New York

Beyond Broadway

The hottest tickets in town don't always have a Times Square address. Some of the city's biggest names are working in smaller rooms across town, often for a fraction of what the big marquees charge. The trick is finding them before they sell out, transfer, or close.

KENREX

95%

107 ratings

from $65

A small Missouri town is held hostage by a man no one can stop. One morning he's gunned down in broad daylight, and the entire town claims not to have seen a thing. Jack Holden plays all 35 characters in this London transfer about the real 1981 murder and the silence that followed. The Guardian called his performance astonishing. Closes June 27.

Masquerade

92%

71 ratings

from $175

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera as you've never been allowed to see it: at arm's length, in a Paris Opera House you walk through, with the cast moving around you. Sixty guests per show, no proscenium, no balcony. Tony winner Diane Paulus directs, with the Phantom rotating across a roster of seasoned veterans including Hugh Panaro.

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody

from $87

Two NHL stars on rival teams sneak away to the same hotel room every time they meet. Their fans don't know. Their teammates don't know. The musical-parody of the bestselling queer romance plays it sweaty and earnest at once, with Broadway's Jay Armstrong Johnson and Jimin Moon belting through a hockey-locker-room love story. Late-night camp.

Girl, Interrupted

from $129

A teenager checks into a psychiatric hospital under murky circumstances and finds herself caught between the doctors deciding her future and the young women on the ward who actually see her. The world premiere stage adaptation of Susanna Kaysen's memoir, with songs by Aimee Mann from her Queens of the Summer Hotel album and King Princess in the cast.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

93%

1.2k ratings

from $60

Six middle-school misfits walk onstage to compete in a county spelling bee, each one armed with a complicated home life and a single shot at the trip to Nationals. The Tony-winning musical's first major New York return in twenty years, with Jon Cryer, Kevin McHale, and Laura Marano in the cast. Funny, surprisingly moving, the rare family musical that's actually written for adults too.

Encores! La Cage Aux Folles

from $46

Two men have run a St. Tropez drag club together for twenty years. Their son brings home his fiancée and her conservative politician parents, and the family has to decide how, or whether, to play it straight for one dinner. Billy Porter and Wayne Brady star in this Encores! production with an all-Black cast and the original 1983 orchestrations. Closes June 28.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been

from $70

Defend yourself, protect your career, or betray your peers. The choice Hollywood artists faced when called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the late 1940s. Eric Bentley assembled the docudrama from the original transcripts, and a rotating cast (Bob Odenkirk, Molly Ringwald, Norbert Leo Butz, Santino Fontana, and more) reads the words of Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, and Elia Kazan across the 15-week run.

A Walk on the Moon

from $53

Summer 1969. A Brooklyn housewife arrives at the same Catskills bungalow colony she goes to every year, only this time the country is putting a man on the moon, Woodstock is happening around the corner, and a charming stranger turns up at her door. The 1999 film becomes a musical at the Laura Pels, with Talia Suskauer leading and songs by AnnMarie Milazzo.

The Play That Goes Wrong

86%

3.9k ratings

from $88

An amateur theater troupe is staging The Murder at Haversham Manor, and absolutely everything that can go wrong does. The corpse can't lie still, the leading lady gets knocked unconscious, the set keeps collapsing, and the actors keep performing anyway. Olivier Award-winning slapstick at New World Stages since 2019. Good for ages 8 and up.

Poster of Jamie Allan's AMAZE in New York.

AMAZE Magic

94%

208 ratings

from $58

Built around a story of childhood wonder rather than a string of tricks, Jamie Allan's show fuses 80s nostalgia with high-tech illusion, the audience close enough to spot the seams (and still miss them). The highest-rated magic show in New York, direct from London's West End. Penn and Teller went, and signed off. Family-friendly without trying too hard.

David Copperfield

from $67

A boy is orphaned, sent to a brutal boarding school, escapes to his eccentric aunt, falls in and out of love and ruin, and somehow ends up a novelist. Three actors race through more than twenty Dickens characters in a propulsive new adaptation from the Guildford Shakespeare Company, fresh off a sold-out London run. Closes June 28 at 59E59.

An American Daughter

from $45

A doctor with serious credentials is nominated for Surgeon General, until a minor personal lapse (missed jury duty) gets seized by the press and turns the confirmation into a public referendum on ambitious women. Wendy Wasserstein's 1997 political comedy gets a sharp revival at Pershing Square Signature, with Montego Glover, Robert Sean Leonard, and Jean Lichty leading.

Label•less

from $25

Ten young adult performers take turns telling real stories about identity, family, sexuality, and not fitting the box they were handed. The score moves between original songs and familiar anthems like "Born This Way" and "Rise Up," created by Drew Lachey (98 Degrees) and his wife Lea. At The Duke on 42nd Street, 90 minutes, no intermission.

Disruption

from $67

A tech entrepreneur tells his three closest friends he's built an algorithm that knows them better than they know themselves, and they should let it run their lives. The thriller asks whether that's friendship or recruitment. John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman, Tenet) makes his off-Broadway turn at the Pershing Square Signature, in a new play by Andrew Stein.