Celebrate the brilliance of contemporary theatre with our special feature on this year’s Tony®-nominated authors and their works. These visionary playwrights and composers have crafted narratives that push boundaries, evoke deep emotions, and captivate audiences. From thought-provoking dramas to enchanting musicals, discover the stories and the creative minds behind them that have earned prestigious Tony® nominations. Join us in honoring the talent and dedication that shape the Broadway landscape!
Paula Vogel
Indecent
Indecent, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, is a deeply moving play inspired by the true events surrounding the controversial 1923 Broadway debut of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance—a play seen by some as a seminal work of Jewish culture, and by others as an act of traitorous libel. Indecent charts the history of an incendiary drama and the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it.
The Baltimore Waltz
When Anna, an unmarried schoolteacher, is diagnosed with ATD, Acquired Toilet Disease, a fatal new malady with a high risk factor for elementary school teachers, she and her brother Carl take flight to Europe. Anna decides she wants to drown herself in the sensuality of food and sex, while Carl becomes involved in a wild Third Mannish espionage scheme to find a cure for his sister on the Continent. Something is not quite right with the scenario, and the largest hint is dropped when Anna shows slides of their trip to Europe where each frame looks exactly like Baltimore. Carl’s quest for a cure dead ends with a mad Viennese quack. Their European idyll is broken by Carl’s death, and the tragic revelation that the entire play was Anna’s valiant fantasy to keep alive her brother’s spirit when she could not save his life.
How I Learned to Drive
A wildly funny, surprising and devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling relationship between a young girl and an older man. HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE is the story of a woman who learns the rules of the road and life from behind the wheel.
Check here to view more titles by Vogel!
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding in Harlem is a salon full of funny, whip-smart, talented women ready to make you look and feel nice-nice. On this particularly muggy summer day, Jaja’s rule-following daughter Marie is running the shop while her mother prepares for her courthouse, green-card wedding—to a man no one seems to particularly like. Just like her mother, Dreamer Marie is trying to secure her future; she’s just graduated high school and all she wants to do is go to college. While Marie deals with the customers’ and stylists’ laugh-out-loud drama, news pierces the hearts of the women of the salon, galvanizing their connections and strengthening the community they have longed to make in the United States.
School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play
Paulina, the reigning queen bee at Ghana’s most exclusive boarding school, has her sights set on the Miss Global Universe pageant. But the arrival of Ericka, a new student with undeniable talent and beauty, captures the attention of the pageant recruiter—and Paulina’s hive-minded friends. This buoyant and biting comedy explores the universal similarities (and glaring differences) facing teenage girls across the globe.
Merry Wives
Set in South Harlem, amidst a vibrant and eclectic community of West African immigrants, MERRY WIVES is a New York story about tricks of the heart. A raucous spinoff featuring the Bard’s most beloved comic characters, this hilarious farce tells the story of the trickster Falstaff and the wily wives who outwit him in a celebration of Black joy, laughter, and vitality.
Included in Broadway Book Club’s Black Voices Specialty Collection.
Check here to view more titles by Bioh!
Bekah Brunstetter
The Final Rose
A hit reality TV show is nearing its season finale, and bachelor Jeremy has to narrow the last three potential loves-of-his-life down to two. It’s all about following his heart — or is it? A peek backstage reveals a ratings-obsessed producer, disillusioned staff, and contestants who aren’t all what they seem. Will Jeremy choose his true love over a sure-fire show, before it’s too late? (This play was specially commissioned by Playscripts for high school actors.)
Nothing is the End of the World (except for the end of the world)
In the near-distant future, an NYC charter school becomes the first to welcome artificially intelligent students. However, new AI students Olive and Godfrey receive a chilly welcome from the already self-conscious and stressed-out members of the Junior class. When a reality show swoops in to capture this social experiment on camera, the priorities and moralities of the student body are turned inside-out. At turns both droll and touching, this dark new play questions how we reconcile the thin line between our ever-improving technologies and what it means to be human.
Fat Kids on Fire
Back at home, Bess is just another angst-ridden teenager trying to fit in. But this summer, things are going to be different. Campers and counselors alike are automatically drawn to the new skinny fat girl who’s a definite shoo-in for the illustrious title of Camp Princess. Popularity, power, and self-worth get mixed up as Bess struggles to find her identity. Will she return to school a new woman or will her new self fade like the summer? Colored with sweat stains, stashed sweets, and the awkward innocence of first loves, Fat Kids on Fire is a candid telling of fitting in, living big, and feeling small.
