\n<\/p>\n
OPERATION MINCEMEAT<\/a><\/strong> A sneaky compassion lies at the heart of this caper of a show, a deliciously eccentric London import<\/a> that won the 2024 Olivier Award<\/a> for best new musical. Starring the original West End cast, it\u2019s a riff on a bizarre true story from World War II, when British Intelligence, keen to misdirect the Germans, dressed up a dead man as a Royal Marines major, planted a fake invasion plan on him and dropped him in the sea for the enemy to find. Through June 15 at the Golden Theater. (All theater listings by LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB<\/a><\/strong> This jukebox musical about the Cuban artists who made the Grammy Award-winning 1997 album of the title isn\u2019t straight biography. Developed and directed by Saheem Ali<\/a> (\u201cFat Ham\u201d), it uses real people and events as a jumping-off point for its storytelling. Rooted in the recording sessions, and choreographed by Patricia Delgado and the Tony winner Justin Peck (\u201cIllinoise\u201d), it was an Off Broadway hit<\/a> last season for Atlantic Theater Company. Performances begin Feb. 21 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.<\/em><\/p>\n OTHELLO<\/a><\/strong> Denzel Washington<\/a> made a Broadway box-office hit out of \u201cJulius Caesar<\/a>\u201d two decades ago. On the big screen, he has played Macbeth<\/a>. Now he takes on Shakespeare\u2019s Othello<\/a> \u2014 the honorable general and smitten newlywed. Jake Gyllenhaal is his foil as the perfidious Iago, who goads Othello into unreasoning jealousy with lies about his beloved Desdemona (Molly Osborne). Directed by Kenny Leon, a Tony winner for his revival of \u201cA Raisin in the Sun<\/a>,\u201d which also starred Washington. Feb. 24-June 8 at the Barrymore Theater.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n PURPOSE<\/a><\/strong> Fresh off his Tony win for \u201cAppropriate<\/a>,\u201d the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins returns with a new drama<\/a> about the members of a famous, albeit fictional, Black political dynasty in Chicago, reckoning with history, morality and legacy as they gather for a celebration. Phylicia Rashad directs this Steppenwolf Theater production, whose ensemble cast includes Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis, Jon Michael Hill, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Harry Lennix and another 2024 Tony winner, Kara Young<\/a>. Feb. 25-July 6 at the Helen Hayes Theater.<\/em><\/p>\n GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS<\/a><\/strong> David Mamet\u2019s luxuriantly crude, bare-knuckled real estate drama, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, gets its third Broadway revival. Kieran Culkin<\/a>, last on Broadway a decade ago in \u201cThis Is Our Youth<\/a>,\u201d stars as Richard Roma \u2014 the Al Pacino role in the movie adaptation \u2014 opposite Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, Donald Webber Jr., Howard W. Overshown and John Pirruccello. Patrick Marber, a 2023 Tony winner for his production of \u201cLeopoldstadt,\u201d directs. How\u2019s that for a lead? March 10-May 31 at the Palace Theater.<\/em><\/p>\n THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY<\/a><\/strong> Theatergoing admirers of the HBO drama \u201cSuccession\u201d love to ascribe its savvy artistry partly to the considerable stage chops<\/a> among its cast. Now Sarah Snook, the Australian actor who played Shiv Roy \u2014 older sister to Kieran Culkin\u2019s Roman \u2014 makes her Broadway debut in Kip Williams\u2019s intricately high-tech retelling of Oscar Wilde\u2019s classic novel. Snook takes on all 26 characters, a feat that won her raves, and a 2024 Olivier Award, in the London run<\/a> of this Sydney Theater Company production. March 10-June 15 at the Music Box Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n BOOP! THE MUSICAL<\/a><\/strong> The black-and-white 1930s cartoon character Betty Boop time-travels to a richly chromatic future in this new show<\/a>, with Jasmine Amy Rogers making her Broadway debut in the title role, and Faith Prince and Stephen DeRosa among the supporting cast. Directed and choreographed by the Tony-winning Jerry Mitchell, the show has a book by Bob Martin (\u201cThe Drowsy Chaperone\u201d), music by David Foster, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead and a set by David Rockwell. Performances begin March 11 at the Broadhurst Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN<\/a><\/strong> In Arthur Miller\u2019s \u201cThe Crucible,\u201d a skewering of McCarthyism set amid the witch trials of 17th-century Massachusetts, John Proctor is meant to be the hero. This #MeToo play by Kimberly Belflower<\/a> turns that presumption on its head, with a group of contemporary high school girls who detect similarities between Miller\u2019s putative good guy and the men in their own world. Sadie Sink (\u201cStranger Things\u201d) stars; Danya Taymor, a Tony winner for \u201cThe Outsiders,\u201d directs. March 20-June 22 at the Booth Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n STRANGER THINGS: THE FIRST SHADOW<\/a><\/strong> Set in Hawkins, Ind., in 1959, this Olivier-winning sensory spectacle of a play is a prequel to the supernatural Netflix series \u201cStranger Things.\u201d Directed by Stephen Daldry, it has a script by Kate Trefry, a writer on the hit series, and an original story by Trefry, Jack Thorne and the Duffer brothers, who created the series. Transferring from London\u2019s West End, where it opened in 2023<\/a>, the show is recommended for ages 12 and up. Performances begin March 28 at the Marquis Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES: THE MUSICAL<\/a><\/strong> Josefina L\u00f3pez\u2019s 1990 play<\/a> has never been as well known as the 2002 film<\/a> it spawned, which starred America Ferrera in her breakthrough role. Now both of those form the bases of this new musical<\/a> about Ana (Tatianna C\u00f3rdoba), an American teenager in 1980s Los Angeles trying to reconcile her aspirations for herself with her obligations to her undocumented immigrant family. Directed and choreographed by the Tony winner Sergio Trujillo, with music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez. Performances begin April 1 at the James Earl Jones Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n DEAD OUTLAW<\/a><\/strong> The hapless Elmer McCurdy wasn\u2019t much good as an Old West criminal, but the real-life, sideshow-attraction saga<\/a> of his mummified corpse made for a rollicking sleeper-hit musical comedy<\/a> Off Broadway last year. Once again starring Andrew Durand as Elmer, playing dead like nobody\u2019s business, it\u2019s a country-tinged tale with a conscience from the book writer Itamar Moses, the composer-lyricist David Yazbek and the director David Cromer \u2014 Tony winners all for \u201cThe Band\u2019s Visit\u201d \u2014 and the composer-lyricist Erik Della Penna. Performances begin April 12 at the Longacre Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n GODDESS<\/a><\/strong> The director Saheem Ali returns to a passion project with this musical inspired by the myth of Marimba, the goddess of music, which Ali heard as a child growing up in Kenya. Conceived by Ali, who directed the premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2022, the show has a book by Jocelyn Bioh (\u201cJaja\u2019s African Hair Braiding<\/a>\u201d), music and lyrics by Michael Thurber and choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie, all of whom made \u201cMerry Wives<\/a>\u201d with Ali for Shakespeare in the Park in 2021. April 29-June 1 at the Public Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n GHOSTS<\/a><\/strong> Nothing against nepo babies, truly, but the most unignorable thing about Lincoln Center Theater\u2019s casting of this Henrik Ibsen drama is the critical mass of them. Lily Rabe (daughter of Jill Clayburgh and David Rabe) stars alongside Ella Beatty (daughter of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty), Levon Hawke (son of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke) and her own partner<\/a>, Hamish Linklater (son of the renowned vocal coach Kristin Linklater<\/a>). Billy Crudup, who completes the cast of this Mark O\u2019Rowe adaptation, is the odd man out. Jack O\u2019Brien directs. Through April 13 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC<\/a><\/strong> Returning to form as a cultural hotspot, BAM has a blazing London import<\/a> in the Almeida Theater\u2019s Olivier-winning production of \u201cA Streetcar Named Desire<\/a>\u201d (Feb. 28-April 6). Starring Paul Mescal as Stanley Kowalski and Patsy Ferran as Blanche DuBois, it\u2019s directed by Rebecca Frecknall, whose revival of \u201cCabaret\u201d is currently on Broadway. Then comes \u201cMacbeth in Stride<\/a>\u201d (April 15-April 27). Written by the Obie Award winner Whitney White, and performed by her and an ensemble, it uses Lady Macbeth as a frame for examining Black womanhood and ambition. A live band plays White\u2019s gospel, rock, R&B and pop score. Harvey Theater at BAM Strong<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n AMERIKIN<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>What if, to be accepted into a friendly local club you were eager to join, you had to pass a DNA test? And what if you were mistaken in thinking that you would ace it? In this play by Chisa Hutchinson, the exclusive group is made up of white supremacists, and their would-be recruit (Daniel Abeles) is a new father only now learning about his own family tree. Jade King Carroll directs for Primary Stages. March 1-April 13 at 59E59 Theaters<\/em>.