By Robert Nesti

Queer theater in New York City was dominated this past fall by just a few plays. On Broadway, Oh, Mary! continued to sell out despite its author and star Cole Escola’s departure, as shrewd casting proved key to its success. Off-Broadway, Jordan Tannahill’s Prince Faggot received extraordinary reviews when it opened at Playwrights Horizons (co-produced with Soho Rep) in May. It ran through August at that theater, then transferred to the nearby Studio Seaview in September, where its sold-out run was extended numerous times, closing in early December. In addition to its provocative title, the play matter-of-factly speculates that the adult Prince George (the son of William and Kate) is queer and is in a “down-low” relationship with a British Indian journalist (Dev) he meets while at Oxford. When it opened, it received a Critics’ Pick from the New York Times, which called it “a horny, thought-provoking play that’s as academic as it is avant-garde.” As of now, there are no plans for it to return this spring or any plans for a London production, which, considering its subject matter, would be an event.

In the upcoming weeks, though, queer theater makes a big return to New York with the appearance of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the person of queer superstar Luke Evans; the jellicled cats strutting the runway, ballroom-style; Céline Dion going down with the Titanic; Truman Capote telling his side of the Swans saga in a most intimate setting; and an oddball parody of Broadway musicals derived from a cult streaming series landing where it belongs — one block south of 42nd Street.

Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St.  │  Previews: March 18  •  Opening: April 7

Moving from the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) is this reimagined version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats set in the world of LGBTQ+ ballroom culture, incorporating voguing, runway competitions, and queer artistry. When Webber saw the show, he called it “a Jellicle ball of a time,” and his high praise is said to have influenced its move to Broadway, where the Broadhurst Theatre is being reconfigured to reflect its downtown staging.

The cast includes Tony winner André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy, alongside a mix of Broadway performers and veterans of the ballroom world who include “Tempress” Chasity Moore, the transgender ballroom icon making her Broadway debut as Grizabella; Leiomy Maldonado (Macavity), the openly transgender Latina ballroom icon known as the “Wonder Woman of Vogue;” Robert “Silk” Mason (Magical Mister Mistoffelees), the nonbinary artist (uses they/them pronouns) who discovered the ballroom community while living in New York; and Jonathan Burke (Mungojerrie), an openly queer actor who previously starred in The Inheritance and Choir Boy.

The production is co-directed by Bill Rauch, who developed the concept, and Zhailon Levingston, who became the youngest Black director ever on Broadway with Chicken & Biscuits in 2021, when he was 27. The choreographers are Arturo Lyons, a prominent figure in the ballroom scene who acted as a consultant on Pose and Legendary, and Omari Wiles, the founder of Les Ballet Afrik and a legend in the House of Nina Oricci, who blends elements of West African dance, house, and vogue into his electric choreography. Also on hand are Josephine Kearns (Gender Consultant) and Skylar Fox (Magic/Illusion Design) to maintain the production’s magical but queer-coded atmosphere.

 For more information, visit the show’s website at this link.

Watch the show’s trailer:

The Rocky Horror Show

Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St.  │  Previews: March 26  •  Opening: April 23  •  Closing: June 21

Sam Pinkleton, last year’s Tony winner for Best Director of a Play for Oh, Mary!, returns to helm this revival of the cult musical with queer Hollywood superstar Luke Evans as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in his Broadway debut. Evans is no stranger to the musical stage, having appeared early in his career in West End productions of Taboo, Avenue Q, and RENT Remixed. He returned to the West End in 2023 to appear in Backstairs Billy, a dramedy that explored the 50-year relationship between Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (Penelope Wilton) and her devoted, openly gay servant William “Billy” Tallon (played by Evans).

When once asked by a London gay newspaper if he was queer, Evans said: “I’ve always lived as a gay man. I’ve been a chorus boy in West End musicals. I’ve never really tried to hide it, and I’ve never really felt that I’ve had to.” This came into question when he began appearing in major Hollywood action and fantasy films (Clash of the Titans, The Hobbit) and his personal life was put out of bounds by publicists, with his Wikipedia page scrubbed of queer references. He later called such characterizations ridiculous, as he became more transparent about his queer identity. Since then he has become Hollywood’s most prominent openly queer leading man.

