2018-19 B'way/Off-B'way Update

Ivo Van Hove
Credit: Stephanie Berger

Several new shows have been announced for the 2018-19 Broadway and Off-Broadway season since our last update and they all sound intriguing. International avant-garde sensation and Tony winner Ivo Van Hove will direct his first Broadway musical with a revival of West Side Story. Heaven knows what the unconventional helmer with do with the Bernstein-Laurents-Sondheim-Robbins classic. He turned A View from the Bridge, The Crucible and A Streetcar Named Desire inside out and his current production of The Damned at the Park Avenue Armory just opened to reviews praising his daring. What's really weird is the show starts begins Dec. 10, 2019 and it is

Damon Daunno in Daniel Fish's staging of Oklahoma! 
at Bard College in 2015.

slated to open Feb. 6, 2020 at a theater TBA. That's almost two months of previews! Maybe van Hove, who is extremely busy with upcoming stage productions of All About Eve in London, A Little Life in Amsterdam, and Don Giovanni in Parsi and at the Met on his plate, needs time to work out his startling ideas. West Side Story is also getting a film update from Tony Kushner and Steve Spielberg as well as current productions at the Guthrie and Glimmerglass. Oklahoma! will also get the revision treatment when Daniel Fish's production opens at St. Ann's Warehouse in October. I saw this production at Bard College in 2015 and it treats the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic in a radically new and relevant style.

Glenda Jackson as Lear in London
Credit: Manuel Harlan

Speaking of unconventional productions, Tony-Emmy-Oscar winner Glenda Jackson will follow up her triumph in Three Tall Women with a cross-gender production of King Lear. Her first stage appearance since her career in Parliament was in a London production as the raging royal. This New York version will be a new staging with an American cast. That last time an actress attempted this Mount Everest of Shakespearean roles with when Mabou Mines did a radical reinterpretation in 1990 with Ruth Maleczech as a Southern matriarch type. Jackson's version opens next April.

Off-Broadway, Lincoln Center will present Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem at the Mitzi Newhouse will My Fair Lady continues upstairs at the Vivian Beaumont. Girl from the North Country, a hit in London comprised of Bob Dylan tunes, will open at the Public. Hopefully, it will fare better than The Times They Are A-Changin', Twyla Tharp's 2006 Broadway flop employing the Dylan songbook.

Here is an updated calendar of Broadway and Off-Broadway openings for 2018-19:

July 23--Straight White Men (Second Stage/Helen Hayes)

July 24--This Ain't No Disco (Atlantic Theater Company)

July 26--Head Over Heels (Hudson)
July 30--A House That Will Not Stand (NYTW)

July 31--Twelfth Night (Public/Delacorte)

Aug. 13--Getting the Band Back Together (Belasco)

Aug. 16--Pretty Woman (Nederlander)

Sept. 25--Berndhart/Hamlet (Roundabout/American Airlines)

Sept. 27--The Nap (MTC/Friedman)
Oct. 1--Girl from the North Country (Public)
Oct. 7--Oklahoma! (St. Ann's Warehouse)
Oct. 15--Fireflies (Atlantic Theater Company)

Oct. 16--Apologia (Roundabout/Laura Pels)

Oct. 18--The Lifespan of a Fact (Studio 54)
Oct. 18--Gloria: A Life (Daryl Roth)

Oct. 21--The Ferryman (Jacobs)
Oct. 22-Plot Points in Our Sexual Development (LCT/Clare Tow)
Oct. 23--India Pale Ale (MTC/City Center Stage I)

Oct. 25--The Waverly Gallery (Golden)
Oct. 25--The Niceties (MTC/Stage II)

Nov. 1--Torch Song (Second Stage/Hayes)
Nov. 4--American Son (Booth)
Nov. 7--Eve's Song (Public)

Nov. 8--King Kong (Broadway)

Nov. 15--The Prom (Cort)
Nov. 19--The Hard Problem (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)

Dec. 3--The Cher Show (Neil Simon)

Dec. 13--To Kill a Mockingbird (Shubert)
Jan. 7--Blue Ridge (Atlantic Theater Company)

Jan. 22--Choir Boy (MTC/Freidman)

Jan. 24--True West (Roundabout/American Airlines)
Feb. 19--Merrily We Roll Along (Roundabout/Fiasco/Laura Pels)

March 14--Kiss Me, Kate (Roundabout/Studio 54)
2019--The Secret Garden, Burn This
April 11--King Lear (Theater TBA)

April 24--Ink (MTC/Friedman)

Spring 2019--Tootsie
Feb. 6, 2020--West Side Story
2020--Michael Jackson Musical

Future--Death Becomes Her, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge the Musical, Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical, The Devil Wears Prada, Jagged Little Pill, Working Girl, Half-Time, Roman Holiday, The Wiz, Camp David, Photograph 51, An Enemy of the People, Sherlock Holmes, Singin' in the Rain, Pat Benatar Musical

2018-19 Broadway Season

New Plays
American Son
Bernhardt/Hamlet
The Ferryman
Ink
The Lifespan of a Fact
The Nap
To Kill a Mockingbird

New Musicals
The Cher Show
Getting the Band Back Together
Head Over Heels
Pretty Woman
The Prom
Tootsie

Play Revivals
The Boys in the Band
Choir Boy
King Lear
Straight White Men
Torch Song
True West
The Waverly Gallery

Musical Revivals
Kiss Me, Kate