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See Donna Murphy in Dear World, a new Michael R. Jackson musical, Mikhail Baryshnikov in a play and more
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A new musical by a Pulitzer Prize winner, Donna Murphy headlining a rare revival of Dear World, new plays starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kristine Nielsen and Tony winner Karen Ziemba, and an uncensored solo comedy from Judy Gold. These are just some of the promising new Off-Broadway productions starting in March. We couldn't include everything, so be sure to browse the listings in TDF's Show Finder to see what else is playing. And remember, most of our Off-Broadway picks for February are still running!
In terms of COVID-19 safety protocols, rules vary by venue. While we are trying to keep this article up to date, please double-check the protocols before purchasing tickets so you arrive prepared.
If you're a TDF member, log in to your account daily to see what we're selling as ticket inventory changes frequently.
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A.R.T./New York Theatres, 502 West 53rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 3. Opens March 5. Closes March 26. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are optional.
Since 2000, New York Classical Theatre has presented delightful promenade stagings of vintage plays in various New York City parks for free. The troupe goes inside for this classic-inspired world premiere, though tickets can still be had at no cost. The Rewards of Being Frank is Alice Scovell's witty sequel to Oscar Wilde's comedic masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest and begins seven years after the nuptials of Algernon and Cecily and Ernest and Gwendolen. All grown up with kids of their own, the couples are on the hunt for a teacher to tutor their children. But when they meet Frank, a tour de farce of mistaken identity and moral conundrums ensues. Forbidden Broadway diva Christine Pedi headlines the cast as the hilariously conservative Lady Bracknell. Note, while reservations cost $35, the fee is refundable at the box office on the night of the show, though you're encouraged to turn it into a tax-deductible donation.
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The Shed, 545 West 30th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Hudson Yards
Previews begin March 3. Opens March 9. Closes April 2. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are optional.
With Misty, performer-playwright Arinzé Kene became just the second Black British dramatist to pen a West End show. After an acclaimed London run and two Olivier nominations, the play arrives stateside at The Shed. Inspired by his own life, the challenges of being a Black artist and the relentless gentrification of London, Kene's metatheatrical, almost-solo show fuses live music, spoken word and absurdist comedy into an intensely personal and political piece.
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59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Previews begin March 4. Opens March 21. Closes April 16. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are optional.
As a veteran stand-up who's also appeared in myriad TV shows and plays, Judy Gold has been cracking people up for decades with her hilarious and astute observations about queer culture, motherhood and Jewishness. Her latest solo comedy is about the importance of free speech, which is being attacked from both sides of the political aisle. Based on her best-selling 2020 book Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble, it's a celebration of comedy, the healing power of humor and the necessity of speaking truth to power. Tony winner BD Wong directs.
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New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 4. Opens March 13. Closes April 30. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are optional.
Dav Pilkey's immensely popular graphic novel series for kids becomes a family musical courtesy of multitalented Broadway star Kevin Del Aguila (Frozen, Some Like It Hot) and Brad Alexander. The one-act tuner centers on the title character, a crime-fighting canine-human hybrid, who's always ready to take a bite out of the bad guys. Developed by TheaterWorksUSA and seen briefly pre-pandemic, Dog Man: The Musical is the cat's meow for middle schoolers.
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Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street between Bleecker and Hudson Streets in the West Village
Previews begin March 6. Opens March 16. Closes April 1. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are required at Monday evening and Saturday matinee performances only.
The obsession with true crime didn't start this century. In fact, it dates back to the 1500s! An early example is Arden of Faversham, an Elizabethan play of unknown authorship (though Shakespeare may have been involved) inspired by the real-life 1551 murder of Thomas Arden, which was orchestrated by his wife and her inept lover. Red Bull Theater, a company well known for revitalizing undersung classics, presents a rare revival of the play starring a top-notch cast, including Broadway vets Thomas Jay Ryan and Cara Ricketts as the unhappily married couple at the center of this thriller, which is directed by Obie winner Jesse Berger (The Government Inspector).
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Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street in the West Village
Previews begin March 10. Opens March 19. Closes April 13. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are optional.
TV's Andre Royo (The Wire, Empire) stars in Eric Bogosian's riveting one-man play Drinking in America, a multifaceted portrait of American masculinity conjured through the stories of a dozen disparate and intoxicated men. When Bogosian starred in the world premiere in 1986, The New York Times praised it as "a breakneck, hair-raising comic tour of the contemporary American male psyche." Considering how much gender roles have evolved since then, this show is sure to land differently in an era of calling out toxic masculinity and male fragility.
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WP Theater at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, 2162 Broadway at 76th Street on the Upper West Side
Previews begin March 11. Opens March 23. Closes April 23. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are required.
Tensions simmer between two Puerto Rican sisters in Sancocho, Christin Eve Cato's two-hander named after the stew the siblings prepare throughout the evening. The two engage in bilingual bicker and banter as they discuss their father's precarious health, cultural divides, old wounds and skeletons in the family closet. After a successful run last year in Chicago, the play comes to NYC in a new production helmed by Rebecca Martínez.
