‘The Great Gatsby,’ ‘The Mousetrap,’ ‘My Fair Lady’ and more: Top 10 shows to watch in CT fall theater
It’s a bold new year for Connecticut theaters, many of which start their seasons in the fall. For many, this is the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that they could confidently plan full seasons.
After a careful rebuilding period, Connecticut theaters are back, and audiences have noticed.
A quick scan of the offerings at Connecticut’s best-known theaters shows a wonderful variety of boisterous musicals, challenging dramas, new Christmas shows and plays which speak directly to the Latino, Native American and Black communities. The diversity and creativity is dazzling.
This guide is just a taste of the many theater experiences to be found in the state this fall. Some theaters (Waterbury’s Seven Angels and UConn’s Connecticut Repertory Theatre among them) haven’t announced their 2022-23 seasons yet, and others, like Ivoryton Playhouse and Westport Playhouse, work on calendar-year rather than school-year schedules, so they’re winding down their seasons in the fall rather than kicking them off.
Here, in chronological order, are the top 10 shows to watch out for this fall, plus tips on many others.
Happy theatergoing!
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill’
Playhouse on Park, Sept. 28-Oct. 16
Playhouse on Park opens its fall season with the popular “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” a dramatic and often tragic portrait of the great jazz singer Billie Holiday. The show runs Sept. 28 through Oct. 16 at Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford. $45-$55; $42.50-$52.50 students, seniors and military. Danielle Herbert plays Billie, and Broadway star Stephanie Pope Lofgren is the director. playhouseonpark.org.
‘My Children! My Africa!’
HartBeat Ensemble, Sept. 29-Oct. 9
White South African playwright Athol Fugard remains one of the world’s greatest playwrights, and Connecticut has been a big part of his legacy.
The Yale Repertory Theatre premiered several of his plays, including “‘Master Harold’ ... and the Boys,” in the 1980s. The Long Wharf Theatre, which presented the U.S. premieres of Fugard’s “Sizwe Banzi is Dead” and “The Island” in 1971, decades later staged the world premieres of four more of his plays between 2009 and 2014. Hartford Stage did his “A Lesson from Aloes” in 2018, and now small political theater HartBeat Ensemble brings back Fugard’s three-person 1989 drama “My Children! My Africa!,” which captures the idealist and activist that was then leading to the fall of apartheid. It’s an inspired choice, a glimpse of revolutionary social change from a playwright whose name is still widely known in Connecticut. The show is directed by Melanie Dreyer-Lude, and HartBeat’s artistic director, Godfrey L. Simmons Jr., is in the cast. Sept. 29 through Oct. 9 at the Carriage House Theater, 360 Farmington Ave., Hartford. $25, $20 students & seniors. hartbeatensemble.org.
As for Black playwrights writing about racism, it is an exceptional season for classic African-American dramas. Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s civil rights memoir “From the Mississippi Delta” runs Oct. 18-30 at Westport Playhouse (westportplayhouse.org). Playhouse on Park is doing August Wilson’s “Fences” Nov. 2-20 in West Hartford (playhouseonpark.org). The national tour of Charles Fuller’s “A Soldier’s Play” (which, like “Fences,” won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama) is at the Shubert Theater in New Haven Dec. 8-11 (shubert.com).
‘The Great Gatsby’
Ivoryton Playhouse, Sept. 29-Oct. 23
There’s already one play based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel of the rich not being like you or I: “The Great Gatsby: A Live Radio Play” at Branford’s Legacy Theater through Oct. 1 (legacytheatrect.org). The Ivoryton Playhouse is doing a different, more traditionally theatrical, adaptation of the novel. This version, by British playwright Simon Levy, has had over a hundred productions worldwide. Sept. 29 through Oct. 23. $55 adults, $50 seniors, $25 students. 103 Main St., Ivoryton. ivorytonplayhouse.org/our-season/the-great-gatsby.
‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’
Yale Repertory Theatre, Oct. 6-29
Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins aren’t the only bickering couple on the boards this fall. Edward Albee’s masterpiece of marital malevolence, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” opens the 2022-23 season at the Yale Repertory Theatre. It is directed by the Rep’s artistic director, James Bundy, who directed Albee’s “A Delicate Balance” there in 2010. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” stars Dan Donohue and René Augesen as George and Martha, with Nate Janis and Emma Pfitzer Price as the younger couple Nick and Honey. Oct. 6-29 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. $15-$65. yalerep.org/productions/whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf/.
‘Fun Home’
TheaterWorks Hartford, Oct. 8-30
“Fun Home” has the potential to match the magnificence of TheaterWorks Hartford’s 2017 production of “Next to Normal,” one of the most acclaimed shows in the theater’s history. For one thing, “Fun Home” has the same director — TheaterWorks artistic director Rob Ruggiero — as well as one of its stars, Christiane Noll, who here plays the mother in this coming-of-age coming-out tale based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel memoir. Oct. 8-30 at TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl St., Hartford. $25-$60. twhartford.org/portfolio-items/fun-home/.
