Off Broadway shows, reviews, tickets and listings

As questions of articficial intelligence continue to dominate national discourse, Andrew Stein's thriller offers a dramatic angle on the issue. John David Washington stars as a tech entrepreneur whose latest invention—an algorithm that knows people all too well—unsetlles the lives and relationships of his friends. Hersh Ellis directs a cast that also includes Conrad Ricamora, Joe Tippett, Elizabeth Stanley, Irene Sofia Lucio, Emma Kikue, Jason Ralph and Shaunette Renée Wilson (“The Resident”) as Suzie.

What's it all about, you ask? As Alfie could tell you, Going Bacharach is all about the time-tested, beloved songs of composer Burt Bacharach, mostly written with lyricist Hal David. The pop craftsmanship of songs like "Anyone Who Had a Heart" or "I Say a Little Prayer" invites and supports multiple interpretations, and their signature shifts of time signature help them suprise listeners even after all this time. Directed by David Zippel, this encore run of the musical revue finds the cast performing such neostandards as  “That’s What Friends Are For," "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose." Musical director and arranger Adrian Galante leads the five-piece band.

By rights, Dylan MarcAurele’s raunchy musical spoof of HBO's skate-away success about gay hockey players should not be nearly as funny as it is. But as directed by Alan Kliffer, this scrappy show is an unexpected delight in the irreverent camp tradition of Silence! The Musical! and the original Asylum production of Titanique. Writer-composer MarcAurele rolls out a seemingly inexhaustible series of double entendres, and the high-spirited cast of five actors—led by grade-A cuties Jimin Moon and Jay Armstrong Johnson as the central couple—score with nearly every shot they take. Most of the show’s comedy stems from the tonal clash between the steamy subject matter and the earnestness of traditional musical theater, and it wouldn’t work if the cast (which also includes Ryann Redmond, Ryan Duncan and Cherry Torres) weren’t experts at the latter. It’s knowingly silly but also, sneakily, just a little sexy, too. It knows how to wink both ways at once. Read the full review. 

Before Mean Girls there was Heathers, a pitch-black comedy about how high-school popularity can be murder. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O'Keefe'S 2014 musical based on that film now returns Off Broadway in a revised version, directed by the U.K.'s Andy Fickman, that appeals to newcomers as well as to the show's loyal fans. Heathers tells the story of a nice girl named Veronica who falls into the bad company of three cruel student dictators and a sociopathic newcomer who wants to rid the school of their ilk. 

Ever since the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Phantom of the Opera hung up its mask in 2023, the show’s admirers have been wishing it were somehow here again. And now it is, albeit significantly revised to fit a very different form: an immersive experience, à la Sleep No More, in which audiences are led en masque through a midtown complex designed to evoke the 19th-century Paris Opera House where soprano Christine Daaé is stalked by the killer who lives in the basement. The very notion of this reimagining—created by Lloyd Webber and director Diane Paulus, from a concept by Randy Weiner—is surprising; perhaps even more surprising is that, somehow, they pull it off. It’s a blast.—Adam Feldman

A Gestapo officer interrogates the future philosopher and historian Hannah Arendt in Jenny Lyn Bader’s historical drama, set in 1933 Berlin. Ari Laura Kreith directs the New York premiere production, whose run was extended several times last year and now continues at 59E59; the cast comprises Ella Kaille, Drew Hirshfield, Brett Temple and Daniel Adam Cantor.

Broadway diva and five-time Tony loser September L. Davis has been embroiled all year in a one-sided feud with the SNL alumna turned musical-theater star Ana Gasteyer (whom she resembles extremely closely). After a recent near-death experience—she was hit by a giant protractor while starring in a Canadian musical adaptation of Proof—Davis has seen the error of her ways and is determined to make amends to the many, many people she has mistreated in the courrse of her infamous career. Her show, co-written with Steven Cragg, features original songs by Sam Davis and Tom Kitt, and is directed by the gifted comic actor Kevin Cahoon (Schucked). Guest performers on different nights of this limited run include Greg Hildreth, Kate Reinders, Diego Rodriguez, Matthew Wilkas and Betsy Wolfe.

In this outrageous satirical metamusical by songwriter Andrew Fox and book writer Joel Sinensky, a hyperwoke theater company reimagines the story of Anne Frank as an inspirational Afro-Latin hip-hop tuner that centers postcolonial and genderqueer identities. Following a developmental run at Asylum last season that generated enough buzz to electrocute an elephant, the production now moves to the East Village's Orpheum Theatre for a proper run, still directed by Sam LaFrage. The cast includes Asylum cast members Olivia Bernábe, Alex Lewis, Austen Horne, Rocky Paterra, John Anker Bow, Jaz Zepatos and Walker Stovall, as well as newcomer Amelia Louise Barr. 

The extraordinary life of Howard Hughes—the film producer, aviator and real estate magnate turned recluse, germophobe and urine collector—is the subject of an original biomusical with music by James Scully, lyrics by Frank Evans and Chad Gorn, and a book by Scully, Evans and director-choreographer Jennifer Paulson-Lee. In this York Theatre production, Sean MacLaughlin plays the title role; he is supported by a large cast that includes Brenda Braxton, Jill Paice, David Elder, Eric Michael Gillet and Madison Claire Parks. 

Danny Mefford directs a revival of William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin's beloved 2005 musical about six weird kids on a quest to be letter-perfect. Recent Broadway breakout stars Jasmine Amy Rogers (Boop!) and Justin Cooley (Kimberly Akimbo) are two of the grown-ups playing adolescents, joined by Autumn Best, Philippe Arroyo, Leana Rae Concepcion and Glee's Kevin McHale.