The best new Broadway shows

Ah, the joy of watching theater fail. The looming possibility of malfunction is part of what makes live performance exciting, and disasters remind us of that; the rite requires sacrifice. Mischief Theatre’s The Play That Goes Wrong takes this experience to farcical extremes, as six amateur British actors (and two crew members who get pressed into service onstage) try to perform a hackneyed whodunnit amid challenges that escalate from minor mishaps (stuck doors, missed cues) to bona fide medical emergencies and massive structural calamities.

“Times are hard for dreamers” sings Amélie Poulain (Phillipa Soo) in the new musical that bears her name, but the lyrics aren’t strictly true. During the intermission-free hour and 45 minutes of this promising but never delivering musical fantasy, you can easily (and frequently) dream up ways the creative team might have better turned the 2001 film into a stage event that didn’t cloy and harden into static quirk halfway through. Adaptation is an ancient and noble art, but some things simply work better on film. 

What it takes to create an absolutely splendid revival of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter: Step 1: Cast Kevin Kline; Step 2: Hire a director whose name sounds like a punch line Coward might have considered—Moritz von Stuelpnagel. But not any Moritz will do. Find the one who helmed the equally hilarious but tonally rather different demon-possessed–sock-puppet satire Hand to God. There are further details (inviting design, surrounding Kline with a smashing cast), but the simple act of handing America’s greatest exemplar of comic suavity a role he was born to play is half the battle.

At first blush, the new Broadway musical War Paint looks like a face-off between rival 20th-century cosmetics magnates Helena Rubinstein (Patti LuPone) and Elizabeth Arden (Christine Ebersole). In fact, it’s more about putting faces on. Titans of the beauty industry, Rubinstein and Arden made their names in makeup and put their names on it, but they never actually met—a serious challenge for War Paint’s authors. With two narratives to track, and a lot of time soaked up by musical numbers about customers and sales pitches, the show is heavy on primer and contours but light on blending and shading. 

J.T. Rogers's drama is an informative and absorbing primer on the secret history of a rare breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plummy Jefferson Mays and radiantly self-effacing Jennifer Ehle play a Norwegian couple who facilitate back-channel negotiations by creating a space for personal connection and mutual recognition.

The beloved Bill Murray film becomes a Broadway musical with tunes by Australian songwriter Tim Minchin (Matilda). Andy Karl takes on the role of cranky weatherman Phil Connors, who gets caught on a hamster wheel of time until he forces himself to change. The Matthew Warchus production is a much-hyped transfer from London.

Paula Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman survey some 50 years of history related to Sholem Asch’s controversial play God of Vengeance in a drama that has the scope of an epic but the intimacy of a chamber piece.

Last seen deconstructed downtown by Ivo van Hove, Lillian Hellman's 1939 family drama returns to Broadway courtesy of Manhattan Theatre Club. For a treat, two seasoned stage creatures, Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon, trade off the role of greedy Southern schemer Regina Giddens (not in the same performance, silly—in rep). The irreproachable Daniel Sullivan directs.

It's hard to believe, but Bette Midler hasn't been in a Broadway musical for nearly 50 years. Now she is back where she belongs in the title role of Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart's megahit 1964 musical comedy, based on Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker. The supporting cast, directed by stage vet Jerry Zaks, includes Kate Baldwin, Gavin Creel, Jennifer Simard and the ever-delightful David Hyde Pierce.

Roald Dahl's beloved parable about kids, candy and capitalism, which inspired a beloved film with Gene Wilder and also one with Johnny Depp, arrives on Broadway as a musical. Expertly zany two-time Tony winner Christian Borle plays eccentric factory owner Willy Wonka in David Greig's adaptation of Dahl's 1964 book, with a score by Hairspray's Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (augmenting tunes from the 1971 movie). Jack O'Brien directs the production, which features puppets by downtown marvel Basil Twist.