The last week of summer is a time to relax – or to get busy figuring out your Fall New York theater season before tickets run out, and how to avoid paying too much for them. (And the lottery for Cherry Lane’s starry opening week ends this Wednesday! See below.)
Broadway 2025 2026 Season Preview Guide
Fall 2025 New York Theater Preview: 10 Shows to See*
La MaMa ETC Fall 2025 Preview: 10 Shows
Broadway Week 2-for-1 Tickets On Sale Now
Broadway Rush and Lottery Policies
The Week in Theater Reviews
Twelfth Night at the Delacorte
The point of Free Shakespeare in the Park is not to win a competition with the many splendid “Twelfth Nights” over the years. (Who, anyway, could possibly compete with Mark Rylance as Olivia in the 2013 Broadway production?) The point is to create an entertaining night out for New Yorkers. This it does wondrously, from the very moment that a string quartet performs in front of enormous letters that spell out “WHAT YOU WILL,” followed by two hours of laughs and sighs, sumptuous costumes, lovely original music, a fidelity to the spirit and language of the play while offering a stream of clever and inventive new moments — and yes the live presence of well-known, beloved performers.
Jeff Ross Take a Banana for the Ride
Ross, who’s best known as an insult comedian, is making his Broadway debut with what’s clearly not a live version of one of his comedy roasts. The awkward title is something his grandfather used to say to him, and both Grandpa and bananas wind up surprisingly prominent during what turns out to be an odd hybrid of a show. “Take A Banana For The Ride” is more memoir than standup; it’s as sad as it is funny, and ricochets between schmaltzy and offensive – all in the name of uplift.
“I want tonight to be a cathartic experience for everybody,” he says when he first comes out, wearing a banana-yellow suit over a t-shirt picturing his deceased friend, the comedian Gilbert Gottfried. “I’ve become really good at cheering people up.”
By the end of this masterfully constructed and impeccably acted drama, we have observed an exceptional study of grief, pieced together a portrait of both a good person and a complicated community, and solved an unconventional murder mystery.
“Well, I’ll Let You Go” is what people say when they are the ones who want to end the conversation, and we get the strong feeling that the newly-widowed Maggie (portrayed by Quincy Tyler Bernstine) doesn’t even want to start any of the half dozen one-on-one conversations over the 100 minutes of Bubba Weiler’s engaging play. But we also realize right away that the retired schoolteacher is too polite, and too good a listener, to turn anybody away.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Reviews: Xhloe and Natasha’s three shows
The Week in New York Theater News
Cherry Lane Theater has sent out its schedule for its first week, which is heavy on film screenings and film stars, but there is one work of theater — a staged reading of “True West”
“Tickets for each event will be available for purchase via lottery only. The lottery will close for all shows on Wednesday, August 27th at 12 p.m. ” Click here to enter the lottery.
Rob Lake Magic with special guests the Muppets, opens at the Broadhurst November 6
“Bug,” an early and scary play by Tracy Letts, is coming to Broadway — opening at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman on January 8, starring Letts’ wife Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood. This is the sophomore Broadway roles for both of them. Coon debuted in the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (which is how she met Letts, who was also in the cast). Smallwood made his Broadway debut in Pass Over, the first play after the pandemic shutdown. “Bug” will be directed by David Cromer
Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle will make their Broadway debuts in the first Broadway revival of David Auburn’s 2000 Pulitzer and Tony winning play “Proof” with an opening night set for April 16, but no venue yet; “a Shubert theater to be announced.”
For details about the three Broadway shows above, and links to their websites, click on my Broadway 2025 2026 Season Preview Guide
In Memoriam
Ozzie Rodriguez, 81, actor, director, playwright and archivist for La MaMa
Jerry Adler, 96, a longtime theater manager for more than 50 Broadway shows including the original My Fair Lady, before becoming an actor late in life on “The Sopranos,” “The Good Wife” and “Rescue Me,”
Chad McArver, 63, Broadway lighting designer
The Week’s Theater Video
Twelfth Night rehearsal (no audio)
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