The best of Broadway this fall 2026, from Julia Louis-Dreyfus to Allison Janney, Rosamund Pike, Tom Hiddleston, and Dolly. Seven shows worth knowing about, whether you have tickets to New York or not.
Every fall we tell you what to read. This year, I started looking at what was coming to Broadway and realized the list was ridiculously good.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Allison Janney in the same play. Rosamund Pike as a judge whose carefully ordered life comes apart because of her son. Hayley Atwell taking on Beatrice opposite Tom Hiddleston. Dolly getting the full Broadway treatment. And that’s before you get to Bradley Whitford taking on Jack Nicholson’s famous role or a musical about a man who grows younger while everyone around him keeps moving forward.
I live close enough to New York that I can actually pry myself loose from editing draft articles to catch a Saturday matinee, and I absolutely will. Truth be told, I haven’t been to a show in a couple of years, but with the lineup and talent and themes this fall, I can’t stay away.
You don’t have to live here to care about what’s happening on Broadway. Theater is part of the culture before it becomes the movie, the tour, the streaming event, or the thing everyone suddenly has an opinion about.
What struck me about this particular season is how much of it feels aimed at grown-ups. Complicated families. Marriage. Motherhood. Aging. Ambition. Who gets to tell the story. What happens when the life you’ve built collides with the person you love. Even Shakespeare seems to have gotten the memo. So many of these themes are exactly what our Dear Readers cover in their essays.
So we went through the fall schedule and pulled out the seven productions we think are worth knowing about. Some are already proven material with absurdly good casts. Others are gambles, and a few I’m checking ticket availability as I write this. Then there are a couple I’d wait to hear more about.
And if you’re coming to New York this fall, I’ve added my own cheat sheet at the bottom with the hotels I recommend and the restaurants where I actually eat.
Consider your weekend planned.
Other Desert Cities
If I were choosing the production most likely to become the grown-up theater ticket of the fall, I’d start here.
Jon Robin Baitz’s play begins with a Christmas gathering in Palm Springs and turns into a fight over memory, grief, politics, parental control, and who gets to tell the story of a family’s darkest chapter. The material has been around for more than a decade. The reason to care now is the cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Allison Janney, Lily Rabe, Ed Harris, and Joe Keery.
Louis-Dreyfus and Janney alone would get me into the theater. Put them inside a play about mothers, daughters, secrets, and the ownership of family history, and this pretty much makes it a must-see.
THE DETAILS: Hudson Theatre. Previews begin Sept. 29; opens Oct. 18; scheduled through Jan. 17, 2027. Our call: Book early.
Much Ado About Nothing
Beatrice is one of those women Shakespeare somehow understood before the rest of the culture caught up. Smart, suspicious, funny, proud, and perfectly capable of talking herself out of what she wants.
This time, Hayley Atwell gets Beatrice and Tom Hiddleston gets Benedick in Jamie Lloyd’s contemporary production following its London run.
Yes, Hiddleston is part of the attraction. We’re not pretending otherwise. But Much Ado remains one of the great comedies about two intelligent adults who would rather spar than admit they’re vulnerable, which may explain why it gets more interesting as we get older.
This is Shakespeare without the medicinal aftertaste.
THE DETAILS: Winter Garden Theatre. Previews begin Oct. 31; opens Nov. 19; scheduled through Jan. 10, 2027. It’s a limited run. Our call: Book early.
Inter Alia
This may be the one I most want to talk about afterward.
Suzie Miller, who wrote Prima Facie, returns with another legal and moral drama, this time starring Rosamund Pike in her Broadway debut. Pike plays a British judge, a wife, and a mother whose professional certainty is thrown into chaos by allegations involving her son.
That setup alone gets my attention. A woman who makes judgments for a living is suddenly forced to reconcile the law, motherhood, loyalty, and belief when the case is effectively inside her own house.
It hasn’t opened yet, so we’re not declaring victory. But this is exactly the sort of role women have spent decades asking for: a woman whose authority matters, whose intelligence matters, and whose crisis is quite real.
THE DETAILS: Music Box Theatre. Previews Nov. 10; opens Dec. 1. Our call: Pike devotees can book. Everyone else can wait for reviews.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Of all the musicals arriving this fall, this may be the one with the premise most likely to sneak up on us. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story runs time backward: Benjamin is born old and grows younger. This actor-musician adaptation comes to The Public Theater after a celebrated London run, with Tony nominee Andrew Durand leading the North American premiere.
A story about aging, love, regret, family, and time moving in the wrong direction lands differently once you have enough life behind you to understand what time actually costs. We ran our own article about this phenomenon last year.
Could it become sentimental? Certainly. Could I cry anyway? Also certainly.
THE DETAILS: The Public Theater’s Newman Theater. Begins Oct. 8; opens Oct. 21; scheduled through Nov. 22. The run was extended before performances began. Our call: Book if the premise resonates.
A Few Good Men
Sometimes you don’t need theater to reinvent theater. You want Aaron Sorkin, a courtroom, people shouting at each other, and somebody eventually demanding the truth.
