This Fall's Most Interesting New York Theater Tickets

If you want star power and a familiar title, this is the season for it. *Other Desert Cities* brings Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, and Allison Janney together for a revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s family drama, while *A Few Good Men* pits Bradley Whitford against Tom Blyth in Aaron Sorkin’s courtroom classic. *Much Ado About Nothing* arrives as a starkly stylized transfer from London, with Hayley Atwell and Tom Hiddleston sparring as Beatrice and Benedick. Rosamund Pike makes her Broadway debut in the legal drama *Inter Alia*, and Raúl Esparza headlines *Galileo*, a rock musical about the astronomer’s fight with the Church. These are the shows most likely to sell out and command premium prices — worth locking in early if you have your heart set on one.

 

A few shows have opened early enough to have real word-of-mouth behind them, and the reaction has been strong:

*The Hope Theory* — Magician Helder Guimarães’s autobiographical illusion show, blending sleight-of-hand with the story of his immigration from Portugal, is being called his best work yet. It runs through December 6, so there’s more runway here.

*Beyond the Stardust* — An immersive “live album experience” built around Afrofuturist duo the Illustrious Blacks, turning the Flea into a dance club for the night. Part rave, part theater, through October 18. Good pick if you want something that doesn’t feel like a traditional sit-down show.

Two returning productions are worth a look for anyone who didn’t catch them on their earlier runs: *Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library*, a tense two-hander about a young Hannah Arendt talking her way out of a Gestapo interrogation (through October 25), and *Pre-Existing Condition*, Marin Ireland’s raw, autobiographically inflected drama about the aftermath of an abusive relationship — currently rotating high-profile actors like Lupita Nyong’o and Edie Falco through the lead role (through January .

One show sure to be a hot ticket will be the off-Broadway revival of *Spring Awakening*, with a cast of fresh faces all yearning to be the next Jonathan Groff or Lea Michelle, at Studio Seaview starting November 27.

Making it’s Broadway debut a decade after it’s off-Broadway premiere, *School Girls or the African Mean Girls Play* is currently in previews at the Friedman Theater, and is getting fantastic word of mouth from audiences ahead of it’s September 28th opening.

 

For adventurous theatergoers, a handful of new and experimental works are worth the gamble: Anne Washburn’s latest at MCC, *Anon* , a suburban-Texas culture-war satire; Daniel Fish’s *Kramer/Fauci*, an  unusual restaging of a 1993 C-SPAN interview between AIDS researcher Anthony Fauci and activist Larry Kramer; and *Love Me*, an immersive theatrical experience, where comedian Drew Michael brings the audience inside his mind as he retraces his lifelong search for love — five chapters, five relationships.. None of these come with the safety net of a known title, but they’re where the season’s most original swings are happening.

 

If you want a sure thing with recognizable names, the big Broadway revivals are your play — but book early, since those are the tickets most likely to spike in price. If you want the best odds of a genuinely great night out for less money, the early reviews point to the smaller, stranger stuff: a magic show with real emotional stakes, an immersive concert-theater hybrid. Check back on for rush, lottery, and discount ticket strategies for each of these as showtimes get closer.