16 Shows to See Off Broadway in March
Catch new musicals and revivals as well as compelling new plays
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In terms of COVID-19 safety protocols, all of these productions require theatregoers to provide proof of being fully vaccinated with an FDA or WHO authorized vaccine. Masks are also mandatory. Note that some shows are adding additional rules such as proof of a booster shot. While we are doing our best to keep this article up to date, before buying tickets to any event, double-check the COVID-19 rules to avoid disappointment.
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Prospect Theatre Company: Notes from Now – March 2
59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Previews begin March 2. Opens March 10. Closes March 20. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Note: Proof of booster shot required.
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Pipeline Theatre Company: Bruise & Thorn – March 4
A.R.T./New York Theatres, 502 West 53rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 4. Opens March 13. Closes March 27.
The always adventurous Pipeline Theatre Company (Clown Bar, Folk Wandering) presents Bruise & Thorn, an evocative new play by C. Julian Jiménez about two queer Nuyorican cousins in Queens saving up to fund their fabulous dreams. When they discover an illegal side business at the laundromat where they work, they need to decide whether it’s an opportunity or a trap. Jesse Jou directs this dance-infused coming-of-age tale, which features Burn This Tony nominee Lou Liberatore as a colorful character named Old Fart.
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Audible Theater: Coal Country – March 4
Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street between Bedford and Hudson Streets in the West Village
Previews begin March 4. Opens March 10. Closes April 17. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
After receiving excellent reviews in early March 2020, The Public Theater’s heartbreaking Coal Country had its run cut short due to COVID. Now Audible Theater is resurrecting this affecting documentary theatre work by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen (The Exonerated), which interweaves real-life stories of folks impacted by West Virginia’s 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster with blue-collar ballads performed live by Grammy winner Steve Earle. It’s not a conventional musical—Earle’s songs set the mood instead of driving the story—but it’s a powerful examination of our country’s misordered priorities, where profit is too often valued over people.
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Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3: At the Wedding – March 5
Previews begin March 5. Opens March 21. Closes May 22 after taking a hiatus from April 9 to May 17 due to COVID.
Bryna Turner’s last play for Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 new voices initiative, Bull in a China Shop, centered on turn-of-the-20th-century educator and activist Mary Emma Woolley, who was forced to keep her lesbian love life on the DL. Oh what a difference a century makes. In Turner’s At the Wedding, a heartbroken yet hilarious lesbian crashes the wedding of her ex… who’s getting married to a man. Jenna Worsham directs this contemporary comedy about love and letting go.
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Little Girl Blue – March 5
New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 5. Opens March 14. Closes May 22. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
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Signature Theatre Company: Confederates – March 8
The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street between Dyer and Tenth Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 8. Opens March 27. Closes April 24.
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J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company: The Baker’s Wife – March 10
Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street between Ninth and Dyer Avenues in Midtown West
Begins March 10. Closes March 20.
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The Public Theater: Suffs – March 13
The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in the East Village
Previews begin March 13. Opens April 6. Closes May 29.
Note: Proof of booster shot required.
An incredible cast of talented women—including Hamilton‘s Phillipa Soo, The Book of Mormon Tony winner Nikki M. James and Come From Away‘s Jenn Colella—headline Shaina Taub’s buzzy new musical about the American women’s suffrage movement. A brilliant singer-songwriter who penned enchanting musicalizations of As You Like It and Twelfth Night for The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park, Taub also costars in Suffs, which chronicles the seven years leading up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Judging from the diverse cast, the show does not shy away from the class, racial and generational divides that plagued feminism, both then and now.
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The Shed: Help – March 15
The Shed, 545 West 30th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Hudson Yards
Previews begin March 15. Opens March 24. Closes April 10. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
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Ars Nova: Oratorio for Living Things – March 15
Ars Nova at Greenwich House, 27 Barrow Street near Seventh Avenue South in the West Village
Previews March 15. Opens March 30. Closes May 14.
After playing just two preview performances in March 2020, Oratorio for Living Things was forced to close due to you-know-what. But Ars Nova is finally giving this genre-defying work by Obie winner Heather Christian a full-fledged run. The premise of the piece is still a mystery, but we know an 18-person ensemble of singer-instrumentalists will perform the oratorio, which fuses a variety of styles including classical, soul, folk and gospel, under the direction of Lee Sunday Evans. The theatre company has a history of developing innovative musicals, notably Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 and Rags Parkland Sings the Songs of the Future, so expect to be dazzled.
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Second Stage: To My Girls – March 15
59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Previews begin March 15. Opens April 12. Closes April 24. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
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Encores!: The Life – March 16
New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Midtown West
Begins March 16. Closes March 20. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Note: Proof of booster shot required.
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Geva Theatre Center: Heartland – March 18
59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Previews begin March 18. Opens March 26. Closes April 3.
Note: Proof of booster shot required.
After mounting the world premiere of Gabriel Jason Dean’s drama in 2018, Rochester’s Geva Theatre Center presents the NYC premiere of Heartland, which uses the never-ending tumult in Afghanistan to explore cultural and ethical quandaries. A retired American professor (Mark Cuddy) in Nebraska awaits the return of his adopted daughter (Mari Vial-Golden), who went to teach in her homeland of Afghanistan. But the knock on the door comes from an Afghan stranger (Owais Ahmed), who arrives armed with books and incendiary secrets. All three cast members reprise their performances from the original production under the direction of Pirronne Yousefzadeh.
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National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene: Harmony: A New Musical – March 23
Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place near 1st Place in Battery Park City
Previews begin March 23. Opens April 13. Closes May 15.
New Federal Theatre: Gong Lum’s Legacy – March 24
Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin March 24. Opens March 31. Closes April 24.
After presenting digital fare during the shutdown, one of the oldest and most acclaimed Black theatre companies in NYC, New Federal Theatre, returns to in-person performances with Charles L. White’s Gong Lum’s Legacy. Co-presented with The Peccadillo Theater Company and helmed by New Federal’s new artistic director Elizabeth Van Dyke, who took over from founder Woodie King Jr. last year, the play uses a real-life court case, Gong Lum v Rice, as the backdrop for an interracial romance between Joe Ting, a Chinese immigrant and Lucy Simms, a Black school teacher in the Jim Crow South. In the Mississippi Delta in 1924 with Asians seemingly poised to attain the same rights as whites, Joe’s small-minded father works to undermine the couple’s relationship. A compelling and emotional little-known history lesson.
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The York Theatre Company: Penelope, or How the Odyssey Was Really Written – April 2
The York Theatre at Theatre at St. Jean’s, 150 East 76th Street near Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side
POSTPONED TO APRIL DUE TO COVID Previews begin April 2. Opens April 7. Closes April 24. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.
Greece is the word in this new musical comedy that puts a funny, feminist spin on The Odyssey. With a book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg (whose rollicking musicalization of Measure for Measure was a smash for the York) and music by Stephen Weiner, this show centers on Penelope, who stands by her man, Odysseus, even when he doesn’t return home from the war in a timely fashion. She even staves off suitors by writing letters to herself in her husband’s name. Maybe someone will publish them someday. Emily Maltby directs and choreographs, and Britney Nicole Simpson stars as the title character.
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