It may be only October, but Broadway is already looking at an especially frantic final 11 days before the Tony Awards deadline in April.
With the October 20 announcement that the musical Bandstand will open April 26, 2017, the number of openings between April 17, 2017 and the Tony Awards deadline of April 27 rose to seven—likely about a sixth of all the season’s shows, judging by historical standards.
History shows that a final pre-Tony rush is anything but unusual. Six shows opened during the 11 days before the Tony deadline in 2016 and nine did so in 2015. But this year's season finale is shaping up earlier and more intensely than usual, as five of the 2017 shows are some of the biggest musicals of the season—and producers still have six months remaining to pack even more shows into the yet-unclaimed April dates.
Here‘s how the critics will be spending those 11 days.
April 17: Groundhog Day—Composer Tim Minchin’s hit London musical transfers to Broadway
April 19: The Little Foxes—Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon star in a revival of the Lillian Hellman drama.
April 20: Hello, Dolly!—Bette Midler toplines a revival of the Tony-winning 1964 musical.
April 23: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—Another transfer of a London hit musical, this one based on Roald Dahl’s book (and subsequent film) about a poor young boy who gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit a confectionery run by a mysterious hermit.
April 24: Anastasia—Songwriters Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s stage adaptation of their hit movie musical about a Russian princess.
April 26: Bandstand—New “big band” musical set during a radio contest in the final year of World War II.
April 27: A Doll’s House, Part 2—Sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 drama about a woman who comes to realize that her home is a prison.
April 27 is the eligibility deadline for the 2017 Tony Awards. Nominations will be announced May 2.
