Theatre to watch in New York

FT critics review the latest shows on Broadway and beyond
Nantucket Sleigh Ride at the Lincoln Center, New York — meta-literary pyrotechnics

John Guare’s zany new play is packed with dizzyingly clever references

Isabelle Huppert stars as a neurotic housewife in The Mother

Florian Zeller’s drama about a family under pressure makes its New York debut at the Linda Gross Theater

Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag at the SoHo Playhouse, New York

Hilarious, bawdy and laced with sadness, this one-woman show portrays of the isolation and hedonism of contemporary London

“Daddy” is a provocative portrait of racial tensions

A piece of biting social commentary at the Pershing Square Signature Center, New York

Superhero, Tony Kiser Theater, New York

The absence of a proper villain further exacerbates this musical’s lack of bite

Alice by Heart — a sophisticated musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll set during the Blitz

This production, at the Robert M. Wilson MCC Theater Space in New York, sheds the books’ dark undertones but adds an understated pathos

More from this Series

Boesman and Lena — a racially charged Waiting for Godot set in apartheid South Africa

Athol Fugard’s portrait of dispossession and despair resonates in New York, where homelessness has soared

Farce meets tragedy in Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

An energetic staging tackles race and showbusiness at the Pershing Square Signature Center, New York

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s co-produced musical Freestyle Love Supreme

The hip-hop group’s on-the-hoof musical at New York’s Greenwich House Theater was an entertaining if somewhat tame affair

Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano in True West — manic charm and nervous energy

Sam Shepard’s shaggy-pony story of warring brothers opens at the American Airlines Theatre, New York

New departures for Neil LaBute at the Davenport Theatre, New York

The LaBute New Theatre Festival features three grimly plausible one-act plays by the writer

Under the Radar Festival, Public Theater, New York — teenage angst and asylum seekers

Two shows exemplify the range and depth of this annual festival

Choir Boy — a startling play by Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney

School-based drama makes its Broadway debut at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

Blue Ridge at the Linda Gross Theater, New York — a punitive society in microcosm

A halfway house full of misfits is the setting for Abby Rosebrock’s new play

To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway — Aaron Sorkin sucks the life out of Harper Lee

Jeff Daniels is a muddled Atticus Finch in this meddlesome adaptation at the Sam S Shubert Theatre

Strange Window — a clever, topical riff on Henry James at BAM Harvey Theater, New York

James Gibbs updates The Turn of the Screw for the digital age

Clueless, The Musical is just as enjoyable as the film

A faithful stage adaptation at the Pershing Square Signature Center, New York

Fabulation, or the Re-education of Undine — a mordantly funny drama

A PR woman experiences a blitz of misfortune in Lynn Nottage’s play at the Pershing Square Signature Center, New York

Slave Play — a raunchy exploration of interracial relationships at the New York Theatre Workshop

Jeremy O. Harris’s new play explores murky psychological territory

Bryan Cranston is on barnstorming form in Network on Broadway

Ivo van Hove’s compulsively watchable adaptation of the prophetic 1976 movie comes to the Belasco Theatre

The White Album — a lively adaptation of Joan Didion’s essay at BAM Harvey Theater, New York

The writer’s reflections on the 1960s come to life on stage

Tom Stoppard is out of his depth with The Hard Problem

Thin characters skim over a perennial conundrum at New York’s Lincoln Center Theater

Thom Pain (based on nothing), Signature Theatre, New York — fun with solipsism

Michael C Hall brings a devilish charisma to bear as he delivers Will Eno’s darkly whimsical monologue

The New One — a tale of woe and neurosis at the Cort Theatre, New York

Mike Birbiglia explores fatherhood in his new one-man show

The burden of racism hangs heavy over Eve’s Song at the Public Theater, New York

Patricia Ione Lloyd’s new play has an ever-present sense of unease

Fire in Dreamland, Public Theater, New York — a dramatic flame that fizzles out

Rinne Groff’s new play is centred around a 1911 amusement park blaze

Carey Mulligan gets gritty in Girls & Boys at Minetta Lane Theatre, New York

The star exudes self-deprecating charm in Dennis Kelly’s sharply observed one-woman play about modern romance

Cyprus Avenue, Public Theater, New York — pitch-black satire

David Ireland’s play explores sectarian hatred in contemporary Northern Ireland

Skintight, Laura Pels Theatre, New York — bracingly cynical

Vanity and hypocrisy are exposed in Joshua Harmon’s new black comedy

Othello, Central Park, New York — a shift of focus from race to gender

This open-air Shakespeare is uneven, but the performances suggest a bold re-reading

Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf, Abrons Arts Center, New York — consistently hilarious

The cast navigates playwright Kate Scelsa’s zany twist on Edward Albee with deadpan flair

The Boys in the Band, New York — Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto get nasty

A birthday party full of gay men descends into cruel jibing in this tightly wound staging of Mart Crowley’s play at the Booth Theatre

The Iceman Cometh, Bernard B Jacobs Theatre, New York — played by the book

Starring Denzel Washington and Colm Meaney, this is a production that needs to take more risks

Harry Potter comes to Broadway in a thoroughly rewarding production

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Lyric Theatre delivers theatrical thrills — and a touching tale of adolescence and fatherhood

Carousel, Imperial Theatre, New York — going round in circles

Renée Fleming provides emotional subtlety but sounds a little underpowered in Jack O’Brien’s old-fashioned staging

Mean Girls, August Wilson Theatre, New York — a deficit of nastiness

Tina Fey has toned down the material in her musical adaptation of the teen comedy