Spring 2026 Broadway Openings Worth Watching – front mezz junkies, Theater News

Frontmezzjunkies reports: Spring Plays on Broadway

By Ross

If the new musical season feels like Broadway testing its nerve, then Spring 2026 feels like it’s testing its stamina. March and April are shaping up to be a dense, star-studded sprint toward the Tony Awards deadline, packed with plays that arrive not quietly, but with intention. This is the kind of season that rewards the obsessives (me), the people willing to bounce from theatre to theatre, program in hand, clocking performances before the cutoff and arguing casting choices over late dinners. It’s a season built on names, yes, but also on material that demands attention rather than background admiration.

What immediately stands out is the sheer weight of the talent stepping onto Broadway stages. Daniel Radcliffe’s long-awaited Broadway debut in Every Brilliant Thing feels less like a stunt and more like a genuine alignment of actor and material. The play’s intimate, interactive structure turns the audience into collaborators, and Radcliffe’s willingness to strip away spectacle for something vulnerable suggests a performance aimed squarely at connection, not applause. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, Death of a Salesman returns with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, a pairing so theatrically potent it practically hums with Tony inevitability. Arthur Miller’s portrait of the American Dream’s decay doesn’t need reinvention, but it does benefit from actors unafraid of emotional wreckage, and this production promises exactly that.

This spring also leans heavily into adaptations that feel designed for a more volatile, media-saturated audience. Dog Day Afternoon, with Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, brings cinematic tension and social commentary into a live space where proximity matters. That sense of danger, of things potentially spiraling out of control, is mirrored in Giant, the Olivier-winning transfer featuring John Lithgow as Roald Dahl. Part biography, part reckoning, the play interrogates legacy and mythmaking with a sharpness that feels especially timely. Lithgow’s presence alone gives the season a kind of gravitational pull, one that’s likely to echo loudly when nominations roll around.

Yet it’s the quieter, sharper-edged comedies and revivals that provide balance. Becky Shaw, making its Broadway debut, offers contemporary wit and social discomfort in equal measure, while Fallen Angels, a play I just recently witnessed and reviewed at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, promises elegance and sparkle under the expert stewardship of Noël Coward, buoyed by the star pairing of Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne. Proof, returning with Don Cheadle and Ayo Edebiri, feels like a bridge between generations, a revival that understands how themes of genius, grief, and instability land differently now than they did at the turn of the millennium. These aren’t safe revivals; they’re conversations reopened.

And then there’s The Fear of 13, perhaps the most unexpected and quietly formidable entry of the season. Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson, making their Broadway debuts in Lindsey Ferrentino’s adaptation of the true story of Nick Yarris gives the spring lineup a jolt of moral gravity. Directed by David Cromer, the play examines wrongful conviction, time, and survival with a focus that feels almost surgical. Brody’s Olivier-nominated performance at the Donmar Warehouse, where he lost to Lithgow for Giant, sets up a potential Tony rematch that theatre lovers will be tracking obsessively. Ferrentino’s second Broadway outing of the season also feels like a reclamation after the misfire of The Queen of Versailles, a reminder that strong writing, in the right form, can still cut deep.

What excites me most about this spring isn’t just the star power or the awards potential, though both are undeniable. It’s the sense that Broadway is once again willing to put serious material in front of audiences and trust them to lean in. These plays aren’t asking to be liked; they’re asking to be witnessed. With classics, adaptations, and new voices colliding in a narrow window before the Tony deadline, March and April feel less like a waiting period and more like a proving ground. I can’t wait to see them all, to compare notes, to argue favorites, and to watch which of these productions rise under pressure. This is Broadway at its most crowded, competitive, and compelling, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.