Also in the production are Oscar nominee and queer-identified actress Stephanie Hsu as Janet, Rachel Dratch as the Narrator, Juliette Lewis as Magenta, and transgender actress and Pose star Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as Columbia. Rocky is played by Josh Rivera, who played Chino in the West Side Story revival and the title role in the 2024 FX anthology series American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.

While it was a hit in London and Los Angeles, The Rocky Horror Show flopped on Broadway in 1975, in part because the Longacre Theatre was reconfigured as a cabaret, which the show’s creator Richard O’Brien felt was at odds with the idea of it taking place in a “cinema under demolition.” Critics also complained that a Broadway theater was the wrong venue for such a show, which belonged in a grimier space downtown. It closed after 45 performances. The now-legendary film version was already in the can when the New York production played, but was not released until the following September. It was a box-office failure, but the following year became a cult sensation with midnight showings at NYC’s Waverly Theatre, quickly followed by others across the country. Within months, audience members came dressed as the film’s characters, shouted back at the dialogue, and threw props at the screen.

It is that party spirit that Pinkleton and his choreographer Ani Taj want to bring to the revival, utilizing the legendary history of Studio 54 to create an environment where the boundary between stage and audience is blurred. While audience members will be encouraged to wear costumes and talk back at the actors, outside props are strictly forbidden under existing Broadway rules. An official prop bag will be sold at the theater consisting of glow sticks, rubber gloves, noisemakers, party hats, confetti, and streamers for the audience to use during the performance at specific moments. But don’t expect to bring water pistols, lighters, or rice to Studio 54.

For more information, visit the show’s website.

Watch this video from Broadway World about the production:

Titanique

St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St.  │  Previews: March 26  •  Opening: April 12  •  Closing: July 12

Céline Dion has always deserved a jukebox musical, and what better choice than a reimagining of Titanic with not only her songs, but with Céline front and center as the ship hits the iceberg? What started as a “drunken idea” amongst friends at a Los Angeles bar has become a musical theater sensation. It began when roommates Constantine Rousouli and Marla Mindelle were trying to make each other laugh while unemployed. Rousouli conceived of Dion claiming to be a survivor of the Titanic, then telling her version of the sinking. They pitched their “ridiculuous” concept to director Tye Blu, who assisted in writing the script. It was first performed as a one-night-only concert in Los Angeles in 2017, then in New York the following year. A fully staged production was produced in 2022 at NYC’s Asylum Theatre (a comedy club in the basement of a Gristedes grocery store). It became a word-of-mouth sensation, extending its run and moving to the larger Daryl Roth Theatre (near Union Square), where it ran for three years and 1,221 performances. Since then it has become an international hit with productions in Sydney, Paris, Montreal, São Paulo, and London, where it is currently running after winning an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play.

Moving to a venue four times the size of its off-Broadway home means some upscaling for the show, though its core remains the same. Larger sets, bigger wigs, and new orchestrations to fit the St. James’s acoustics are being utilized. Having been called by its creators “a gay fantasia,” expect a large queer contingent in the cast: out co-creator Marla Mindelle will reprise her role as Céline Dion; also recreating his original role as Jack Dawson is actor Constantine Rousouli, who joked once that his musical theater career “turned him gay.” Joining them are multiple Emmy winner and out actor Jim Parsons as Rose’s mother; Layton Williams, the queer and nonbinary actor who won an Olivier Award for playing the Iceberg; and Frankie Grande, who returns to the role of Victor Garber, which he played on several occasions off-Broadway. Also in the cast is dance diva and queer favorite Deborah Cox as Molly Brown. Director Tye Blu says he plans to recreate the show’s “fun, cozy experience” by utilizing a runway in the first few rows, and plans to amplify the choreography with the help of Ellenore Scott, who staged the dances in the recent Funny Girl revival.

For more information, visit the show’s website at this link.