Check here to view more titles by Brunstetter!
Kristoffer Diaz
Welcome to Arroyo’s
Alejandro Arroyo owns the newest (and cleanest) lounge in New York City’s Lower East Side. His sister, Molly, has a nasty habit of writing graffiti on the back wall of the local police precinct. Officer Derek is a recent NYC transplant with something to prove. Lelly Santiago is a socially awkward college student who may have discovered that the Arroyo siblings’ late mother was one of the founders of hip-hop music. Two DJs/narrators/Greek chorus members spin the story in this hip-hop theater coming-of-age story.
Jackie Sibblies Drury
Fairview
At the Frasier household, preparations for Grandma’s birthday party are underway. Beverly is holding on to her sanity by a thread to make sure this party is perfect, but her sister can’t be bothered to help, her husband doesn’t seem to listen, her brother is MIA, her daughter is a teenager, and maybe nothing is what it seems in the first place…! FAIRVIEW is a searing examination of families, drama, family dramas, and the insidiousness of white supremacy.
Rick Elice
The Cher Show
The Cher Show is based on the life of Cherilyn Sarkisian La Piere Bono Allman or as her friends call her, Cher! The kid on a tricycle, vowing to be famous. The teenage phenom who crashes by twenty. The glam TV star who quits at the top. The would-be actress with an Oscar. The rock goddess with a hundred million records sold. The legend who’s done it all, still scared to walk on stage. The wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. The woman, looking for love. The ultimate survivor, chasing her dream. They’re all here, dressed to kill, belting out all the hits, telling it like it is. And they’re all the star of The Cher Show.
George Furth
Getting Away with Murder
The esteemed and retired Dr. Conrad Bering has selected, out of countless applicants, several individuals for private as well as Group therapy. It seems this Pulitzer Prize-winning doctor might be writing another book and it further seems these patients might be his subjects. The Group consists of Martin Chisholm, an ambitious political consultant; Dossie Lustig, a sensual restaurant hostess; the snob socialite Pamela Prideaux; Vassili Laimorgos, a sly dealer in antiques and collectibles; the rich and arrogant real estate mogul Gregory Reed; a cop with a grudge, Dan Gerard; and Nam-Jun Vuong, a college instructor and resentful would-be administrator. On this particular evening the members of the Group gather as usual in Dr. Bering’s office only to discover that the doctor has been murdered. Who did it? And what do the appearances of a mysterious young man who killed a girl in Central Park have to do with what’s going on? Does the fact that the doctor is the last and only tenant in this otherwise empty, guarded security building confirm that one of them had to have done it? To call the police will subject them to reckless scandal, relentless investigation and turn them all into fodder for the hungry media, so a collective decision is made to try to solve the murder themselves. The play then is propelled by a series of twists and turns and red herrings, along with some hold-your-breath shocks, all culminating in an explosive surprise ending. Act One is a “whodunit” and by its end the audience knows the murderer. Act Two becomes a suspense play… will the characters figure it out? Will someone actually be “getting away with murder?”
William Jackson Harper
Travisville
In 1960s Texas, one city has so far avoided the tumult of the Civil Rights movement. Through the efforts of an alliance of black church leaders, a wary peace has been maintained with the city’s white mayor and citizens. But when the mayor partners with a private developer to gentrify the black neighborhood and uproot its residents, and a movement organizer from Atlanta comes to town, the Minister’s Alliance will need to choose between the nonconfrontational status quo and standing up for the interests of their community—and weathering the risks resistance incurs.
Amy Herzog
After the Revolution
The brilliant, promising Emma Joseph proudly carries the torch of her family’s Marxist tradition, devoting her life to the memory of her blacklisted grandfather. But when history reveals a shocking truth about the man himself, the entire family is forced to confront questions of honesty and allegiance they thought had been resolved. AFTER THE REVOLUTION is a bold and moving portrait of an American family, thrown into an intergenerational tailspin, forced to reconcile a thorny and delicate legacy.
The Great God Pan
Jamie’s life in Brooklyn seems just fine: a beautiful girlfriend, a budding journalism career, and parents who live just far enough away. But when a possible childhood trauma comes to light, lives are thrown into a tailspin. Unsettling and deeply compassionate, THE GREAT GOD PAN tells the intimate tale of what is lost and won when a hidden truth is unloosed into the world.
