This fall is a very good fall for touring theater. Familiar properties like Harry Potter and Mean Girls are rolling across the country. So, too, are original musicals and song-fueled adaptations of legendary films. Grab a ticket and get seated.
‘Kimberly Akimbo’
The 2023 Tony Award for Best Musical walks an impossible tightrope. It is a hilarious, heartbreaking tale of a 16-year-old girl in suburban New Jersey who ages rapidly and is currently living in the body of a 60-something-year-old. Her family is a mess, she struggles — understandably — to fit in and time is running out. The faultless Carolee Carmello is playing the protagonist on the road. Expect guffaws; bring tissues.
‘& Juliet’
Jukebox musicals, in which familiar popular tunes are crammed into a shoehorned narrative, are controversial. The conceit of “& Juliet,” though, is clever, as you might expect from David West Read, a writer on “Schitt’s Creek”: What would happen if Juliet didn’t die at the end of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”? In the show’s favor, rather than featuring songs from a lone artist as most jukebox musical’s do, “& Juliet” features songs from many artists, but all written or cowritten by hitmaker Max Martin. “Oops!… I Did It Again”; “It’s Gonna Be Me”; “That’s the Way It Is”: You get the pop-smash idea.
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‘Shucked’
Rare it is to encounter a new Broadway musical that is born of an original story and is also knee-slappingly hilarious. “Shucked” tells a tale of a small town that turns on corn as its local moneymaker. Into town comes a con man, a “corn doctor,” and hijinks ensue, all to a score by Grammy-winning Nashville songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally.
‘Harry Potter & the Cursed Child’
This forward-looking sequel to the original Harry Potter series follows the children of Harry and Ginny, and Hermione and Ron, as they begin their own journey through the halls of Hogwarts. It is a fun, fast-paced romp, and the stage magic and special effects are potent and head-scratching: Wait? Wasn’t Hermione on that side of the stage, so how did she appear on the other side seconds later? Know that the Dementors do appear — and it is terrifying.
‘Some Like It Hot’
A jazzy, full-bore musical comedy adaptation of the 1959 Billy Wilder film of the same name, starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. This being 2024, the musicalized version of “Some Like It Hot” grapples with the gender-bending plot points deftly and sweetly. The score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman sings and swings and is full of earworms.
‘A Beautiful Noise’
Did the world need a Neil Diamond musical? If you love a jukebox musical, are a diehard Diamond aficionado or fawn at the sound of “Sweet Caroline” or “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” absolutely. By all accounts, “A Beautiful Noise” is a good time, as it tells Diamond’s biography through his varied discography.
‘Shrek’
Composer Jeanine Tesori and writer David Lindsay-Abaire (who also wrote “Kimberly Akimbo”) had a solid success with the first 2008 Broadway mounting of this spin on the beloved film. The tone is cheeky and tender, just like the movie. In 2024, the pair has revisited the show, making it more intimate. The new version hits the road this fall.
‘Mean Girls’
The mobius strip that is this Tina Fey brands keeps on keeping on. A movie that became a musical that became a film of the musical is now back on the stage. Cady Heron, Damian, Janis and the Plastics are primed to battle, giggle and endear themselves to a new audience of theatergoers across the States.