For its first Broadway revival, A Few Good Men has Bradley Whitford as Col. Nathan R. Jessep, Tom Blyth as Lt. Daniel Kaffee, and Krysta Rodriguez as Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway.
The movie is so embedded in popular culture that the risk is obvious: Can anyone play Jessep without Jack Nicholson sitting invisibly on his shoulder? Bradley Whitford makes me interested enough to find out.
This is probably the safest recommendation on the list for the person who says she isn’t much of a theater person and then has a terrific night at the theater. The movie delivered so many memorable lines, I’m interested to see if the play stacks up. This one is definitely on my list.
THE DETAILS: Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. Begins Oct. 8; opens Oct. 29; scheduled through Jan. 10, 2027. Our call: Book.
The Imaginary Invalid
Apparently, Molière understood health anxiety long before we had portals, wellness influencers, and the ability to Google a symptom at 2 a.m.
The Imaginary Invalid is about a man consumed by illness, doctors, and the fear that something is wrong with him. This new adaptation by Bill Irwin brings Rachel Bloom to Broadway for the first time, alongside Dylan Baker, Crystal A. Dickinson, and Brooks Ashmanskas.
After a season full of family trauma, moral crises, and men demanding the truth, a smart comedy about questionable doctors and a man who turns his medical anxiety into a personality sounds pretty good to me.
THE DETAILS: Todd Haimes Theatre. Previews begin Sept. 25; opens Oct. 22; closes Nov. 22. Our call: A very appealing lighter night.
DOLLY: A True Original Musical
This one comes with a giant asterisk.
It’s Dolly. And now, with her passing, the stakes feel different.
The musical tells Dolly Parton’s life story using new material alongside “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “I Will Always Love You.” Previews begin in December, but the show doesn’t officially open until January, so nobody can responsibly tell you yet whether it’s wonderful.
A life that goes from a one-room cabin in Tennessee to becoming one of the few genuinely cross-generational female cultural icons we have is Broadway material if anything is. The question is whether the show can capture the intelligence, nerve, and enormous self-knowledge underneath the rhinestones.
Dolly spent a lifetime making sure we knew exactly who she was. Broadway has quite a job ahead of it.
THE DETAILS: St. James Theatre. Previews begin Dec. 7; opens Jan. 19, 2027. Our call: Book for Dolly. Wait for reviews if you’re booking for the show.
Susan’s New York Cheat Sheet
If Broadway gives you an excuse for a couple of nights in New York, don’t let Google plan the rest of the trip. Everyone knows the usual Theater District hotels and restaurants. These aren’t those. If a friend were coming to New York for a couple of nights and asked me where to stay and where to eat, this is the list I’d send her.
Where I’d Stay
The Whitby Hotel
Beautiful, eccentric and grown-up. It’s in Midtown without feeling remotely like a Midtown tourist hotel, and the location is hard to beat.
1 Hotel Central Park
Modern, relaxed, and right below Central Park. You can walk to the theaters without spending your entire weekend in the Theater District. The hotel’s Jams restaurant downstairs is also one of our family favorites.
Archer Hotel New York
Smaller, stylish, and ridiculously convenient. A very good choice if you care more about having a smart home base than a grand hotel lobby.
11 Howard
Spend your day downtown and head uptown when it’s time for the show. Your entire New York trip doesn’t need to happen within walking distance of Times Square.
The Roxy Hotel New York
Also downtown, but with an entirely different personality. Livelier, more cinematic, with music and people around. It feels like you’re having a New York weekend rather than simply sleeping in New York.
Where I Actually Eat
Jams
Inside 1 Hotel Central Park and a family favorite. Comfortable, consistently good, and easy. Dinner can be part of the evening without becoming a production before the production. Order the chicken and their kale salad. You’re welcome.
Bistro Verde
Yes, it’s inside Nordstrom’s flagship women’s store. Go anyway. Bright, civilized, and particularly good for lunch before a matinee. It’s the kind of place you probably wouldn’t find unless somebody told you about it.
JoJo
Jean-Georges in an Upper East Side townhouse. This one requires going a little east before heading to the theaters, but it’s a lovely way to start the night and feels like an actual New York restaurant rather than a pre-theater operation.
Quality Bistro
French, bustling, and fun, with enough energy to make dinner feel like the beginning of the night. It’s also genuinely convenient to Broadway.
L’Avenue at Saks
The splurge. At Saks Fifth Avenue, glamorous and very much a scene. If you’re coming to New York for a weekend, you’re allowed to lean into it.
La Goulue
Old-school French New York in the best way. This is where I’d go when I want the evening to feel polished without feeling like somebody invented it for Instagram. The bread and butter alone are worth the trip.
Masseria dei Vini
Italian, close to the theaters, and an actual restaurant rather than a pre-curtain feeding station. Particularly useful when you want very good food without making logistics the main event.
If I Had One Night
I hate this question because it depends entirely on what kind of night I want.
For sheer cast and grown-up family warfare, Other Desert Cities. For wit, sex, and Tom Hiddleston doing Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. For the new play I’m most curious about, Inter Alia. For the one that may unexpectedly wreck me, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
The good news is that Broadway apparently remembered this fall that grown-ups buy tickets too.