Appropriate
Every estranged member of the Lafayette clan has descended upon the crumbling Arkansas homestead to settle the accounts of the newly-dead patriarch. As his three adult children sort through a lifetime of hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father’s possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.
The Comeuppance
When group of old classmates meet to pre-game their twentieth high school reunion, everyone is nervous for the night ahead. As alcohol and pot help the self-declared “Multi-Ethnic Reject Group,” let their guards down, they begin to reminisce about their teenage selves and reveal how their lives have unfolded since graduation. Did their friendships stand the test of time, or will they realize they don’t have as much in common as they thought they did? Brilliantly witty, theatrical, and moving, The Comeuppance focuses on millennials and their reckoning with the world they will soon inherit.
An Octoroon
Judge Peyton is dead and his plantation Terrebonne is in financial ruins. Peyton’s handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful octoroon. But the evil overseer M’Closky has other plans—for both Terrebonne and Zoe. In 1859, a famous Irishman wrote this play about slavery in America. Now an American tries to write his own.
Included in Broadway Book Club’s Black Voices Specialty Collection
Click here to view more titles by Jacobs-Jenkins!
Tom Kitt
High Fidelity
When Brooklyn record store owner Rob finds himself unexpectedly dumped, his life takes a music-filled turn toward the introspective. Based on the popular novel by Nick Hornby, High Fidelity follows Rob as he struggles to discover how his relationship went awry, and strives to change his life in order to win back his sweetheart Laura. With memorable characters and a rock-and-roll score, this homage to music geek culture explores love, heartbreak, and the power of the perfect soundtrack. Contains adult language.
Des McAnuff
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
She was a girl from Boston with a voice from heaven, who shot through the stars from gospel choir to dance floor diva. But what the world didn’t know was how Donna Summer risked it all to break through barriers, becoming the icon of an era and the inspiration for every music diva who followed. Spend the night with Donna in her electrifying universe.
PigPen Theatre Co.
The Old Man and The Old Moon
The Old Man has kept his post as the sole caretaker of the moon for as long as he (or his wife, the Old Woman) can remember. When she is drawn away by a mysterious melody that sparks memories of their shared past, the Old Man must decide between duty (and routine) and love (and adventure). Luckily for audiences everywhere, he chooses the latter, and what follows is an imaginative sea-faring epic, encompassing apocalyptic storms, civil wars, leviathans of the deep, and cantankerous ghosts, as well as the fiercest obstacle of all: change.
The Nightmare Story
The Nightmare Story is the tale of a boy who ventures into the unknown to find a cure for his mother’s rare disease… before it’s too late.
The Mountain Song
The Mountain Song is the tale of a carpenter who climbs mountains and traverses rivers in order to attend his daughter’s wedding – without a clue as to where it’s taking place.
Stephen Sondheim
Getting Away with Murder
The esteemed and retired Dr. Conrad Bering has selected, out of countless applicants, several individuals for private as well as Group therapy. It seems this Pulitzer Prize-winning doctor might be writing another book and it further seems these patients might be his subjects. The Group consists of Martin Chisholm, an ambitious political consultant; Dossie Lustig, a sensual restaurant hostess; the snob socialite Pamela Prideaux; Vassili Laimorgos, a sly dealer in antiques and collectibles; the rich and arrogant real estate mogul Gregory Reed; a cop with a grudge, Dan Gerard; and Nam-Jun Vuong, a college instructor and resentful would-be administrator. On this particular evening the members of the Group gather as usual in Dr. Bering’s office only to discover that the doctor has been murdered. Who did it? And what do the appearances of a mysterious young man who killed a girl in Central Park have to do with what’s going on? Does the fact that the doctor is the last and only tenant in this otherwise empty, guarded security building confirm that one of them had to have done it? To call the police will subject them to reckless scandal, relentless investigation and turn them all into fodder for the hungry media, so a collective decision is made to try to solve the murder themselves. The play then is propelled by a series of twists and turns and red herrings, along with some hold-your-breath shocks, all culminating in an explosive surprise ending. Act One is a “whodunit” and by its end the audience knows the murderer. Act Two becomes a suspense play… will the characters figure it out? Will someone actually be “getting away with murder?”