‘The Mousetrap’
Hartford Stage, Oct. 13 through Nov. 6
The longest-running play in theater history, Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” ran continuously in London from 1952 until 2020 when COVID shuttered it. It reopened in 2021 and may set another record. As popular as it is in England, “The Mousetrap” doesn’t get done much in America these days, which makes this new Hartford Stage production an eagerly awaited season-opener. Hartford Stage is no stranger to Agatha Christie, having done Ken Ludwig’s lavish adaptation of “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2018. The director of “The Mousetrap” is the tirelessly creative Jackson Gay, who helmed the world premieres of Bess Wohl’s “Make Believe” at Hartford Stage in 2018 and Rolin Jones’ “These Paper Bullets!” at the Yale Rep in 2014. Oct. 13 through Nov. 6 at Hartford Stage, 50 Church St., Hartford. $30-$100. hartfordstage.org.
‘My Fair Lady’
Shubert Theater, Oct. 19-22
Location, location, location. The touring version of the 2018 Lincoln Center revival of “My Fair Lady” has its naysayers. Bart Sher’s production goes back to the musical’s source material, George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” to more deeply probe some of the relationship issues between Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, profoundly changing the story. But dramaturgical disputes likely won’t dull the excitement of “My Fair Lady” returning to the Shubert Theater in New Haven, the very theater where it had its world premiere as a pre-Broadway try-out in 1956. There will be dancing in the streets, as exuberant as Eliza’s dad “gettin’ married in the mornin’.” Oct. 19-22 at the Shubert, 247 College St., New Haven. $36-$114. shubert.com/events/detail/my-fair-lady.
If you miss “My Fair Lady” at the Shubert, the same tour is visiting the Waterbury Palace Jan. 24-26 (palacetheaterct.org).
‘Flying Bird’s Diary’
Long Wharf Theatre, Oct. 22 and 23
It is a reading, script-in-hand and unencumbered by sets and props and special effects, but “Flying Bird’s Diary” holds the distinction of being the final play to be performed on the mainstage of the Long Wharf Theatre at 222 Sargent Drive in New Haven before that company departs the building it has called home for 57 years.
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s new drama is about a celebrated member of Connecticut’s Mohegan tribe, Flying Bird, who in the 19th century fought for respect for her heritage and was the last known speaker of the Mohegan Pequot language. The reading is directed by Madeline Sayet, director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. Sayet has directed at theaters throughout the state, including New London’s Flock Theatre, UConn’s Connecticut Repertory Theatre and HartBeat Ensemble. Both Zobel and Sayet are citizens of the Mohegan Tribe; the playwright is the director’s mother. Oct. 22 and 23 at the Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $35, $10 students. https://longwharf.org/shows-events/flying-birds-diary/.
Other new plays on the way: The world premiere of the bakery-set “The Brightest Thing in the World” by Leah Nanako Winkler Nov. 25-Dec. 17 at Yale Rep in New Haven (yalerep.org), the 11th Annual International Playwrights Festival Oct. 14 and 15 at the Warner Theatre in Torrington warnertheatre.org) and the live-onstage return of the Hartford Fringe Festival at the Carriage House Theater on Farmington Avenue Oct. 20-29 (hartfordfringefestival.org).
‘Aladdin’
The Bushnell, Nov. 8-13
“Aladdin,” the 2014 Broadway hit based on the 1992 animated film, is the first Disney musical to play The Bushnell in Hartford since “The Lion King” was there in 2018. Disney tours are always top-rate production-wise, and seeing “Aladdin” will be particularly special since its live-action movie remake came out in 2019. Nov. 8-13 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. $38-$130. bushnell.org/shows-concerts/disney-s-aladdin.
‘Christmas in Connecticut’
Goodspeed Opera House, Nov. 18-Dec. 30
There’s a new Christmas show around, and it doesn’t involve Charles Dickens or Jimmy Stewart.
Goodspeed Opera House is premiering a new musical based on the classic 1945 movie “Christmas in Connecticut.” The original starred Barbara Stanwyck as a magazine columnist who’s portrayed herself as a wife and mother who lives on a farm and has to live that lie when put on the spot by her oblivious publisher. Nov. 18 through Dec. 30 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. $36-$80. goodspeed.org.
Looking for other holiday shows? Hartford Stage has opted to bring back last year’s “golden age of radio” adaptation of the classic Jimmy Stewart movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” postponing the return of “A Christmas Carol” for at least another year (hartfordstage.org). The annual national tour of “Elf the Musical,” which has played in a bunch of different theaters in the state over the years, is at the Oakdale in Wallingford (livenation.com) Nov. 18 and 19. And TheaterWorks Hartford’s holiday staple “Christmas on the Rocks” is turning 10 years old and promising whole new scenes and other surprises (twhartford.org).
Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.
