dionne (Bard), Claire Saunders (Edith), Ethan Peterson (Ethan), Taylor Matthew (Major Meredith), Jeremy Davis (Enoch), and Morgan Cowling (McMurray).
Remember that one time that the Australian government sent their army with machine guns to wage war on emus in Western Australia? Neither do most people…but when Edith, the headstrong warbler, and her flock begin to feed on the wheat of local farmers–the humans take up arms against Australia’s favorite feathered friends. Think of it as Cats, but with emus.
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Erik J. Rodriguez & Charles A. Sothers’s Not Ready for Prime Time, currently in previews, will open Oct. 20 and close Nov. 30 at the MCC Theatre, directed y Conor Bagley.
Ian Bouillon (Lorne Michaels), Ryan Crout (John Belushi, Jared Grimes (Garrett Morris), Caitlin Houlahan (Jane Curtin), Nate Janis (Bill Murray), Kristian Lugo (Dan Ackroyd), Woodrow Proctor (Chevy Chase), Taylor Richardson (Laraine Newman), and Evan Rubin (Gilda Radner), with Gilbert L. Bailey II, Jacob Millman, and Jake Roberson.
The unauthorized, unsanitized, and slightly unhinged story of how a small group of lunatics made Saturday night unmissable. The play is set in 1975 and follows nine soon-to-be legends—Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Lorne Michaels, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner—as they navigate the chaos, creativity, and comedy that changed television forever. This new play pulses with live music, quick wit, and backstage mayhem, capturing the electric atmosphere of a cultural revolution in the making.
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Kate Hamill’s Emma will run Oct. 22 – Nov. 9 at Virginia Stage Company, directed by Tom Quaintance.
Anna Vrivelli (Emma Woodhouse), Rishan Dhanjja (George Knightly), Amelia Kenworghty, and more TBA.
Emma Woodhouse is clever, educated, and energetic… and about to go mad with idleness. In a time when respectable ladies are expected to sit quietly at home, Emma desperately longs for projects—and prides herself on matchmaking, much to the chagrin of her friend Mr. Knightley. But where Emma’s considerable energies focus, screwball comedy follows! A fresh and funny new take on a treasured classic.
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Michael Colby & Gerald Jay Markoe’s Charlotte Sweet will take place Mon. Nov. 17 at 7 PM at Off-Broadway’s A.R.T., directed by Jeff Calhoun.
Dwayne Clarke, Ann Harada, Nicolas King, Michael McCoy, Mamie Parris, Stephanie Pope, Megan Styrna, and more.
Imagine a fractured fairy tale in the tradition of Gilbert & Sullivan and Mad Magazine. The return of Charlotte Sweet spotlights the stratospherically high soprano of British Music Hall, along with the freaky Circus of Voices. Don’t miss the revival concert of the acclaimed musical/mock melodrama that was a favorite of Leonard Cohen, Al Hirschfeld, and others.
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Torrey Townsend’s Jewish Plot will run Oct. 16 – Nov. 1 at Brooklyn’s The Brick, directed by Sarah Hughes.
Neil D’Astolfo, Tess Frazer, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Madeline Weinstein.
At once hilarious and deeply personal, Townsend’s adaptation captures the crazy-making reality of contemporary Jewish American life amid unfolding, distant daily horrors carried out in the name of identity.