It’s the end of the 21st-century and Bert Allenberry is longing for the past.
This World of Tomorrow features Academy Award winner Tom Hanks in the story of a forlorn scientist from the future. When Bert embarks on a time-traveling quest for true love, he returns—again, and again, and again—to one special day at the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens, New York.
This new play is written by Tom Hanks and James Glossman, based on short stories written by Tom Hanks,.
Out of the collision of technology and desire, nostalgia and history, what life will Bert choose as his own?
I would feel churlish offering a lengthy catalogue of all the ways the play falls short as a work of contemporary theater; it seems largely beside the point. The production offers the rare thrill not only of watching this beloved movie star in person, but of seeing something of his that feels almost homespun.
The play’s futuristic framework notwithstanding, and despite the distinct “Groundhog Day” element to its conceit, connoisseurs of Nora Ephron’s movie “You’ve Got Mail” will detect several echoes of that classic here. Not because of any writerly pilfering but mainly because Hanks, who made his Broadway debut a dozen years ago in a posthumous production of Ephron’s “Lucky Guy,” is the one speaking the lines.
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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