Around Broadway

More than a century after the incident that inspired it, Terence Rattigan’s play The Winslow Boy, is back on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre in a production from Roundabout Theatre Company.

Janis Joplin's star burned briefly, but brightly. For only about three years was her name prominent among pop musicians of the late 1960s. She made a single — "Me and Bobby McGee" — that reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart, and two albums that reached into the top five. She died of an accidental drug overdose at age 27.

But her powerful, gutsy vocals and performance style continue to be distinctive among the singers of her era. Now her enduring appeal is recognized with a Broadway show at the Lyceum Theatre.

Billie Holiday’s voice and image are icons of 20th century America and the jazz world. Now her story comes to the stage in the musical biography Lady Day at the Little Shubert Theater.

Fans of “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston can see him up close at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Lucy Thurber is getting an honor not usually granted to mid-career playwrights: a cycle of five of her plays is being mounted in New York City. The cycle, called “The Hill Town Plays,” centers around one character, a smart young heroine struggling to form an identity independent from her western Massachusetts upbringing. 

"The Cheaters Club" is the latest production from The Amoralists, a downtown theater group self-described as producing “work of no moral judgment.”

Labor Day Weekend is here – alas, the unofficial end of Summer. But with that ending comes many new beginnings, one of which is the new theater season in New York City.

Who doesn't remember the awkwardness of a first date? First Date, the first new Broadway musical of the season playing at the Longacre Theatre, is a romantic comedy about a young couple meeting for the first time on a blind date. The book is by Austin Winsberg and the score is by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner. Zachary Levi from the television series "Chuck" stars alongside Krysta Rodriguez, who appeared in the backstage-on-Broadway series "Smash."

The second offering from The Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in the Park this summer is a musical adaptation of Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Bard's early comedy about four young men who swear off romance to devote themselves to study, only to promptly fall in love. The play has been adapted and directed by Alex Timbers, the director of Peter and the Starcatcher, among many other shows, and the songs are by Michael Friedman, the house composer of the downtown theater troupe the Civilians.

The 1967 animated Disney film "The Jungle Book" — inspired by Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name — springs to life in a new musical that had its world premiere at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Written and directed by Mary Zimmerman, best known for her stage play based on Ovid's "Metamorphoses," the new show features all the songs from the movie, including the hit tune "The Bare Necessities."