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New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Midtown West
Begins March 15. Closes March 19.
Encores! kicks off its new season with Jerry Herman's musicalization of The Madwoman of Chaillot, which only played six months on Broadway but earned Angela Lansbury one of her six Tony Awards. For this mounting, two-time Tony winner Donna Murphy plays outré heroine Countess Aurelia, who conspires with her neighbors to stop opportunists from destroying their Parisienne community. Josh Rhodes directs a cast that includes perennial scene-stealers Brooks Ashmanskas, Andréa Burns, Christopher Fitzgerald and Ann Harada.
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Tony Kiser Theater, 305 West 43rd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 15. Opens April 10. Closes May 21.
Masks are required for March 21, March 28 and April 4 evening performances and all Wednesday matinee performances beginning April 12.
Michael R. Jackson's last show, the sui generis A Strange Loop, won a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Tony Awards, so there's insane buzz around his new musical White Girl in Danger. A co-production between the Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage, it's a satirical soap opera set in the town of Allwhite, where white residents get the best story lines while Black folks are relegated to the so-called Blackground. Then Keesha Gibbs decides she's going to grab the spotlight at all costs, even though there's a killer on the loose. Tony nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz (The Skin of Our Teeth) directs an ensemble cast that includes Obie-winning Strange Loop alum James Jackson Jr.
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Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in Midtown West
Begins March 16. Closes April 15.
Masks are optional.
Although Mikhail Baryshnikov is a ballet legend turned screen star, he also has a penchant for experimental theatre. I will never forget watching him transform into a cockroach in Steven Berkoff's stage adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis; then last year, he was a heartbreaking Firs in a multimedia reimagining of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Now he's appearing in another out-there creation at his namesake theatre on West 37th Street: The Hunting Gun, a stage adaptation of Yasushi Inoue's novella about a man who receives three life-changing letters from different women, his wife, his mistress and her daughter. Miki Nakatani embodies the trio of truth-dropping ladies in this monologue play, which is performed in Japanese with English supertitles. We have a feeling Baryshnikov's character will be doing a lot of listening!
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59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Previews begin March 18. Opens March 26. Closes April 15.
Masks are optional.
The celebrated LAByrinth Theater Company (that's premiered many a Stephen Adly Guirgis play) presents David Anzuelo's Día Y Noche, a brash coming-of-age tale about the unlikely friendship between two different kinds of outcasts. It's 1984 in El Paso, Texas: Danny is a poor Chicano punk with artistic aspirations, and Martin is a wealthy Black band nerd who's in the closet. As they double date, go to concerts and watch porn, they try to find ways to overcome the obstacles and prejudice they face while staying true to themselves.
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The York Theatre Company at Theatre at St. Jean's, 150 East 76th Street near Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side
Previews begin March 22. Opens March 30. Closes April 22. If you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Masks are required.
It's a musical almost a half century in the making! Jack Heifner's popular 1976 dramedy Vanities, chronicling the ups and downs of a trio of girlfriends, was one of the longest-running Off-Broadway plays of all time. Decades later, the playwright collaborated with songwriter David Kirshenbaum to turn it into a musical, which ran Off Broadway at Second Stage in 2009. Now they're revisiting the material for the York Theatre's new production, billed as a revisal. It still centers on the three gal pals, who start out as high school cheerleaders in Texas in 1963. But now it traces their lives through 1990 as they grow up and apart. Will Pomerantz directs.
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Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street between Ninth and Dyer Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 22. Opens April 11. Closes April 30.
Masks are required at the Sunday, April 16 matinee and the Friday, April 28 evening performances only.
Three adopted Asian-American siblings dive into their unknown pasts in Julia Izumi's world premiere, which is being co-presented by Playwrights Horizons and WP Theater. Arson, affairs, incest and murder are just some of what they uncover! This farcical tragedy (there's a snowman spouting depressing stats) examines the dark side of our inquisitive nature, especially when it comes to identity and self-discovery. Jenny Koons directs an ensemble that includes two-time Tony nominee Kristine Nielsen.
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59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Previews begin March 23. Opens March 28. Closes April 15.
Masks are optional.
Tony winner Karen Ziemba leads the cast of According to the Chorus, Arlene Hutton's new ensemble dramedy set on Broadway in the mid-1980s, when the AIDS crisis and second-wave feminism were reshaping the theatre industry. In the dingy quick-change room of a Broadway theatre, the chorus girls are at odds with their dressers. Will the new dresser, with her own dramatic history, be able to survive this battle? Co-presented by New Light Theater Project and The Journey Company, this new play is an affectionate backstage peek at a pivotal period in Broadway history.
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Top image: Donna Murphy, who's starring in a rare revival of Dear World at New York City Center Encores!
Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her on Facebook at @Raven.Snook. Follow TDF on Facebook at @TDFNYC.
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