B'way Update: Cast for Mother Play; Death Becomes Her

Jessica Lange will star in
Paula Vogel's Mother Play.

Casting and dates have been announced for Mother Play by Paula Vogel (Indecent, How I Learned to Drive) to open this coming spring at Second Stage's Hayes Theater. Tony and Drama Desk winner Celia Keenan-Bolger (To Kill a Mockingbird), Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner Jessica Lange (Long Day's Journey Into Night), and Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG winner Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) will star in the world premiere directed by Tony nominee and Drama Desk winner Tina Landau (SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical). Previews begin April 2 with an April 25 opening. 

Lange will play Phyllis, a domineering matriarch supervising the move of her teenaged children Carl (Parsons) and Martha (Keenan-Bolger) into a new apartment outside Washington, DC in 1962. Phyllis has definite ideas about how her children should lead their lives. The play follows the family's rollercoaster ride through the coming years. 

In other news, Megan Hilty (Smash) and Jennifer Simard (Disaster, Once Upon a One More Time) will star in a musical version of the 1992 film comedy Death Becomes Her which starred Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, set to play Chicago's Cadillac Theater from April 30-June 2, 2024. The new musical, which has its sights set on Broadway, features a score by Noel Carey and Julia Mattison, book by Marco Pennette and direction by Christopher Gattelli (Newsies). Simard plays Helen, a writer whose husband has an affair with her former friend Madeline (Hilty), a glamorous movie star. As Helen plots her revenge against Madeline, the stakes becomes higher when both partake of a mysterious potion granting them eternal youth and beauty. 

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in
Death Becomes Her.

2023-24 Broadway and Off-Broadway Calendar

Fall 2023
Sept. 12--Infinite Life (Atlantic Theater Company/Linda Gross)
Sept. 12--Dig (Primary Stages/59E59)
Sept. 14--Death, Let Me Do My Show (Lortel)
Sept. 15--Prometheus Firebringer (begins previews; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Shakespeare Center)

Sept. 17--Swing State (Audible/Minetta Lane)

Sept. 18--Job (Soho Playhouse)

Sept. 27--Purlie Victorious (Music Box)

Sept. 28--Melissa Etheridge: My Window (Circle in the Square)

Oct. 3--Jaja's African Hair Braiding (MTC/Friedman)

Oct. 4--The Refuge Plays (Roundabout/NYTW/Laura Pels)

Oct. 4--DruidO'Casey (Public/NYU Skirball Center)

Oct. 6--Stereophonic (begins previews; opening TBA) (Playwrights Horizons)

Oct. 10--Merrily We Roll Along (Hudson)

Oct. 12--Gutenberg! The Musical (James Earl Jones)

Oct. 22--Here We Are (The Shed Griffin Theater)

Oct. 29--Translations (Irish Repertory Theater)

Oct. 30--I Can Get It for You Wholesale (CSC)

Nov. 1--Poor Yella Rednecks (MTC/City Center Stage I)

Nov. 2--I Need That (Roundabout/AA)

Nov. 2--Sabbath's Theater (New Group/Signature Theater)

Nov. 4--Waiting for Godot (begins previews; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Center)

Nov. 12--Scene Partners (Vineyard Theater)

Nov. 13--Harmony (Barrymore)

Nov. 13--Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Lortel)

Nov. 16--Monty Python's Spamalot (St. James)

Nov. 19--Hell's Kitchen (Public)

Nov. 20--The Gardens of Anuncia (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)

Nov. 24--Lone Star (Ruth Stage/Theater Row)

Nov. 30--Spain (Second Stage/Terry Kiser)

Nov.--Sad Boys in Harpy Land; Amusements; School Pictures (solo shows performed in repertory at Playwrights Horizons)

Winter 2023-24

Dec. 5--Manhatta (Public)

Dec. 10--How To Dance in Ohio (Belasco)

Dec. 12--Buena Vista Social Club (Atlantic Theater Company/Linda Gross)

Dec. 18--Appropriate (Second Stage/Hayes)

Jan. 9--Prayer for the French Republic (MTC/Friedman)

Jan. 17--Public Obscenities (previews begin; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Center)

Jan. 21--Aristocrats (IRT)

Feb. 8--Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy (Vineyard Theater)

Feb. 21--Teeth (previews begin; opening TBA) (Playwrights Horizons)

Feb. 26--Pericles (previews begin; opening TBA) (CSC)

Feb.--Doubt: A Parable (Roundabout/AA)

Feb.--The Ally (Public)

TBA--Brooklyn Laundry (MTC/City Center Stage I)

TBA--An Enemy of the People

TBA--I Love You So Much I Could Die (NYTW)

Spring 2024

March 14--The Notebook (Schoenfeld)

March 19--Fish (Keen Co./Theater Five) (previews begin; opening TBA)

March 24--Philadelphia, Here I Come (IRT)

March--Sally and Tom (Public)

April 5--Macbeth (an undoing) (previews begin; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Center)

April 11--The Outsiders (Jacobs)

April 12--Staff Meal (previews begin; opening TBA) (Playwrights Horizons)

April 25--Mother Play (Second Stage/Hayes)

April--Jordans (Public)

May 2--Wine in the Wilderness (previews begin; opening TBA) (CSC)

June--Cats (Perelman Performing Arts Center)

TBA--Cabaret (August Wilson)

TBA--Here There Are Blueberries (NYTW)

TBA--Home (Roundabout/AA)

TBA--Jonah (Roundabout/Laura Pels)

TBA--The Wiz

Fall 2024

King Lear (Kenneth Branagh Theater Company/The Shed)

2024-25

Smash

Spring 2025

Show Boat (Target Margin/NYU Skirball)

Future--Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death; Beaches the Musical; Black Orpheus; BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical; Come Fall in Love--The DDLJ Musical; Death Becomes Her; The Devil Wears Prada; Ella: An American Miracle; Everybody's Talking About Jamie; Frida, the Musical; Game of Thrones; The Great Gatsby; The Griswolds' Broadway Vacation; High Noon; Imitation of Life; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; The Karate Kid; La La Land; Lempicka; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; The Mousetrap; Nancy Drew and the Mystery at Spotlight Manor; Our Town; Pal Joey; The Nanny; The Normal Heart/The Destiny of Me; The Secret Garden; Sing Street; Soul Train; Water for Elephants; What a Wonderful World; The Who's Tommy; Working Girl.