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Francis Guinan and K. Todd Freeman
in Downstate at Playwrights Horizons.
Credit: Joan Marcus |
Two plays which had critically acclaimed Off-Broadway runs, Bruce Norris'
Downstate and Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich's
Here There Are Blueberries, have announced Broadway engagements.
Downstate will play the Booth Theater this fall (no specific dates have been posted), according to the
Chicago Tribune, while
Blueberries will start previews at the Barrymore Theater on Nov. 2 and open on Nov. 9.
Downstate, Norris' play about four men convicted of sexual offenses living in a group home, opened at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater in 2018, played London in 2019, then opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2022, and Washington DC in 2025. The New York Drama Critics Circle voted it the Best Play of the 2022-23 season. This Broadway edition will be a new staging, directed by Tony winner Joe Mantello. (The previous productions were directed by Pam McKinnon.) The Tribune also reports that Francis Guinan and K. Todd Freeman, veterans of the Chicago, London, and NYC versions, will repeat their roles.
During Downstate's DC run, conservative politicians slammed the play for its humanistic portrayal of sex offenders. Norris stated before the NYC run, “A depiction of something is not an endorsement. But, I do think that witnessing the lives of characters on stage encourages identification, and if you spend two hours in the company of a group of sex offenders, do you emerge from the experience with your certainty about them momentarily disrupted? The goal is not to forgive, but rather to complicate an easy and casually cruel response.”
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Kathleen Chalfant, Nemuna Ceesay,
Jonathan Raviv, and Elizabeth Stahlmann in
Here There Are Blueberries at NYTW.
Credit: Matthew Murphy
|
Blueberries is Tectonic Theater Project's documentary dramatization of the discovery of a book of photographs of Nazi officials and staff of a concentration camp enjoying themselves in leisure activities. The play opened at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022 and played Off-Broadway at the New York Theater Workshop in 2024. It subsequently was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won a Lortel Award for Best New Play.
Says Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project Executive Director Matt Joslyn in a statement: “For Tectonic Theater Project, bringing Here There Are Blueberries to Broadway is the culmination of a remarkable journey. These photographs hold a mirror up to our humanity in the most intimate and unsettling way. We have to look at them—not to understand the people in the pictures, but to better understand ourselves.”
Both shows deal with facing uncomfortable figures and show a trend towards mining Off-Broadway for Broadway dramatic productions. There are only four totally new plays planned for the Main Stem this season and 12 play revivals.
2026-27 Broadway and Off-Broadway Calendar
Fall 2026
Sept. 11--America, Who Hurt You? (Theater for a New Audience) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Sept. 14--Pre-Existing Condition (Greenwich House)
Sept. 14--In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York Theater Workshop)
Sept. 15--creation stories and all the important importants (LCT/Clara Tow) (Previews begin, opening TBA)
Sept. 27--How Shakespeare Saved My Life (Public)
Spet. 27--Midnight (Daryl Roth)
Sept. 28--School Girls or The African Mean Girls Play (MTC/Friedman)
Sept. 29--Degenerates (Playwrights Horizons)
Oct. 4--The Hairy Ape (Irish Repertory Theater)
Oct. 4--Slam Frank (Orpheum)
Oct. 9--Good Time Charley (Public)
Oct. 11--Fish (Signature Theater Company/WP Theater)
Oct. 13--The Unbelievers (MTC/City Center)
Oct. 14--Anon--a tempest at our kitchen table (MCC)
Oct. 16--I Become We (Atlantic Theater Co.) (Previews begins; opening TBA)
Oct. 18--Other Desert Cities (Hudson)
Oct. 19--King of the Yees (Signature Theater Company)
Oct. 21--The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Public)
Oct. 21--860 (Imperial)
Oct. 22--The Imaginary Invalid (Roundabout/Todd Haimes)
Oct. 22--Magic Mike Live New York
Oct. 22--2:22: A Ghost Story (Lortel)
Oct. 29--A Few Good Men (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)
Nov. 1--Ms. Blakk for President (Vineyard)
Nov. 2--Waiting for Lefty (CSC)
Nov. 3--We'll See (Public)
Nov. 5--The Verge (Public)
Nov. 8--Wanted (James Earl Jones)
Nov. 9--Here There Are Blueberries (Barrymore)
Nov. 9--The Visitors (Second Stage/Signature Center)
Nov. 10--Elektra (Theater for a New Audience) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Nov. 12--The Good Thief (Irish Repertory Theater)
Nov. 16--The Fantasticks (Revised Version) (Second Stage/Hayes)
Nov. 19--Much Ado About Nothing (Winter Garden)
