New and upcoming Broadway shows headed to NYC in 2026

Richard O'Brien's delirious and oddly touch-a-touch-a-touch-a-touching spoof of science-fiction and horror B flicks—a mix of satire, rock & roll and anything-goes queer sensibility— didn't last long in its 1975 Broadway debut, but it spawned a film that became the fairy godmother of all midnight movies and attracted a rabid cult following that continues to this day. Sam Pinkleton (Oh, Mary!) directs the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival, which features a high-wattage and appropriately ecelectic cast. British heartthrob Luke Evans stars as the show's strutting, lingerie-clad "sweet transvestite" antihero: the alien mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter, whose idea of Frankenstein's monster is a blond muscle boy. His extended entourage includes Juliette Lewis, Amber Gray, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Josh Rivera and Harvey Guillén; Stephanie Hsu and Andrew Durand are the squares who get stranded in their midst, and the lovable Rachel Dratch serves as narrator.

Proven stage talents Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett play the roles made famous by Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, respectively, in a stage version of Iris Rainer Dart's 1985 novel about unlikely longtime friends, which was adapted into the beloved 1988 film weepie. The musical's book is by Dart and Thom Thomas; the lyrics are also by Dart, and the music is by the seminal 1950s pop songwriter Mike Stoller (who is now is his 90s. After more than a decade in development, Beaches lands on Broadway in a production co-directed by Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill's Lonny Price and Matt Cowart.

The formidable duo of Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You) and Kelli O'Hara (Days of Wine and Roses) play married ladies who booze it up as they await the arrival of a shared French paramour from their rather scandalous single days in a rare revival of this early comedy by the paradigmatic Brit wit Noël Coward. Roundabout Theatre Company's interim artistic director, Scott Ellis (Pirates!), oversees the naughty fun.

Vampire musicals don't have a great track record on Broadway—hello and goodbye, Dance of the Vampires and Dracula and Lestat!—but this adaptation of the 1987 coming-of-fangs horror comedy aims to break that curse. Michael Arden (Maybe Happy Ending) directs a cast that promisingly includes LJ Benet and rising star Benjamin Pajak as teenage brothers in immortal peril, Shoshanna Bean as their mom, Paul Alexander Nolan as her boss and Ali Louis Bourzgui as a bloodsucking baddie. (No word yet on who will play the key role of the oiled-up sax player in jeans.) 

Debbie Allen directs the second Broadway revival of August Wilson's 1988 masterwork, which won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1988. Set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911, this mythopoeic drama is the second part of Wilson's ten-play, decade-by-decade survey of African-American life in the 20th century. Joshua Boone (The Outsiders) assumes the central role of Harold Loomis, an ex-convict in search of his missing wife; also in the cast are heavy hitters Taraji P. Henson, Cedric the Entertainer and Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

Manhattan Theatre Club continues its long and very fruitful relationship with the excellent playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (Kimberly Akimbo) by mounting the world premiere of his latest play: a comedy about a neighborhood association thrown into internecine turmoil when a newcomer suggests adding a stop sign to one of the local corners. The killer emsemble cast—directed by Kenny Leon (Purlie Victorious)—comprises Richard Thomas, Anika Noni Rose, Margaret Colin, Ricardo Chavira, Michael Esper, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Jeena Yi, Kayli Carter and the priceless Marylouise Burke. 

The winsome Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) headlines the first Broadway revival of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize–winning 2000 play, in which the daughter of a mentally ill mathematician wrestles to keep her own mind. Thomas Kail (Hamilton) directs the production, whose cast of four also includes the great Don Cheadle—in his long overdue Broadway debut!—as well as ringers Samira Wiley and Jin Ha. 

Cinco Paul's delightful and tuneful Apple TV series, a loving spoof of Golden Age musicals, makes a bold leap from the small screen to the Broadway stage in a production directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli (Death Becomes Her). Alex Brightman and Sara Chase, reprising roles the originated last year at the late Kennedy Center, star as the show's central couple: a pair of modern normies who stumble upon a village governed by tropes of yesteryear. (The plot only covers Season 1 of the series, but if all goes well…dare we hope for a sequel?) The talent-loaded cast also include Ana Gasteyer, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla, McKenzie Kurtz, Max Clayton, Ivan Hernandez and—repeating her TV role—the tasty Ann Harada.