The 2026-27 Broadway Shows I’m Most Excited About — Assuming I Can Afford to See Them
Rachel Zegler in Evita (Photo: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
by Chris Peterson
Maybe it is just me, but the past Broadway season had a lot of “well, that was fine” energy.
There were strong performances and plenty of shows that deserved attention. Still, there is a difference between a season that has openings and a season that has heat.
The 2026-27 season, at least from what has already been announced or is circling the calendar, looks like it might be SCORCHING.
And Broadway could use it.
So rather than doing a straight season preview, here are the shows I am personally most excited about — separated by category, because this season has enough going on that throwing everything into one pile feels a little unfair.
New Musicals
4. Wanted (Nov 8)
Starring Solea Pfeiffer and Liisi LaFontaine as Mary and Martha Clarke, is a new musical that deserves attention.
Inspired by the true story of two sisters who become outlaws in the American West, the musical, previously known as Gun & Powder, brings history, danger, and female defiance to the center of the story. The show follows the Clarke sisters as they pass as white in 1893 Texas, confronting racial injustice and reshaping themselves into vigilante legends. Pfeiffer and LaFontaine will lead the Broadway production, with previews scheduled to begin October 15, 2026, at the James Earl Jones Theatre.
There is also a controversy attached to the production. Ciara Renée, who played Mary Clarke in the 2024 Paper Mill Playhouse production when the show was still titled Gun & Powder, filed a lawsuit after being cut from the Broadway cast. According to Playbill and BroadwayWorld, Renée alleges she was unfairly removed after participating in readings, recordings, and investor events; the producers have denied the allegations.
That context does not erase the promise of the show, but it does complicate the conversation around it.
3. Galileo (Dec 6)
Galileo, led by Raúl Esparza, might be the original musical I am most curious about.
The musical follows Galileo Galilei as his scientific discoveries collide with religious and political power. A rock musical about Galileo could be brilliant, messy, thrilling, or some complicated combination of all three.
That is exactly why I am interested.
Esparza’s involvement immediately raises expectations. I do not know if Galileo will work. But I want Broadway seasons with more shows where that is the exciting question.
2. Paddington (Rumored, Spring 2027)
I am deeply fascinated by what Paddington could become on Broadway.
Based on Michael Bond’s beloved stories, Paddington follows the polite, accident-prone bear from Peru as he finds a new home with the Brown family in London.
But what makes Paddington especially interesting is that it arrives with major London momentum and the possibility of becoming the next big family Broadway title. Broadway has been chasing that sweet spot for years.
If Paddington gets that balance right, it could be enormous.
1. The Warriors (Spring 2027)
Then, there is The Warriors and the Broadway return of Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Based on the cult film, The Warriors follows a New York gang that is falsely accused of murder and has to fight its way across the city to get back home to Coney Island. Miranda and Eisa Davis already turned the story into an excellent concept album, and the possibility of that material becoming a full Broadway musical is genuinely exciting.
This is the potential Tony matchup I cannot stop thinking about: Paddington versus The Warriors. Broadway’s warmest family bet versus its sharpest cult-property swing.
There is risk here, which is the point. Can a cult property with edge become a Broadway event without being overly polished? Can it find both the fans of the film and the audience that shows up because Miranda and Davis are attached?
That is a far more interesting question than whether another known movie title can survive the stage.
New Plays
6. Montauk (Spring 2027)
David Hare’s Montauk, starring Laura Linney, has obvious appeal: a major playwright, a major actor, and new work in a Broadway landscape that often leans heavily on revivals and brands.
Plot details are still limited, which makes this harder to rank higher for now. But Linney alone makes this worth watching.
5. Gloria (April 5, 2027)
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria brings one of the sharpest American playwrights of the moment back into the Broadway conversation.
The play begins in the offices of a magazine, where ambitious young workers trade gossip, grievances, and career anxieties before a shocking event changes how everyone tries to tell the story. It is about media ambition, office culture, and the desperate hunger to turn trauma into currency.
In other words, it has not exactly lost relevance.
I am not sure whether this will become one of the hotter tickets of the season, but artistically, it deserves to be part of the conversation.
4. Paranormal Activity (Opening Sep 15)
I remain interested in Broadway’s willingness to experiment with horror.
