Amelie
The Berkeley Repertory Theatre trades northern California cool for Montmartre whimsy when it offers this musical, adapted from the Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. For this tale of a young waitress with an insouciant approach to haircuts, garden gnomes, and life, Craig Lucas supplies the book, Daniel Messé and Nathan Tyse the music and lyrics. Samantha Barks (the Les Misérables movie) stars as the Gallic gamine with Adam Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal, Peter and the Starcatcher) as her fanciful love interest. The frequently magnifique Pam Mackinnon (Clybourne Park) directs the quirky romance.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley, California, starts 28 August
Old Times and Therese Raquin
The Roundabout has an unparalleled knack for attracting big names to big stages. In this revival of Harold Pinter’s three-hander, directed by Douglas Hodge, Clive Owen makes his Broadway debut as a former sailor who finds himself at sea when his wife’s former flatmate drops in for a chat. (Think of it as the pause that doesn’t exactly refresh.) Thom Yorke composed the original music. In Therese Raquin, Helen Edmundson’s adaptation of the Emile Zola novel, directed by Evan Cabnet, Keira Knightley plays an adulteress whose passionate affair comes to an unusually deadly end. Judith Knight plays her overbearing aunt.
American Airlines Theatre, New York, starts 17 September; and Studio 54, New York, 1 October
Eclipsed
When the Zimbabwean actress Danai Gurira isn’t slaughtering gnawing zombies on The Walking Dead, she occasionally turns her hand to plays about women and war, tradition and obligation. In this drama centered on the concubines of a Liberian rebel commander, making its New York debut at the Public Theatre, Lupita Nyong’o of 12 Years a Slave plays the newest abducted “wife”. Liesl Tommy directs a play exploring how women band together and break apart, employing varied strategies as they struggle to thrive in a violent time and place. The busy Gurira will have another play at Playwrights Horizons in the spring.
Public Theatre, New York, starts 29 September
King Charles III
Despite that whole revolutionary war thing, Americans have a well-documented obsession with English royals. (The Broadway production of The Audience added a lavish coronation scene, just for us.) So we’re eagerly awaiting Mike Bartlett’s darkly satirical verse drama. A history play about history yet to be made, Bartlett’s script imagines a post-Elizabethan world in which the accession of Prince Charles thrusts the UK into social and political chaos. (Perhaps the Duchess of Cambridge’s hair becomes slightly less shiny.) Rupert Goold directs the dynastic drama with Tim Pigott-Smith reprising his monarchical turn. But will they sell Duchy Originals at the concession stand?
Music Box Theatre, New York, starts 10 October
Hir
The writer and performer Taylor Mac has developed one wildly unconventional work after another, from an epic celebration of American popular song to a five-hour, five-act 100-character Noh drama fantasia about a flower’s campaign for marriage equality. So it’s strange to see him attempt something as seemingly normal as a more or less naturalistic play. In this dysfunctional family comedy, directed by Niegel Smith, a prodigal son returns home to find that his sister is now a brother and his formerly put-upon mother (the marvelously screwball Kristine Nielsen) is newly liberated and feeling less than wifely.
Playwrights Horizons, New York, starts 16 October
Misery
The novelist Stephen King made a first foray to Broadway with Carrie, a musical flop so outrageous it has become the stuff of legend. This psychological chiller promises rather less pig’s blood and telekinesis. Fewer actors, too. (Maybe Misery doesn’t always love company.) Action hero Bruce Willis, making his Broadway debut, will play the romance novelist Paul Sheldon. Laurie Metcalf is Annie Wilkes, the demented fan who imprisons Sheldon for crimes against the reading public, forcing a rewrite of his latest book. Will Frears directs William Goldman’s snowbound script, a close parallel of his 1990 screenplay.
Broadhurst Theatre, New York, 22 October
School of Rock
If love never dies, the public’s passion for new shows by Andrew Lloyd Webber has been sickly of late. The last several have sputtered out well before Broadway. But early reports promise a return to pop form with this adaptation of the 2003 Richard Linklater flick. Alex Brightman (no relation to Sarah) plays a dissolute substitute elementary school teacher who molds his charges into a nifty band; Sierra Boggess is the headmistress of his heart. Glenn Slater wrote the lyrics while Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes climbed a few rungs down the class ladder to supply the book.
Winter Garden Theatre, New York, starts 9 November
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole didn’t live long enough to see the publication of his celebrated comic novel, so he definitely isn’t around for the theatrical adaptation, which will premier at the Huntington with designs on a Broadway run. Nick Offerman, the comic he-man of Parks and Recreation, stars as Ignatius J Reilly, a gluttonous and concupiscent layabout, slothfully adrift in New Orleans. This great American picaresque isn’t especially heavy on narrative force so it remains to be seen how playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and director David Esbjornson will propel the Big Easy action along.
Huntington Theatre Company, BU Theatre, Boston, starts 11 November
