Branden Jacobs-Jenkins - Photo by Jai Lennard

Second Stage sets season 

Second Stage Theater will open its 2026–27 season with a rarity: a musical long associated with off-Broadway history making its first appearance on Broadway.

“The Fantasticks,” the Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt musical that became the longest-running musical of all time, will begin previews on October 22, 2026, and open November 16 at the Hayes Theater. The production, directed and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Christopher Gattelli, will feature a revised book and lyrics by Jones and is being described as a contemporary retelling of the beloved classic.

The musical is one of five productions announced by Second Stage for its 48th season and is the company’s second under Artistic Director Evan Cabnet and Executive Director Adam Siegel. The lineup includes two Broadway premieres, two world premieres, and a New York premiere, split between the Hayes Theater on Broadway and the Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center off-Broadway.

Coming off a season that included the Tony-nominated Broadway premieres of Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime” and Gina Gionfriddo’s “Becky Shaw,” as well as Talene Monahon’s Pulitzer Prize-finalist “Meet the Cartozians,” Second Stage is leaning into a season built around contemporary American work, new voices, and returning artists.

“Second Stage Theater has always been the premiere home for contemporary works by both emerging writers and established masters, and this upcoming season is no exception,” Cabnet said in the announcement.

On Broadway, the season will pair “The Fantasticks” with “Gloria,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Pulitzer finalist play about ambition, media, and professional survival at a prestigious New York magazine. “Gloria” will begin previews on March 17, 2027, and open April 5 at the Hayes. Cabnet will direct the production, reuniting with Jacobs-Jenkins after directing the play’s 2015 world premiere off-Broadway and its 2017 Chicago staging.

Jacobs-Jenkins, a Pulitzer Prize and two-time Tony Award winner, has already had a strong relationship with the Hayes, where his plays “Appropriate” and “Purpose” found major success. With “Gloria,” Second Stage brings one of his sharpest dark comedies to Broadway for the first time.

Off-Broadway, the season will begin with “The Visitors,” a world premiere by Bryna Turner, directed by Jenna Worsham. Performances begin on October 21, 2026, with an opening set for November 9 on the Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center. The play follows Joanna, a woman in her mid-30s, who invites her three siblings to her New York City apartment to ask them for a shocking favor. Turner and Worsham previously collaborated on “At the Wedding,” a New York Times Critic’s Pick at LCT3.

In February 2027, Second Stage will present the world premiere of Miranda Rose Hall’s “Work of Devotion.” Performances begin February 3, with an opening set for February 22 at the Irene Diamond Stage. Set among a group of eighth-century nuns in rural Italy, the play follows women trying to make meaning out of constrained lives after their leader dies in a freak accident. Hall, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, is known for work that includes “A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction” and “Plot Points in Our Sexual Development.”

The season will close off-Broadway with the New York premiere of Naomi Lorrain’s “how to roll a blunt,” directed by Colette Robert. Performances begin on April 14, 2027, with an opening set for April 28 at the Irene Diamond Stage. The play follows Maya, a writer, and James, a painter, whose college exes are about to marry each other. Described as a warm, irreverent dramedy about love, friendship, and young adulthood, the play was developed through Second Stage’s Judith Champion Reading Series and was a finalist at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.

Lorrain, a Harlem-based actor and playwright, has appeared in “Orange Is the New Black,” “Elementary,” “Jordans,” “Daphne,” and “Eureka Day.” She is also a research assistant at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Robert’s directing credits include the world premieres of “Stew,” “Stargazers,” and “Behind the Sheet,” as well as the first New York revival of “Crumbs from the Table of Joy.”

For Second Stage, the season also marks a continuation of Cabnet’s effort to shape the company as a home for new American plays and musicals. Founded in 1979, the theater has built its identity around contemporary writers, producing work by Lynn Nottage, Paula Vogel, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Larissa FastHorse, Richard Greenberg, Young Jean Lee, Kenneth Lonergan, and others.

Since acquiring and renovating the Hayes Theater in 2015, Second Stage has used its Broadway home to bring new and recent American plays to a larger stage. Its productions have earned 22 Tony Awards, 57 Tony nominations, 29 Obie Awards, 17 Lucille Lortel Awards, 13 Drama Desk Awards, eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, 23 AUDELCO Awards, three Pulitzer Prize winners, and four Pulitzer Prize finalists.

Casting and full creative teams for the 2026–27 season will be announced later.

Season subscriptions are now available, with packages beginning at $475. For audiences 30 and younger, Flip the Script packages are available for $120. Champion members can book seats for “The Fantasticks” and “The Visitors” now. Single tickets for all productions will go on sale at a later date, and groups of 10 or more may reserve tickets through Second Stage. 

Naomi Lorrain - Photo by Stan Demidoff