Nov. 21--Imitation of Life (The Shed/National Black Theater) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Nov. 23--Seven Guitars (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
Nov. 24--Wild Rose (NYTW) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Nov. 24--The Dead, 1904 (IRT/American Irish Historical Society)
Downstate (Booth)
Dreamgirls
The Heart (Roundabout/Laura Pels)
HOLE! (Playwrights Horizons)
Jackals (New Group/Theater at St. Clements)
the ripple, the wave that carried me home (Playwrights Horizons)
Winter 2026-27
Dec. 1--Inter Alia (Music Box)
Dec. 6--Galileo: A Rock Musical (Shubert) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Dec. 7--A View from the Bridge (LaMaMa)
Dec. 13--Finn (Atlantic Theater Co.) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Jan. 9--Too Bad for Her (Atlatntic Theater Co. ) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Jan. 13--Honor, An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra in Tandem with Lili Taylor (Theater for a New Audience) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Jan. 19--Dolly: A True Original Musical (St. James)
Jan. 27--Mix and Master (Roundabout/Todd Haimes)
Jan. 28--Pretend It's Pretend (LCT/Clara Tow) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Jan. 2027--Awake and Sing (MTC/Samuel Friedman)
Jan. 2027--The Heart Sellers (MCC)
Feb. 11--The Grief Eater Near North Bender (Roundabout/NYTW/Laura Pels)
Feb. 22--Work of Devotion (Second Stage/Signature Center)
Feb. 25--Faydra (MTC/City Center Stage I)
Feb. 28--King Lear (Theater for a New Audience) (previews begin, opening TBA)
Feb. 29--Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (CSC)
Feb. 2027--Three Days of Rain (Shubert theater TBA)
Feb. 2027--Petra (Vineyard Theater)
Feb. 2027--Miles for Mary (Signature Theater Company)
Are the Bennett Girls OK? (Public)
Welcome Table (Public)
Wold Meteor (Playwrights Horizons)
Spring 2027
March 18--Old Actress (Atlantic Theater Co.) (previews begin, opening TBA)
March 25--Evita (Winter Garden)
April 5--Gloria (Second Stage/Hayes)
April 12--Purple Rain (Majestic)
April 15--The Sound of Music (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)
April 18--Paddington the Musical (Al Hirschfeld)
April 25--The Full Monty (Roundabout/Todd Haimes)
April 28--how to roll a blunt (Second Stage/Signature Center)
April--Warriors (Lunt-Fontanne)
May 6--Born in the Dirt (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
May 24--Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret (CSC)
May 27--Push (Atlantic Theater Co.) (previews begin, opening TBA)
May 2027--Angela's Mixtape (Signature Theater Company)
The Annunciation (Playwrights Horizons)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Damn Yankees
Feast of Rabbits (Playwrights Horizons)
Montauk (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman)
The Vagina Monologues (Roundabout/Laura Pels)
Summer 2027
June--What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (MCC)
Aug. 17--10 Things I hate About You (previews begin, opening TBA)
Dates TBD
Let the Good Times Roll: A New Orleans Gumbo
Private Lives
MISS STEP (Playwrights Horizons)
Narcissister (Playwrights Horizons)
New work by Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri (Playwright Horizons)
Playing Burton (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
Future--Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death; Beat Street; Black Orpheus; Coal Miner's Daughter; Come Fall in Love--The DDLJ Musical; Crazy Rich Asians; Dare To Be Stupid: The Weird Al Yankovic Musical; The Devil Wears Prada; Ella: An American Miracle; Eurovision Song Contest; Everybody's Talking About Jamie; Fahrenheit 451; Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Musical; Frida, the Musical; Game of Thrones; Get Happy; The Griswolds' Broadway Vacation; High Noon; Imitation of Life; The Interestings; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; The Karate Kid; La La Land; The Mousetrap; Nancy Drew and the Mystery at Spotlight Manor; The Nanny; The Normal Heart/The Destiny of Me; Pal Joey; Particle Fever; Purple Rain; The Queen's Gambit; Rear Window; The Secret Garden; Sing Street; Slumdog Millionaire; Soul Train; Studio 54; Waking Ned Devine; Working Girl.
2026-27 Broadway Season Breakdown
New Plays
Inter Alia
Mix and Master
Montauk
Paranormal Activity
New Musicals
Dolly: A True Original Musical
Galileo, A Rock Musical
Let the Good Times Roll: A New Orleans Gumbo
Paddington The Musical
Purple Rain
Wanted
Warriors
Play Revivals
Awake and Sing
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Downstate
A Few Good Men
Gloria
Here There Are Blueberries
The Imaginary Invalid
Much Ado About Nothing
Other Desert Cities
Private Lives
School Girls or the African Mean Girls Play
Three Days of Rain
Musical Revivals
Damn Yankees
Dreamgirls
Evita
The Fantasticks
The Full Monty
The Sound of Music
Solos/Specialties
860 (Billy Crystal)
Celebrity Autobiography
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