<\/p>\n WINE IN THE WILDERNESS<\/a><\/strong> In Harlem in 1964, a model (Olivia Washington) sits for a painter (Grantham Coleman) who means to depict her as a negative example in his otherwise idealizing triptych on Black femininity. This Alice Childress play had its premiere on public television in 1969. Now LaChanze makes her New York directing debut with it \u2014 a continuation of her championing of Childress<\/a>, the author of \u201cTrouble in Mind<\/a>,\u201d the play LaChanze starred in on Broadway three years ago. March 6-April 13, Classic Stage Company<\/em>.<\/p>\n VANYA<\/a><\/strong> Among the recent<\/a> spate<\/a> of stagings of Chekhov\u2019s \u201cUncle Vanya,\u201d this is the one with Andrew Scott performing every role<\/a>. Adapted by Simon Stephens as an eight-character solo piece and created with Scott, this is more than a party trick. It\u2019s a cheeky, nimble, intimate interpretation that\u2019s also a workout for the imagination. Sam Yates\u2019s Olivier-winning production has been filmed for National Theater Live. But a camera can\u2019t convey the feeling of experiencing it<\/a> in the moment, let alone in a room as human-scale as this downtown space. March 10-May 11 at the Lucille Lortel Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n THE CHERRY ORCHARD<\/a><\/strong> Humor is to the fore<\/a> in the Donmar Warehouse\u2019s immersive production of this Chekhov classic, which wowed London audiences last year. Directed by Benedict Andrews, who brought his acclaimed production of \u201cA Streetcar Named Desire<\/a>\u201d to Brooklyn in 2016, it stars Nina Hoss (\u201cT\u00e1r\u201d) as the entitled aristocrat Ranevskaya, an estate owner drowning in debt, opposite Adeel Akhtar as Lopakhin, the socially ascendant merchant who proposes a solution. March 26-April 20 at St. Ann\u2019s Warehouse<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n EURYDICE<\/a><\/strong> Maya Hawke (sister of Levon) plays the title role in this revival of Sarah Ruhl\u2019s piercingly beautiful<\/a>, comically offbeat retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Directed by Les Waters, who staged the play breathtakingly<\/a> almost two decades ago, it is about love and connection, mortality and memory. When the just-married Eurydice dies, she descends in an elevator to the underworld, where her tender father takes care of her while Orpheus pines. May 13-June 22 at Signature Theater<\/em>.<\/p>\n LUNAR ECLIPSE<\/a><\/strong> Reed Birney and Lisa Emery portray a long-married Kentucky couple, watching the summer sky and talking through the night, in this new two-hander by Donald Margulies, who won a Pulitzer in 2000 for \u201cDinner With Friends<\/a>,\u201d another play about enduring coupledom starring Emery. In \u201cLunar Eclipse,\u201d Birney is reprising his role from a 2023 production<\/a> at Shakespeare & Company in Western Massachusetts. Kate Whoriskey (\u201cClyde\u2019s\u201d) directs this staging, an Off Broadway premiere for Second Stage Theater. May 14-June 22 at Pershing Square Signature Center<\/em>.<\/p>\n FKA TWIGS<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>The English avant-pop goddess FKA twigs remakes the club in her own image on her latest album, \u201cEusexua,\u201d<\/a> which she has described as \u201ca love letter to how dance music makes me feel.