Inspired by the film franchise, Paranormal Activity centers on ordinary people dealing with a terrifying presence that invades the supposed safety of home. Onstage, that kind of story lives or dies on atmosphere, timing, sound, silence, and whether the production can make an audience feel trapped in the room with whatever is coming next.
Genre theatre should not be treated as less serious simply because it aims to scare, unsettle, or entertain in a more direct way.
The question is whether the show can create genuine theatrical tension, not just replicate the branding of the films. Horror onstage is tricky because the audience knows they are sitting in a room with other people. But when it works, that shared anxiety can become part of the thrill.
3. Inter Alia (Dec 1)
Suzie Miller’s Inter Alia, starring Rosamund Pike, comes in with prestige written all over it.
The play follows a successful judge whose professional certainty is shaken when a crisis involving her own family forces her to confront the legal and emotional systems she has spent her career navigating.
The appeal here is clear: serious new work, a major performer, and the possibility of another play that feels connected to the world outside the theatre district.
That said, the Broadway conversation around Inter Alia will depend so much on whether it lands with the same force as Prima Facie. That is a tough shadow to follow. Still, Pike on Broadway in a Miller play is not something to shrug at.
2. School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Sep 8)
Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play finally getting a Broadway bow feels overdue in the best way.
Set at an elite girls’ boarding school in Ghana, the play follows students competing for status, attention, and a chance at a beauty pageant opportunity that exposes painful questions about colorism and self-worth.
This could be one of the season’s most satisfying play arrivals.
1. Much Ado About Nothing (Nov 19)
Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing already sounds like one of the season’s major limited-run events.
Shakespeare’s comedy follows Beatrice and Benedick, two sharp-tongued skeptics of romance, as their friends conspire to make them fall in love while a darker deception threatens another couple’s future.
This production has event status written all over it. Jamie Lloyd’s staging, a starry imported feel, and a cast that also includes names like Mason Alexander Park, Mara Huf, James Phoon, Gerald Kyd, and Forbes Masson give it the kind of heat Broadway loves.
If Hiddleston and Atwell have that kind of chemistry, this could be one of the season’s hardest tickets to get.
Musical Revivals
6. The Fantasticks (Oct 22)
The Fantasticks has one of the strangest relationships to Broadway because it is both one of the most familiar musicals in American theatre history and somehow still a curious Broadway proposition.
With a reimagined queer love story, its success will depend on whether the production can make intimacy feel alive in a Broadway house. That is harder than it sounds.
I am interested, but cautiously.
5. The Full Monty (Spring 2027)
David Yazbek’s vastly underrated The Full Monty is the kind of revival that could go a few different ways.
Based on the film, the musical follows a group of unemployed steelworkers who decide to form a strip act as a way to make money and reclaim some sense of pride. Beneath the comedy, it is about economic pressure, masculinity, friendship, shame, and the very human need to feel useful.
That is the revival challenge in general, but it feels especially relevant here. Done with warmth, grit, and a real understanding of economic pressure, The Full Monty could feel surprisingly timely. Done too slickly, it could become another nostalgia machine.
I am curious which version we get.
4. Damn Yankees (Winter 2027)
I am cautiously curious about Damn Yankees.
The musical, which is being reimagined, follows a frustrated baseball fan who sells his soul to the devil for the chance to become a star player and help his beloved team beat the Yankees.
The show has charm, I should know, I’ve been in it. The question is whether a new production can make it feel alive for a contemporary audience without apologizing for what it is or embalming it in nostalgia.
That is a tricky needle to thread.
3. Dreamgirls (Fall 2026)
A Broadway revival of Dreamgirls is automatically a major event.
The musical follows a girl group’s rise through the music industry as fame, ambition, racism, sexism, romance, and betrayal reshape their relationships and careers. It is show business as fantasy and wound, with one of the most demanding scores in the musical theatre canon.
If it works, it could be one of the defining productions of the season.
2. Passion (Rumored)
The rumored Passion revival, is the item on this list that will immediately interest a very specific group of Sondheim devotees, including myself.
The musical follows Giorgio, a handsome soldier whose affair with the beautiful Clara is disrupted when he becomes the object of an intense, consuming love from the ailing Fosca. Passion is never going to be the easy sell. But with Cynthia Erivo rumored to be playing Fosca, it could be a hot ticket.
