Reading Into It- Broadway Books for 2026

A new Broadway season is here, full of exciting new shows and revivals of beloved classics. While many of them are original concepts or based on plays, some are based on books or the lives of famous people or real events, which you can add to your reading list today. If you are seeing any of the below productions in 2026, check out how you can study up beforehand or unpack afterwards!

See: Giant

Read: The works of Roald Dahl

Dahl was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. He has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century". Has books include Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and many more.

Giant is running on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre.

See: Dog Day Afternoon

Read: The Boys in the Bank

The film version of Dog Day Afternoon is based on the Life magazine article "The Boys in the Bank" by P. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore, which is about the real-life 1972 Brooklyn bank robbery by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile.

Dog Day Afternoon is running on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre.

See: Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Read: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The inspiration for the iconic musical Cats, T. S. Eliot's classic and delightful collection of poetry about cats, with whimsical illustrations by Edward Gorey. These playful verses by a celebrated poet have delighted readers and cat lovers around the world since they were gathered for publication in 1939. The book is a curious and artful homage to felines young and old, merry and fierce, small and unmistakably round. Also includes Edward Gorey's charming pen and ink illustrations. Gorey gives a fresh intepretation of "Mr. Mistoffelees," "Growltiger," "The Rum Tum Tugger," "Bustopher Jones," "Skimbleshanks," "Macavity: the Mystery Cat," and a variety of other memorable feline strays all of whom have been brought to life on the stage in the hit musical Cats.

Cats: The Jellicle Ball is running on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre.

See: Death of a Salesman

Read: The works of Arthur Miller

Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine, Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial. He has given us a figure whose name has become a symbol for a kind of majestic grandiosity—and a play that compresses epic extremes of humor and anguish, promise and loss, between the four walls of an American living room. Among Miller's other popular plays are All My Sons (1947), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (1955). 

Death of a Salesman is running on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre.

See: Beaches

Read: Beaches

Loudmouthed, redheaded Cee Cee Bloom has her sights set on Hollywood. Bertie White, quiet and conservative, dreams of getting married and having children. In 1951, their childhood worlds collide in Atlantic City. Keeping in touch as pen pals, they reunite over the years . . . always near the ocean. Powerful and moving, this novel follows Cee Cee and Bertie's extraordinary friendship over the course of thirty years as they transform from adolescents into adults. As they take divergent paths in life, they experience marriage and motherhood, triumph and heartbreak, and a beautiful friendship that stands the test of time. A bestselling novel that became a hugely successful film, Beaches is funny, heartbreaking, and a tale that should be a part of every woman's library.

Beaches is running on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre.

See: Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Read: The works of August Wilson

When Harold Loomis arrives at a black Pittsburgh boardinghouse after seven years' impressed labor on Joe Turner's chain gang, he is a free man—in body. But the scars of his enslavement and a sense of inescapable alienation oppress his spirit still, and the seemingly hospitable rooming house seethes with tension and distrust in the presence of this tormented stranger. Loomis is looking for the wife he left behind, believing that she can help him reclaim his old identity. But through his encounters with the other residents he begins to realize that what he really seeks is his rightful place in a new world—and it will take more than the skill of the local “People Finder” to discover it.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone is running on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.