Second Stage Theater has revealed the first three productions of its 2023-2024 season, which marks the nonprofit’s 45th overall. So far, the anniversary season includes two Broadway premieres.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play “Appropriate” will bow on Broadway in the fall. Lila Neugebauer will direct the production, which will begin previews in November and open in December at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater. Exact dates will be announced.
“Appropriate” centers on Toni and Bo Lafayette as they deal with the remains of their late father’s estate. When their estranged brother comes home later one night, they’re forced to confront ghosts from the past. The production will mark Jacobs-Jenkins’ Broadway playwriting debut; he provided additional material for the 2022 revival of “The Skin of Our Teeth.” The dark comedy will be Neugebauer’s first return to the Main Stem since her direction of “The Waverly Gallery.”
In the spring of 2024, a world premiere from Pulitzer Prize winner and Tony Award nominee Paula Vogel will begin at the Hayes. Directed by Tony nominee Tina Landau, the currently untitled play is set to begin performances in March 2024 with an opening in April 2024.
Set outside of Washington, D.C., circa 1962, the play follows Phyllis and her two teenage children as Phyllis takes charge to set them on the path to success and no one — not eve her kids — will stand in her way. The production marks Vogel’s third play on the Main Stem after “Indecent” and “How I Learned to Drive.”
In addition to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre, Second Stage also operates Off-Broadway’s Tony Kiser Theatre and presents work at the McGinn/Cazale Theater. Jen Silverman’s “Spain,” directed by Tyne Rafaeli, will open at the Tony Kiser in November.
Further details for each of these productions — including dates, casting and creative team announcements — are forthcoming.
“It’s been 45 years since Second Stage Theater was launched in a small loft space on the Upper West Side, and I couldn’t be prouder to announce this trio of plays, including two we commissioned, as part of our 45th Anniversary Season,” said Second Stage president and artistic director Carole Rothman. “I’m thrilled to celebrate this milestone with these superlative playwrights and directors, continuing Second Stage’s mission of producing plays exclusively by living American writers. We look forward to welcoming audiences to what we know will be a season of world-class productions.”
Second Stage is under the leadership of Rothman and interim executive director Lisa Lawer Post.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Tina Landau. This has been corrected.
