Roundabout Theatre Company has announced a slate of productions and initial casting for the nonprofit’s 2024-2025 season. The lineup includes three Broadway shows at the Todd Haimes Theatre and two Off-Broadway mountings at the Laura Pels.
Launching the Broadway season, in September 2024, will be the Broadway premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Pulitzer Prize-finalist play “Yellow Face.” Daniel Dae Kim will star as “DHH” in the production, to be directed by Tony Award nominee Leigh Silverman (who helmed the play’s 2007 Off-Broadway staging at the Public Theater). Inspired by real events, Hwang’s fictionalized doppelgänger protests yellowface casting in “Miss Saigon,” only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play.
Kim previously collaborated with Hwang and Silverman on the audio version of “Yellow Face” for Audible. “When we were in the middle of doing the audio version, David, Leigh and I just looked at each other and said, ‘Why isn’t this on Broadway? Why hasn’t this been on Broadway?,’” Kim told Broadway News exclusively. “We felt like it was maybe even more relevant than the time when it was originally produced [in Los Angeles in 2007].” (Read the full exclusive interview with Kim here.)
Next up from Roundabout on Broadway, in December 2024, will be a Main Stem transfer of Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “English.” Knud Adams, who helmed the play in a 2022 mounting from Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company in collaboration with Roundabout, will repeat his work on Broadway. The comedy unfolds in an Iranian classroom where adult English learners are practicing for their proficiency exam. As they leapfrog through a linguistic playground, their wildly different dreams, frustrations and secrets come to light. “English” will mark the Broadway debuts of both Toossi and Adams.
Lastly, Roundabout will offer a spring Broadway revival of the comic operetta “The Pirates of Penzance.” The production will mark a creative reunion between director Scott Ellis, librettist Rupert Holmes and actor David Hyde Pierce, who in 2007 collaborated on the Broadway musical “Curtains.” Ellis, a Tony-nominated veteran who is Roundabout’s interim artistic director, will direct the new staging of “Penzance,” which will feature a fresh adaptation by Tony winner Holmes and a leading performance from Tony winner Pierce — who will portray Gilbert, Sullivan and the Major General. Tony nominee Ramin Karimloo will co-star as the Pirate King in the production, set to begin performances in April 2025. Holmes’ new interpretation, described in press materials as “jazz-inspired,” unfolds as a pirate ship docks in New Orleans. According to press notes, the story features “a tongue-twisting Major General, a rabble-rousing Pirate King, newly imagined young lovers, daring daughters, footloose pirates and fleet-footed police.” “Penzance” features music by Arthur Sullivan and words by W.S. Gilbert. Rounding out the revival’s creative team will be Tony-winning choreographer Warren Carlyle and Tony-nominated music director Joseph Joubert, who is also crafting orchestrations with Tony winner Daryl Waters.
Roundabout’s Off-Broadway season will feature a pair of world-premiere plays: Meghan Kennedy’s “The Counter” (September 2024), directed by Tony winner David Cromer, and Tony nominee Bess Wohl’s “Liberation” (January 2025), to be directed by Whitney White.
A Roundabout Underground offering, at the Black Box Theater, will be shared at a later date.
“In planning the season — my first as interim artistic director — it was important to me to remain steadfast to Roundabout’s mission, and to [late artistic director and CEO] Todd [Haimes]’ vision for this extraordinary company,” Ellis said in a statement. “I believe this lineup is one that he would have been proud of, as we bring together a group of exceptional artists to stage these works — both classic and new. I am thrilled the season will close with our jazz-infused, New Orleans-style production of ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ — which began as a benefit concert last season, and which Todd was passionately committed to producing.”
Further information for all productions, including exact dates, casting and creative team members, will be announced.
Ruthie Fierberg contributed reporting to this article.
