The Public Theatre News

In 2024, the pioneering director George C. Wolfe, who brought iconic pieces like Angels in America and The Normal Heart to Broadway stages for the first time, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award. If that award is meant to signal the twilight of a career, however, fear not: Wolfe came back to New York the very next year with his critically acclaimed revival of Gypsy starring Audra McDonald. 

The North American Tour of SUFFS, the empowering and acclaimed Tony Award-winning musical, is now underway! Read the reviews as they come in here and learn more about the show.

Dear Readers, lately it feels like our most basic and dearly held civil liberties are being stripped away. And so, it’s good for us to recall how we got some of those rights. Along comes “Suffs”, a new musical with book, music, and lyrics by Shaina Taub, all about the Women’s suffrage movement, and if you weren’t motivated to demand more from our government before seeing the show, you will be after.

The Public Theatre will host the 28th Annual MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival on September 26 at 7:00 pm and September 27 at 3:00 and 7:00 pm. See here for more details!

Wallace Shawn will premiere his new play, What We Did Before Our Moth Days, directed by André Gregory, for a limited 12-week off-Broadway run at the Greenwich House Theater (27 Barrow St).

The Public Theatre will open its 35th season with an adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery. Learn more about the full upcoming lineup for the 2025-26 season here!

Harbinger Theatre will present their 18th production and 17th Capital Region Premiere with Deep Blue Sound by Abe Koogler, directed by Chris Foster. Learn more and see how to purchase tickets here.

UTA Theatre Arts and Dance begins the fall semester with two contemporary plays presented in repertory in the Studio Theatre. Will Powers 2018 play, Seize the King, is a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III seen through an Afrofuturist lens. Guest director Jiles King is excited for the challenges this play will bring to UTA Acting students, particularly the plays ' combination of contemporary and poetic language.' Seize the King opens September 19th in the Studio Theatre, running for four performances.

This unique collaboration brings together the best of both companies, celebrating the resilience, humor, and enduring spirit of the Irish people in a heartwarming production that will leave audiences clapping, laughing, and singing along. Almost 3,500 tickets have already been sold and matinees are filling up quickly.

Patricia White, the long-time company manager of Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre (NFT) and a well-known figure in Black Theatre, died. She had been hospitalized briefly and released for physical therapy to a nursing home, where she passed. 

Broadway's Claybourne Elder is releasing a studio recording of his popular one-man show, If the Stars Were Mine. The album will be released in late fall of 2025.

On August 13, a clear, warm summer evening, thousands filled the grassy downtown Brunswick Mall to enjoy a free evening of music performed by the stars of MSMT. The annual event, presented in collaboration with the Brunswick Downtown Association’s Music on the Mall series has grown in size since its inception eight years ago and continues to hold the record for the best attended outdoor event in the community. And the crowds come with good reason. It is an opportunity to hear the MSMT performers regale the audience with repertoire from musical theatre and popular covers, backed by an excellent five-piece band led by Music Director Jacob Stebly.

BroadwayWorld and Immortal Icons of Dance invited alumni who’ve been part of A Chorus Line’s history to share personal reflections about how the show shaped their lives and careers. Here we highlight ten of those voices whose intimate stories form a portrait of what this show has meant to those fortunate enough to be a part of it.

La Femme Theatre Productions will feature four new works created through three developmental initiatives celebrating emerging and established women artists. Learn more here!

The legend and Special TONY Winner Raises The Curtain on all things ACL, as Michael Bennett’s masterpiece celebrates its 50th Anniversary in New York City, which will reverberate and be recognized across the world, where hundreds, if not thousands, of productions have been performed in 22 countries, in multiple languages, and as far-reaching as Canada, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, France, Sweden, Japan, Argentia, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Hong Kong, among them, since 1975.

With the critically acclaimed revival of Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel currently playing, Artistic Director Tim Sheader and Executive Director Henny Finch has announced three new plays for Autumn 2025/26.

A staged reading of Sincerely, an original play written and directed by Analiese Bradshaw, will take place at Soho Playhouse. Learn more about the play here!

Last Friday, Tony-nominated actress and singer Jennifer Damiano shared her new EP, I'm So Sorry, Mary Jane. The collection of songs, produced by Van Hughes, is her retelling of coming up in show business. Listen to it now!

Maine Inside Out is raising $25,000 to continue its statewide tour of 'Broken Clock' after losing federal grant support. The play focuses on incarceration and systemic issues, with performances scheduled in prisons and public venues.

La MaMa ETC has announced it is renaming its Experiments in Playwriting Fellowship the MORGAN JENNESS EXPERIMENTS IN PLAYWRITING FELLOWSHIP after the late, revered dramaturg Morgan Jenness, who died last year following an illustrious career as a champion of young playwrights.