\u201d With a background in both ballet and opera, FKA twigs \u2014 whose real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett \u2014 approaches her electronic compositions with a highbrow experimentalist\u2019s sense of daring, but the 11 tracks of \u201cEusexua\u201d are among the most straightforward and pop-oriented of her career. With her nimble, flinty falsetto leading the way, the 37-year old puts her own spin on the techno, garage and drum and bass sounds she grew up with while unearthing dormant desires and articulating her own pleasure principle. \u201cEusexua\u201d is a record meant to be experienced in a crowd full of dancing, sweaty bodies \u2014 an opportunity twigs will offer when she takes it on tour this spring. April 3 and 4 at Knockdown Center, Queens. (LINDSAY ZOLADZ)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n DARKSIDE<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>The shape-shifting electro-psychedelia group Darkside began as the electronic producer Nicol\u00e1s Jaar and the multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington, two accomplished, wide-ranging musicians who started playing together in 2011 as students at Brown. On their third LP, the immersive \u201cNothing,\u201d the band includes the drummer Tlacael Esparza, who is likewise adept at playing just about every style imaginable. That fluidity gives \u201cNothing\u201d a thrilling unpredictability \u2014 and a license to explore a sonic cosmos that encompasses liquid funk, airy ambience and sudden spurts of garage rock, among other sounds. Esparza\u2019s anchor also allows Darkside to indulge its inner jam band, a development that may unlock something new in the group\u2019s performances. March 21 and 22 at Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn. (L.Z.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n MEGAN MORONEY<\/a><\/strong> Looking for an experience that allows you to wallow in the limitless depths of your sorrow? There is one easy solution for the relentless masochism that unites the brokenhearted: the country singer Megan Moroney<\/a>, who brings her Am I Okay? Tour to New York in March. Moroney has had a banner couple of years, releasing albums and songs about heavy frustration and even heavier regret at a Drake-like pace. She has a soothing voice, but it\u2019s a Trojan horse for the kind of angst that most musicians \u2014 hell, most people \u2014 are too scared to traffic in. So come along and bathe in the misery: Maybe you\u2019ll find someone who will hold your hand while you cling to theirs. March 26 and 27 at Radio City Music Hall, Manhattan.<\/em> (JON CARAMANICA)<\/em><\/p>\n C\u00c9CILE MCLORIN SALVANT<\/a><\/strong> \u201cShe falls in love. She eats the guy. She dies.\u201d That\u2019s how the singer, composer, lyricist and visual artist C\u00e9cile McLorin Salvant<\/a> sums up \u201cOgresse,\u201d the music-theater work she\u2019ll bring to Zankel Hall in May in its latest iteration. \u201cOgresse\u201d is a fairy tale-inspired story of a monster who\u2019s conquered by love, with a score that ranges across jazz, chamber music and more. McLorin also headlines Carnegie Hall in March<\/a> with a nominally more conventional jazz concert: a program of ballads backed by a mini-orchestra, the Knights. But the arrangements are by Darcy James Argue, whose compositions for his own 18-piece Secret Society big band bristle with ambition; the pianist Sullivan Fortner, McLorin\u2019s longtime collaborator and a master of splintered, polytonal harmonies, will also join her. McLorin\u2019s supple voice can radiate innocence, yet she\u2019s anything but na\u00efve. Her versions of jazz standards promise to be as adventurous as her ever-changing eyewear. March 27 at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan; and May 21 at Zankel Hall, Manhattan,<\/em> (JON PARELES)<\/em><\/p>\n STILE ANTICO<\/a><\/strong> Palestrina, that master of gleaming polyphony, was born 500 years ago. The superb vocal ensemble Stile Antico has already honored the anniversary with a recording<\/a>, sung with lushness and focus, and in March, Miller Theater will present the group in a program based on the album. At the center is a sizable helping of Palestrina, of course, rounded out with pieces by other composers active in Rome during his time, including Orlande de Lassus and Tom\u00e1s Luis de Victoria \u2014 and even a premiere, by Cheryl Frances-Hoad. March 29 at Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Manhattan. (All classical listings by ZACHARY WOOLFE)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n PATRICIA KOPATCHINSKAJA<\/a><\/strong> The violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, whose performances can send jolts through even the most well-trod pieces, has a far more active career in Europe than in America. So her debut with the New York Philharmonic, as the soloist in Stravinsky\u2019s elegantly bristling Violin Concerto, is not to be missed, particularly since she\u2019s appearing alongside the stylish yet vigorous conductor Jakub Hrusa, who also leads Brahms\u2019s First Symphony. Jessie Montgomery, who composed a bit of the cycle \u201cThe Elements\u201d for the Philharmonic a couple of years ago, opens the program with a full work of her own, \u201cChemiluminescence.