ON BROADWAY

Broadway Your Way: A Visitor’s Guide

By Griffin Miller

The 76th Annual Tony Awards are in the works for their June 11th broadcast live from New York City’s United Palace Theatre. And while this date promises to roll into our future as an evening of red-carpet chic, high-energy performances, humorous moments, and fierce competition, you’ll find that the weeks leading up to the big night are Broadway’s most exciting as tickets fly and anticipation rocks the Theater District.

My advice? Skip the hype and go for the shows and/or stars that speak to you—and yes, even those that aren’t being scrutinized under 2023’s pre-Tony microscope. If killer choreography is your passion, check out Bob Fosse’s DANCIN’, Moulin Rouge! The Musical (starring Joanna “JoJo” Levesque as Satine through July 16th), Aladdin, and New York, New York. Maybe madcap comedy is what your heart and funnybone crave, in which case consider the plays Fat Ham (2022 Pulitzer Prize), Peter Pan Goes Wrong, and The Thanksgiving Play—or have your laughs and music, too, when you reserve seats for divinely irreverent must-see

The Book of Mormon, full-throttle farce Some Like It Hot, and pun-in-cheek Shucked

Should you prefer your musical brew percolating on the dark side, two shows move to the front of the line with the right blend: 2019’s Tony-winning Hadestown (eternally haunting), and this year’s transcendent revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford as the charismatic cut-throat duo: title character Todd and his meat-pie manufacturing sidekick, Mrs. Lovett.

Of Broadway’s quartet of jukebox musicals—2021’s Tony winner Moulin Rouge!, 2022 Tony nominee MJ The Musical; this season’s fantastical “what if” spin on Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, & Juliet; and the ultimate powerhouse bio, A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical, that gives audiences not one, but two versions of the magnetic performer–Tony nominees Mark Jacoby as the pop legend “Now” and Will Swenson as Diamond “Then.” Suffice to say Swenson mesmerizes as he illuminates all aspects of the singer’s life—creative,

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