New to the Canon

Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda · 2015

Lin-Manuel Miranda's revolutionary sung-and-rapped-through musical traces the meteoric rise of Alexander Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant from the Caribbean who becomes George Washington's trusted aide and the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury. Driven by ambition and haunted by his past, Hamilton's relentless pursuit of legacy and influence ultimately leads to his downfall in a fateful duel with Aaron Burr. This electrifying fusion of hip hop, R&B, and classical musical theatre transforms the Founding Fathers into a contemporary narrative of ambition, love, betrayal, and the struggle to shape one's place in history.

Hadestown

Anaïs Mitchell · 2016

Anaïs Mitchell's Tony-winning folk opera reimagines the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a haunting love story set against the backdrop of Hades' industrial underworld. When the idealistic musician Orpheus falls in love with Eurydice, he must navigate a world of economic despair and divine power to reclaim her, guided by the enigmatic Hermes. A meditation on love, loss, and the transformative power of art, Hadestown weaves ancient mythology into a contemporary tale of hope and heartbreak.

A Strange Loop

Michael R. Jackson · 2019

A Strange Loop is a meta-theatrical musical that follows Usher, a Black, queer aspiring musical theatre writer working as a Broadway usher, as he navigates the labyrinth of his own consciousness. His inner thoughts materialize as six ensemble members who embody both his self-criticism and the various characters in his life, creating a dizzying, hilarious, and deeply moving exploration of identity, desire, and creative ambition. The musical collapses the boundary between performer and audience, between art and life, as Usher grapples with the impossible task of writing a musical about writing a musical. A groundbreaking work that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Musical.

The Lehman Trilogy

Stefano Massini · 2013

An epic chronicle spanning 164 years, *The Lehman Trilogy* traces the rise and catastrophic fall of the Lehman Brothers empire through the eyes of three German Jewish immigrant brothers and their descendants. Beginning with Henry Lehman's arrival in Alabama in 1844, the play follows the family's transformation from dry goods merchants to titans of American finance, navigating the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the postwar boom. Performed by three actors embodying multiple generations, this sweeping narrative culminates in the firm's spectacular 2008 collapse, exposing the human cost of unchecked financial ambition.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones

Terence Blanchard · 2019

Terence Blanchard's groundbreaking opera traces the harrowing journey of Charles M. Blow from a traumatized child in rural Louisiana to a man confronting the ghosts of sexual abuse and violence that shaped his identity. Through a visceral blend of jazz, gospel, and orchestral music, the work explores how one man's survival becomes an act of defiance, as he navigates family dysfunction, spiritual searching, and the path toward healing and self-discovery. A searing meditation on race, masculinity, and resilience in contemporary America.

Woolf Works

Max Richter · 2015

Max Richter's audacious triptych ballet reimagines Virginia Woolf's literary consciousness as pure movement, choreographing the interior lives of her most iconic characters across three acts inspired by Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves. Rather than narrative, the work captures the fractured temporality, fluid identity, and emotional intensity of Woolf's prose—where a single day contains multitudes, a figure transcends gender and centuries, and voices emerge and dissolve like waves. Featuring orchestral music interwoven with electronics and spoken-word recordings of Woolf herself, this is modernist literature made visceral and kinetic.

Come From Away

Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Irene Sankoff and David Hein · 2015

When 38 planes are diverted to the remote town of Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, nearly 7,000 stranded passengers arrive with nowhere to go. The welcoming residents of this tight-knit community open their hearts and homes to these unexpected visitors, forging profound human connections in the aftermath of tragedy. Over the course of one transformative week, strangers become friends, and a small town demonstrates the extraordinary power of compassion and community.

Fleabag

Phoebe Waller-Bridge · 2013

A sharp-witted Londoner breaks the fourth wall to hilariously and heartbreakingly navigate love, family chaos, and self-sabotage.

Stereophonic

David Adjmi · 2023

Set in a California recording studio between 1976 and 1977, Stereophonic immerses audiences in the painstaking, year-long creation of a second album by a British-American rock band on the cusp of superstardom. The play unfolds the volatile interpersonal dynamics, creative tensions, and personal crises that emerge as five musicians and two engineers navigate the intricate process of capturing lightning in a bottle—revealing the human cost of artistic ambition and the fragile bonds that hold a legendary ensemble together.

Kimberly Akimbo

Jeanine Tesori · 2021

The Ferryman

Jez Butterworth · 2017

On harvest day at a rural County Armagh farmhouse, the Carney family's fragile peace shatters when the body of Caitlin's husband—missing for a decade—is discovered in a bog with a bullet wound to the head. As the family grapples with this devastating revelation and the arrival of a menacing IRA leader, long-buried secrets and unresolved loyalties threaten to tear apart the bonds that hold them together. Set against the backdrop of the 1981 hunger strikes, Butterworth's masterwork explores how violence echoes through generations, and how ordinary people navigate impossible moral terrain.

Leopoldstadt

Tom Stoppard · 2020

Tom Stoppard's sweeping drama traces the arc of a prosperous, assimilated Jewish family in Vienna across five decades, from the confident belle époque of 1899 through the gathering darkness of Nazi occupation to the fractured aftermath of 1955. Through intimate family gatherings and private moments, the play captures how love, ambition, and the illusion of belonging collide with the inexorable forces of history, asking whether assimilation can ever truly protect those deemed outsiders by their own blood.

Fun Home

Jeanine Tesori, Lisa Kron · 2013

A groundbreaking musical that weaves together three versions of cartoonist Alison Bechdel—as a child, college student, and accomplished adult—as she excavates her past to understand her complicated relationship with her closeted gay father. Through fractured memories and intimate musical moments, the work traces a family's hidden truths, sexual awakening, and the redemptive power of artistic self-discovery. Tender, darkly comic, and profoundly moving, *Fun Home* transforms a graphic memoir into a luminous meditation on identity, love, and the stories we tell ourselves.

The Inheritance

Matthew López · 2018

Matthew López's epic two-part drama reimagines E.M. Forster's Howards End through the lives of three generations of gay men in contemporary New York City. When young activist Eric Glass and his volatile writer boyfriend Toby Darling encounter the wealthy couple Walter Poole and Henry Wilcox—survivors of the AIDS crisis—their intertwined fates become a meditation on legacy, desire, class, and generational responsibility. As relationships fracture and secrets unravel, Walter's bequest of his country house becomes the crucible for examining what we inherit and what we owe to those who came before.

Like Water for Chocolate

Joby Talbot · 2022