Off-Broadway is increasingly the place to look for new and exciting fare in drama, the site of promising and fresh work. And this season is shaping up as an unusually challenging one.
Take the Signature Company. They’ll have new plays from Sam Shepard, Edward Albee and John Guare.
From Shepard comes “The Late Henry Moss” (previews begin on Sept. 5). Two brothers journey to a remote shack in the New Mexico desert and confront their dad’s death. Sounds like rich Shepard terrain, no? It’ll be directed by Joseph Chaikin and will star Ethan Hawke and Arliss Howard.
Albee checks in next February with “I Think Back Now on Andre Gide” (subject a mystery); in April arrives Guare with “A Few Stout Individuals,” about a great but penniless man battling to write his memoirs before his death – or is he already dead?
Playwrights Horizons is beginning its season with a new musical, “The Spitfire Grill,” about the strange town of Gilead, Wisconsin, and the suspicious welcome it gives to a young woman who is determined to breathe life into the place (previews: Sept. 7).
Late November will bring “Psycho,” a drama by Evan Smith (who wrote the highly original “Servicemen”) about a kooky grad student and her discoveries about life.
Richard Nelson, author of “Madame Melville” and “The Dead,” will offer “Franny’s Way” in March. It’s about three young women searching for a lost mother and a forgotten child in Greenwich Village in 1957. Sounds intriguing.
In May, Tom Donaghty will present “Boys and Girls,” a take on family values involving two lesbians, their gay sperm donor and his ex. It’s being sponsored by the Boy Scouts. (Just kidding.)
The Classic Stage Company will have a new play called “Monster” based on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” (Jan. 15).
Then in March comes Steve Martin’s new adaptation of German writer Carl Sternheim’s “The Underpants,” about a man whose wife’s undergarments won’t stay on. No, not like that, but literally. They fall down in the middle of the town. Should be very zany. It’ll be directed by the eccentric Barry Edelstein.
Then in May “Room” will investigate the creative spirit of Virginia Woolf, directed by Anne Bogart and featuring Ellen Lauren.
Neil LaBute’s latest arrives Sept. 20. This teasing writer (“In the Company of Men,” “Bash”) won raves in London for “The Shape of Things,” an edgy study of a young artist and a museum guard. It stars Rachel Weisz and Paul Rudd; it should be explosive.
“Reefer Madness,” a musical based on the 1936 scare movie (now a cult classic) about a proper youth who is ruined by one puff of the dread weed, oozes into the Variety Arts (previews: Sept. 15).
The New York Theatre Workshop on East Fourth Street will dangle “First Love,” a surprise story of love in old age by radical playwright Charles L. Mee with Ruth Maleczech (previews: Aug. 24); “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” an adaptation of Flannery O’Connor short stories (previews: Oct. 10); “Homebody/Kabul,” an Afghan “epic” by Tony (“Angels in America”) Kushner and directed by Declan Donnellan (previews: Nov. 3) and Caryl Churchill’s “Far Away,” to be directed by Stephen Daldry (previews start Feb. 20).
The myths of Ovid – from Narcissus to Orpheus – will be put on stage in “Metamorphoses,” a new play by Mary Zimmerman, who also directs. The Second Stage theater will become a giant pool in which the power of love and of hate to transform will be seen. It should be arresting (previews: Sept. 19).
Later in the season will come “Sorrows and Rejoicings” by Athol Fugard. It depicts a dawning friendship in South Africa between two women, one black and one white, who have loved the same man (previews: January).
Then, arriving in the spring, is a new comedy, “Marie and Bruce,” by Wallace Shawn, and a revival of Albee’s “Seascape.”
The Drama Dept. presents a program of three one-act comedies by Paul Rudnick called “Rude Entertainment” (previews start Aug. 31).
The Manhattan Theatre Club will offer “Wonder of the World” by David Lindsay Abaire. The comedy, directed by Christopher Ashley, will star Sarah Jessica Parker as a woman meeting life in the raw in Niagara Falls (previews: Oct. 9).
“Where’s My Money” arrives in October. It’s a John Patrick Shanley sort-of-comedy (recently seen downtown) about self-doubt and sex and death.
Concluding the season are two Alan Ayckbourn comedies running simultaneously in two theaters, “House” and “Garden.” Ayckbourn is English, you see.
At the Grammercy what looks intriguing is a mystery/satire called “Speaking in Tongues,” starring Karen Allen and Kevin Anderson (previews begin Oct. 26).
The Public Theater will present Elaine Stritch in concert, with a script by John Lahr and direction by George Lewis (October). “Othello” will then be staged by Doug Hughes with Keith David as the Moor and Liev Schreiber as Iago (November). Tony Kushner will direct “36 Views” by Naomi Izuka in February.
The Irish Rep will offer Charles Nelson Reilly recounting gems from his career in “Save It for the Stage” (previewing Sept. 28), and then (in November) a new musical from a 19th-century Irish-American play by Dion Boucicault, “The Streets of New York.” It’s both a play and a musical. Any affinity to the Scorsese movie, “Gangs of New York,” based on 19th-century events in the slum life of the city?
And finally, BAM starts early October hosting a celebration of Australian arts, kicking off with “Cloudstreet,” a 20-year look at two Australian families. It boasts 102 scenes with 15 actors doubling the roles over five hours. Based on a famous novel, the dramatic chronicle has been compared to “Nicholas Nickleby.”