Watch the show’s trailer:

Dog Day Afternoon

August Wilson Theatre, 245 W. 52nd St.  │  Previews: March 10  •  Opening: March 30  •  Closing: June 28

Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis turns to the true-life story of John Wojtowicz, who led two accomplices in a botched bank robbery and hostage standoff at a Brooklyn bank in 1972. The story was told in Sidney Lumet’s 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, which starred Al Pacino as Wojtowicz (renamed Sonny) and earned Frank Pierson an Oscar for adapted screenplay. The source was a 1972 Life magazine article, “The Boys in the Bank,” which Guirgis is also using as source material. The real-life Wojtowicz initiated the robbery to raise money to pay for the gender-affirming surgery of his partner, Elizabeth Eden (then known as Ernest Aron), who was despondent after a suicide attempt. Others maintain that story was a cover for the real reason — Wojtowicz’s debt to Mafia associates. The robbery was thwarted when an alarm went off, but Wojtowicz held those in the bank hostage for 14 hours in an event that became a media circus, drawing some 2,000 people to watch.

Guirgis has explicitly stated his version places a sharper focus on the queer and transgender love story at the heart of the heist, aiming to more deeply explore the character of Leon, Sonny’s partner, and Sonny’s motivations. Two-time Olivier Award-winning director Rupert Goold is directing, with his two leads Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach making their Broadway debuts. Bernthal plays the Wojtowicz role, here named Sonny Amato, and Moss-Bachrach plays his accomplice, Sal DaSilva. In recent years the pair have won Emmy Awards for their roles on FX’s The Bear; but their roots are in New York theater — Bernthal understudied Moss-Bachrach in an off-Broadway production of Fifth of July, and was instrumental in Moss-Bachrach being cast in the play. In the pivotal role of Leon is newcomer Esteban Andres Cruz (they/them), a nonbinary actor making their Broadway debut.

For more information, visit the show’s website at this link.

Watch the show’s trailer:

Schmigadoon!

Nederlander Theatre, 208 W. 41st St.  │  Previews: April 4  •  Opening: April 20  •  Closing: September 6, 2026

It felt inevitable that the 2021 Apple TV+ series would find its way to the stage. Though it only ran two seasons (the second aired in 2023), this wickedly clever parody of Golden Age American musical theater — spanning the 1940s through the 1970s across its two seasons — has become a cult favorite, especially with those who love and attend musical theater, who, unsurprisingly, include many queer men. The stage show covers only Season 1: the series takes its concept and title from Brigadoon. Josh and Melissa, a 30-something couple in a failing relationship, go on a hiking trip and find themselves in a town frozen in a perpetual Golden Age musical theater warp. They discover they can’t leave until they find true love; complicating matters is that each finds themselves attracted to two of the town’s residents.

On stage, the musical — with a book and score by Cinco Paul and staging by Christopher Gattelli — parodies such Golden Age musicals as Brigadoon, Oklahoma!, Carousel, The Music Man, Guys and Dolls, and The Sound of Music.

One way to describe the stage version is as Paul’s “director’s cut” of the first season’s six episodes. But there are cuts and differences. Notably, on the show Josh was played by Black actor Keegan-Michael Key, which led to references to race — the word “miscegenation” was used at one point to describe his relationship with Melissa (played by white actress Cecily Strong). With the casting of white actor Alex Brightman, any reference to race (as well as musicals such as Show Boat) has been eliminated. This became a sticking point among critics when reviewing the show’s Washington, D.C., tryout a year ago. What has been amplified is the queer relationship between Mayor Menlove and Reverend Layton, the two closeted characters, made more explicit with the duet “I Thought I Was the Only One.”

Only one performer from the television version, Ann Harada, reprises her role as Florence Menlove. The new cast features Alex Brightman as Josh (replacing Keegan-Michael Key), Sara Chase as Melissa (replacing Cecily Strong), Ana Gasteyer as Mildred Layton (replacing Kristin Chenoweth), Brad Oscar as Mayor Menlove (replacing Alan Cumming), McKenzie Kurtz as Betsy McDonough (replacing Dove Cameron), Isabelle McCalla as Emma Tate (replacing Ariana DeBose), and Max Clayton as Danny Bailey (replacing Aaron Tveit). While in D.C., Paul commented on how pleasantly surprised he was that the show held up so well without its highly touted celebrity television cast, pointing to the strength of the material. To that end, he has added three new songs: in addition to “I Thought I Was the Only One,” there’s “The Picnic Basket Auction,” an allusion to Oklahoma!, and an expanded solo for Betsy, “Not That Kinda Gal,” also inspired by Oklahoma!.

For more information, visit the show’s website at this link.