\u201d April 9-11 at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n LONG PLAY FESTIVAL<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>For years, the Bang on a Can Marathon was an annual, open-eared immersion in contemporary music. Since 2022, the marathon\u2019s energy and variety has sprawled over a weekend and a borough, with a burst of performances at spaces around Brooklyn. Among the offerings this year are pieces by the Bang on a Can founders, Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe; a premiere by Henry Threadgill; Anthony Braxton\u2019s \u201cComposition No. 19 (For 100 Tubas)\u201d; Nico Muhly\u2019s harp cycle \u201cThe Street\u201d; the pianist Adam Tendler playing John Cage; the elite guitar duo of Mary Halvorson and Bill Frisell; and a celebration of Terry Riley\u2019s 90th birthday. May 2-4, various performance spaces in Brooklyn.<\/em><\/p>\n PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>His specialty is modernism, but there are few cooler, more technically flawless guides to a wide range of repertory than the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. At Zankel Hall, he\u2019ll play a formidable program of fantasias \u2014 spanning some 400 years \u2014 by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Elliott Carter (the brooding, unsettled \u201cNight Fantasies\u201d). He\u2019ll cap the recital with a genuine rarity: Ives\u2019s \u201cThe Celestial Railroad,\u201d based on a Nathaniel Hawthorne story and featuring material from the better-known Second Piano Sonata and Fourth Symphony. (Concertgoers will have a tough choice that afternoon, as the English Concert will be performing Handel\u2019s \u201cGiulio Cesare\u201d in Stern Auditorium at the same time.) May 4, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018THE QUEEN OF SPADES\u2019<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>It used to be that decades might pass at the Metropolitan Opera between runs of Tchaikovsky\u2019s \u201cQueen of Spades,\u201d a seething tale of obsession, madness and gambling. Happily, the work is increasingly being treated as core repertory, returning this season after an appearance just before the pandemic. Keri-Lynn Wilson, who in 2022 made a strong impression leading Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth of Mtsensk,\u201d conducts a cast that includes the tenor Brian Jagde, the soprano Sonya Yoncheva, the baritones Igor Golovatenko and Alexey Markov and, as an aging countess who knows a dark secret about playing cards, the veteran mezzo Violeta Urmana. May 23-June 7 at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n TWYLA THARP DANCE<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>Tharp is celebrating her 60th year of making dances. (And what dances they have been!) Her season at New York City Center pairs \u201cSlacktide,\u201d her first work to Philip Glass since her masterpiece \u201cIn the Upper Room\u201d (1986), with \u201cDiabelli\u201d (1998), a vivid exploration of American classicism that is a masterpiece, too \u2014 albeit one rarely seen. The dance set to Beethoven\u2019s \u201cDiabelli Variations\u201d opens with swinging arms, skips and gallops; it blossoms in complexity and mood as humor and physical intelligence build and layer, creating a wonderfully witty ride. March 12-16 at New York City Center. (GIA KOURLAS)<\/em><\/p>\n PAGEANT SPRING 2025<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>This artist-run space has announced its spring season \u2014 \u201cThe Rite of Spring, My Right to Spring\u201d \u2014 which has all the makings of a breath of fresh air, fittingly full of pageantry. Big theaters have their charm, but smaller spaces are where imaginations are born, where you see what artists are made of. Pageant\u2019s annual gala, set for April 19, is the best show in town; the regular season opens on March 6. The runs come and go in two-day bursts, including evenings by promising young dance artists like Neva Guido and Ella Dawn, so catch what you can. These explorations may run the gamut \u2014 as its founders say, Pageant programs artists, not works \u2014 but a questing spirit is always intact. That\u2019s the Pageant way. March 6-May 23 at Pageant, Brooklyn. (G.K.)<\/em><\/p>\nPop, Jazz and Country<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Classical<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n