The 2022-23 Broadway season is headlined by long-running shows like Wicked, Hamilton, Chicago, The Lion King, and The Book of Mormon, but it also features several highly anticipated debuts. Many new musicals and plays debuted and closed this season, including Almost Famous, KPOP, Between Riverside and Crazy, and The Kite Runner.
The following are six other premiering plays and musicals of the 2022-23 Broadway season.
1. Life of Pi
After an award-winning run at London’s West End, Life of Pi is slated to premiere on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on March 30. Based on Yann Martel’s celebrated novel of the same name, the play, which follows 16-year-old Pi on a journey of survival stranded in the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat, won five Olivier Awards, including Best New Play. It’s scheduled to run at Schoenfeld until September 3.
The scene stealer in the West End production was the animal puppet Royal Bengal tiger stranded on the lifeboat with Pi. Seven actors worked together to bring the puppet to life on the stage and each shared the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor. In addition to the tiger, Pi is joined on the lifeboat by a hyena, a zebra, and an orangutan.
“Refreshingly, instead of using 21st-century technical wizardry borrowed from film, [set designer Tim] Hatley uses old-fashioned theater techniques incorporating the actors’ bodies, a turntable, cunningly versatile wooden set-pieces, and amusingly hidden trapdoors,” David Benedict wrote of the animal puppet for Life of Pi’s West End production. “The visibility of his techniques is mirrored by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell’s magnificent puppets, with two or three puppeteers clearly visible beneath the huge constructions who, due to the grace and conviction of the compelling movement, seem to vanish before the audience’s eyes. The prowling tiger always feels alarmingly dangerous; when the hyena attacks, the audience gasps.”
2. Back to the Future: The Musical
Nearly four decades after its theatrical release, Back to the Future will take center stage on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre with previews beginning June 30. The story follows the same script as the original film, with teenager Marty McFly and eccentric scientist Doc Brown transporting back to 1955 in a time-traveling DeLorean, but it includes musical elements such as solo song performances and extended dance sequences. Marty’s “Johnny B. Goode” performance, for example, is one of the many signature moments from the film kept intact for the musical.
Like Life of Pi, Back to the Future: The Musical debuted at London’s West End and won Best New Musical at the Olivier Awards, Broadway World Awards, and WhatsOnStage Awards. Tony Award winner Roger Bart, who played Doc Brown in London, will reprise the co-lead role on Broadway.
3. Bad Cinderella
The Phantom of the Opera ended its 35-year run on Broadway with a final performance on February 18. The Andrew Lloyd Webber production was Broadway’s longest-running show and grossed more than $1.3 billion since opening at the Majestic Theatre in January 1988. One day before its final show, previews began for Webber’s latest production: Bad Cinderella. The musical is being shown at the Imperial Theatre.
Called “a big, colorful, fun fairy tale rewrite” by The New York Times, Bad Cinderella presents the fairy tale princess as grungy and headstrong as opposed to an innocent and helpless princess-to-be. The musical also opened at London’s West End. Laurence Connor directs Bad Cinderella, with the story and book by Emerald Fennell and lyrics by David Zippel.
4. Shucked
Shucked, a country-comedy musical that premiered at Utah’s Pioneer Theatre Company, is set to open on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre on April 4. While exact details of the plot are scarce, the production’s press notes are filled with corn puns, noting that it will “offer a kernel of hope for our divided nation.” Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally wrote the music for the production; together, they’ve written for acclaimed artists such as Sheryl Crow, Reba McEntire, and Kacey Musgraves.
5. The Mousetrap
A play written by Agatha Christie, The Mousetrap has been a staple on London’s West End for more than 70 years and is finally making its Broadway debut in 2023. With more than 28,000 performances, it is the world’s longest-running play. There’s no official opening date for the murder mystery, but it is expected to premiere sometime in 2023.
6. Fat Ham
Fat Ham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play with a modern twist on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, officially opens on April 12 at the American Airlines Theatre. The play has many of the same plot elements as Hamlet, including a dead father and conniving uncle, but its protagonist is a young Black person struggling with their identity in the Southern US. It was written by James Ijames and is directed by Saheem Ali.