Because this remains rumored, I am not putting it higher. But if it becomes real, it instantly becomes one of the most interesting musical revival prospects of the season.
1. Evita (Opening Mar 25, 2027)
I am very curious about Evita, especially with Rachel Zegler attached after her acclaimed West End run.
The musical traces the rise of Eva Perón from poverty to political power in Argentina, using the narrator Che to question the mythmaking around her image.
Eva Perón remains one of musical theatre’s great roles because she can be played as icon, opportunist, victim, manipulator, survivor, or some unnerving combination of all of them.
Jamie Lloyd’s production will almost certainly divide people, which I mean as a compliment. And Zegler is a fascinating choice. That combination alone makes Evita one of the season’s must-watch productions.
Play Revivals
4. Private Lives (Winter 2027)
Private Lives is on the way, though casting has not yet been announced.
Noël Coward’s comedy follows a divorced couple who accidentally end up honeymooning with their new spouses in adjoining rooms, only to discover their old attraction has not disappeared. I’ve directed this myself and it is a play of bad timing, old habits, romantic chaos, and people who know exactly how to charm and injure each other.
With the right pair of leads, Private Lives can still be delicious. Without them, it becomes very elegant wallpaper.
So for now, this sits in the “waiting for casting” category.
3. Awake and Sing! (Jan 2027)
Awake and Sing! will bring Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht, and Jeremy Shamos to Clifford Odets’ American classic, and that alone makes it worth attention.
Set in a cramped Bronx apartment during the Great Depression, the play follows the Berger family as they fight over money, ideals, disappointment, and the possibility of a better life. Economic anxiety, cramped dreams, family pressure, and the ache of wanting more out of life do not exactly feel like distant period concerns right now.
Odets can sometimes be treated like theatrical homework, but in the right production, the language still has bite and music.
This revival could either feel urgent or dutiful. With this cast, I am hoping for the former.
2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Spring 2027)
A Sam Gold-directed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a fascinating question mark until casting is announced.
Tennessee Williams’ iconic play gathers the Pollitt family around Big Daddy’s plantation home, where inheritance, illness, alcohol, sexual frustration, and old lies make every conversation feel like it could crack the floorboards. At the center are Brick and Maggie, a marriage full of heat, silence, resentment, and things neither of them can fully say.
When Cat works, it still burns. The family rot, the lies people tell because the truth would ruin the room — all of it can still feel dangerously alive in the right hands.
Gold alone makes this revival worth watching.
1. Other Desert Cities (Opening Oct 18)
The cast alone makes Other Desert Cities impossible to ignore: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe.
Jon Robin Baitz’s play follows a daughter returning home to her wealthy, conservative family with a memoir that threatens to expose long-buried secrets.
That is the kind of cast list that makes you check your bank account before the presale even starts.
But the play itself also feels ready for another look. And this cast is more than strong enough to make the revival feel like an event.
The danger, of course, is that it becomes one of those productions everyone wants to see and very few people can afford without making a questionable financial decision. But artistically, this is the play revival I am most eager to watch.
So let’s talk about that for a moment…
Taken together, the 2026-27 season has the kind of range Broadway needs. But here comes the part where we all stop smiling for a second.
If the season is this exciting, it is probably going to be very expensive.
Broadway is already coming off a record-setting financial period, and a season packed with starry limited runs, beloved titles, prestige transfers, and recognizable properties is basically a dynamic-pricing playground. Much Ado About Nothing will not be cheap. Other Desert Cities will not be cheap. Evita will likely be treated like a major event from the start. If The Warriors becomes the cool-ticket musical of the season, expect that coolness to be monetized immediately.
That is the tension hanging over all of this. Broadway may finally be offering a season that feels genuinely exciting. The danger is that the excitement itself becomes the reason regular theatergoers get priced out.
Still, I would rather have a Broadway season that gives us too much to talk about than one that leaves us shrugging by May.
The 2026-27 season looks richer, weirder, starrier, riskier, and more commercially fascinating than the one that came before it. If these productions deliver, Broadway may have the rebound season it needs.
Now we just have to hope audiences can afford to be in the room where it happens…see what I did there?