Watch this video of rehearsal footage during its Kennedy Center tryout from Playbill:

Tru

The Library, House of the Redeemer, 7 East 95th St. (Upper East Side)  │  Previews: March 6  •  Opening: March 19  •  Closing: May 3, 2026

Jay Presson Allen’s 1989 play features just one character — Truman Capote on New Year’s Eve in 1975, reeling from the scandal surrounding Esquire magazine’s publication of an excerpt from his forthcoming novel Answered Prayers. Called “La Côte Basque, 1965,” it was narrated by a thinly veiled Capote stand-in and filled with gossip about his famous friends — the “swans,” as he called them — the wealthy, glamorous women whose inner lives he had been privy to for years. Babe Paley, Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest, Marella Agnelli, and others recognized themselves and each other immediately in the unflattering portraits.

The 1989 Broadway production won Robert Morse a Tony Award, as well as an Emmy Award when it was filmed for television some years later. For this new production, Tony-winning actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson stars as Capote with direction by fellow Tony winner Rob Ashford. But this Tru is no longer a solo show: Broadway actress and dancer Charlotte d’Amboise appears in an unscripted onstage role. What is unusual about this production — and why it will likely be the hottest ticket in New York during its eight-week run — is that there will be only 99 audience members at every performance. It takes place in an unusual venue: a 17th-century Italian Renaissance library, the architectural centerpiece of a landmarked Gilded Age Vanderbilt family mansion.

For more information, visit this website at this link.

Watch Jesse Tyler Ferguson talk about Truman Capote on Good Morning America.

The Homosexuals

Studio Theatre, 520 8th Ave., Suite 901  │  April 3–12, 2026

The group OUT/PLAY brings Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins’s 2011 play The Homosexuals to the intimate Studio Theatre off-off-Broadway for its NYC premiere. A hit in Chicago, the play has been produced regionally in Los Angeles, Detroit, Buffalo, and San Francisco. Dawkins uses the reverse-chronological device deployed in the Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along to follow a decade in the life of a 30-year-old queer man named Evan. It begins with his breakup with his boyfriend, then moves back in time to show how the relationship developed at a time of great change in the queer community.

Performances: Fri. April 3, Sat. April 4, Sun. April 5 (3:30 p.m.), Fri. April 10, Sat. April 11, and Sun. April 12 (3:30 p.m.), all at 7 p.m. unless noted.

For more information, visit this website at this link.

ONGOING

Oh, Mary!

Lyceum Theatre, Broadway

Cole Escola’s runaway smash, a wildly over-the-top portrayal of the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, continues to draw full houses as it approaches its 600th performance. Escola won the Tony last year, famously accepting the Best Actor award in a gown that paid homage to a look Bernadette Peters wore to the 1999 Tony Awards. Since he left the show, the producers have shrewdly cast strong box-office draws in the lead, most recently Jane Krakowski, whose 12-week run from October 2025 to early January 2026 completely sold out with weekly grosses averaging $1.2 million. Jinkx Monsoon preceded and followed Krakowski. Her first run, from August to September 2025, also sold out; her return from January to February of this year likewise sold out, with grosses reaching $1.4 million during the usually sluggish time of year. John Cameron Mitchell has stepped into the title role for a 12-week limited engagement running through April 26.

For more information, visit the play’s website at this link.

Watch John Cameron Mitchell talk about Oh, Mary! on Late Night with Seth Myers.

Moulin Rouge!

Al Hirschfeld Theatre

Two queer icons are part of the closing weeks of this Tony-winning musical, which ends its run on July 26 after 2,265 regular performances. Currently in the role of nightclub owner Harold Zidler, who acts as the musical’s MC, is Bob the Drag Queen, the nonbinary comedian, actor, and drag performer who won Season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Audiences have responded strongly to his performance, with social media comments praising the fresh camp outlook he brings to this larger-than-life character. He ends his run on March 22 and will be followed by a singer with a huge queer following: Megan Thee Stallion. The openly bisexual music superstar will be making history as the first female-identifying performer to play the role of Zidler. Expect some of Stallion’s hits, including “Body” and “Savage,” to make their way into the megamix that closes the show. No doubt her substantial queer following — the Hotties — will be heading to the Hirschfeld.

For more information, visit the show’s website at this link.

Watch Bob the Drag Queen’s first curtain call at Moulin Rouge!