BY LOGAN CULWELL-BLOCK

Originally published on playbill.com.

The immersive production, directed by Alex Timbers, will turn the Circle in the Square Theatre into a nightclub with a live big band.

Darren Criss and Helen J Shen are starring in the new musical, beginning performances in October at the Belasco Theatre.

Production Photos

The hit revival of the Alan Menken-Howard Ashman musical also welcomes James Carpinello to the Westside April 2.

Two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon—who made her Broadway debut in Chicago in 2023 and is set to rejoin the revival in June—joins Off-Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors as Audrey beginning April 2. The casting makes Monsoon the first drag queen to play the role in a major production of the Howard Ashman-Alan Menken musical.

The 2023–2024 season is the season of diegetic songs, with a wealth of diegetic music factoring in to some of the hottest tickets in town. But just what is a diegetic song?

Similar to the show-within-a-show trope, diegetic music is music within a show that the characters can hear: the characters know they are singing, and so does  anyone else observing them onstage.

See below to find out what’s playing on Broadway—and when previously opened shows are planning their return. For a list of all Broadway-related COVID-19 updates, please click here.

The song “Woman Is” from the new musical Lempicka contains some evocative lyrics: “Woman is speed, green, shattered / Woman is powerful.” That anthem is sung by the title character, Tamara de Lempicka, who is describing her lover and muse, Rafaela. As the woman who plays Rafaela, it’s been a delight for Amber Iman to internalize the adoration expressed in that song. “To know that that song is being sung about me, it’s like, ‘Whoa, look at me! I’m out here being a love interest!’” she exclaims with a laugh. “It just feels like a gift.”

Maria Friedman is a beloved fixture of the West End stage, with three Olivier Awards (London’s version of the Tony Awards) and a host of world class performances to her name. Over a career spanning more than three decades, she’s played such iconic roles as Dot in Sunday in the Park With George, Mary in Merrily We Roll Along, Fosca in Passion, Sukie in The Witches of Eastwick, Mother in Ragtime, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, and Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, among many others.

Special Features

Actor Will Dagger is becoming an indie-theatre darling. He’s compelling to watch, imbuing his characters with a quiet earnestness that floats beyond the figurative footlights of the stage. But in his latest role in Ryan Drake’s you don’t have to do anything, there’s something dangerous lying beneath his simple delivery. Something that even Dagger himself finds it difficult to face.