Northeast

A sorority reunion in a remote New Hampshire cabin is disrupted by a mysterious outbreak in Jen Diamond’s The Morbs, a production of Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective at ART/NY in New York City, Nov. 2-21. Direction is by Lily Kanter Riopelle.

Michelle Carter’s Darlin’, billed as a “poignant, time-hopping tapestry that explores the fierce, funny, and often fraught bonds between mothers and daughters,” runs at Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, New York, Nov. 5-15, under Katy Early’s direction.

Broom Play is Matte Kranz’s new “physical tragicomedy” about two janitors in a kind of repetitive purgatory. Directed by Egor Trukhin, this XYZ Theatricals runs at the Player’s Theatre in New York City, Nov. 5-29.

Anansi the Spider: A Make/Partake Experience is another in Curio Theatre Company’s series, which gives young audiences a hands-on experience in the production’s realization. Inspired by an African fable from the Ashanti people of Ghana, the show is directed by Mya Flood and runs Nov. 6-22 at the West Philadelphia theatre.

Nora Coss’s bilingual memory play Fifty fun facts sobre mi Olivia [mi madre] follows a Mexican American teen who must help care for his ailing mother in Mexico. Directed by Manuel Ortiz Ossandon, it runs at New York City’s IATI Theater, Nov. 6-22.

Three generations of women gather on Christmas Eve to make chuchitos, a traditional Guatemalan dish, and make discoveries about each other in Benjamin Benne’s Fantasma, directed by Laurie Woolery at New York City’s Primary Stages, Nov. 7-Dec. 20.

The new musical Wanted, with music by Ross Baum and a book & lyrics by Angelica Chéri, tells the story of twin sisters on the run through Texas in 1893. Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb. Now in previews at Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre, it will have its opening on Nov. 8.

Robert Norman’s Impressive, Sincerely follows an American author who travels to a small German town where her failed debut novel is inexplicably popular. Billed as “site-specific”—it will be staged inside New York City’s P&T Knitwear Bookstore—this Ugly & Arrogant Productions project runs Nov. 9-Dec. 6. Alex Hare is the director.

Adapting a popular 1985 film comedy about young dancers into what the website calls “a high-energy, neon-soaked stage musical,” Girls Just Want to Have Fun plays at Pittsburgh Playhouse Nov. 11-22, with a book by M Dickson & Lauren Marcus, adapted from Amy Spies’ screenplay. The director is Jennifer Werner.

In the fanciful new musical comedy The King’s Critique, a petulant monarch bans women from performing onstage—as if! With music by Nat Zegree, book by Eric Holmes, and lyrics by both, it’s directed by Catie Davis and runs at the Signature Center in New York City, Nov. 12-Dec. 20.

The Shed in New York City hosts the National Black Theatre production of Imitation of Life, a new musical adaptation of the Fannie Hurst novel (and its film versions) about race, class, and sexuality in 1920s and ’30s New Jersey and New York City. With a book by Lynn Nottage, music by John Legend, direction by Whitney White, and a lead turn by Tony winner Adrienne Warren, the show runs Nov. 21-Jan. 3, 2027.

Mfoniso Udofia caps an extraordinary multi-year, Boston-wide celebration of her work with Adia & Clora Snatch Joy, a new musical with book & lyrics by Udofia, music by Michael Ellis Ingram, and direction by Awoye Timpo. That runs Huntington Theatre Company, Nov. 24-Dec. 13.

Wild Rose is Nicole Taylor’s new musical about a free-spirited Scottish woman who sets out to become an American country music star. Directed by John Tiffany, it runs at New York City’s New York Theatre Workshop, Nov. 24-Jan. 10, 2027.

Inspired by the influential life and mysterious death of mid-20th-century journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, Kilgallen is a new musical with book & music by Chuck Strand, lyrics by Strand & Emily Drossell, and additional music by George Petersen. It plays at the York Theatre Company in New York City, Nov. 28-Dec. 27. Terry Berliner is the director.

South

American Rebels is a new musical anthology of hits by pop and rock artists who challenged convention (Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Cyndi Lauper, etc.), created by Rebecca Hopkins & Richard Hopkins at Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, where it runs Nov. 4-March 21, 2027.

Harley Elias’s Gandhi and the Jew dramatizes the formative friendship between a young Mohandas Gandhi and the Jewish South African lawyer Hermann Kallenbach. Directed by Margot Bordelon, it runs at Miami New Drama, Nov. 5-29.

Billed as “a mythical, mystical, (meta)physical journey to unthinkable heights,” Flying Dreams promises to transform New Orleans’s Temple House into an ancient Cretan workshop where a father-and-son inventing team is about to—well, I think you know where this is going. Written by James Bartelle & Zarah Hōkūle’a Spalding, and directed by Leslie Claverie, the NOLA Project production runs Nov. 12-14.

A dark comedy about a devised theatre piece that goes off the rails, Ann Gillespie’s Choreographing a Rape Scene to Go Into a Feminist Play runs at at LakeHouseRanchDotPng in Miami Lakes, Florida, Nov. 13-22. Direction is by Sara Jarrell.

Santa’s got a brand new bag in Charmz: The Other Reindeer, which reimagines the North Pole as a Motown-like talent mill, with an aspiring young reindeer coveting Rudolph’s throne. With music & lyrics by Nygel Robinson, book and direction by Ken-Matt Martin, it takes flight at Baltimore Center Stage, Nov. 13-Dec. 27.

In Max Posner’s Hanukkah Spectacular, at Washington, D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Nov. 14-Dec. 13, four Jewish theatre artists set out to write a holiday extravaganza to rival the myriad Carols, with comic and complicated results. Direction is by David Cromer.

Midwest

Two actors find themselves in an ever-shifting relationship over the course of a regional theatre season in Lauren M. Gunderson’s All the World, directed by Jessica Thebus at Northlight Theatre in Evanston, Illinois, Nov. 11-Dec. 20.

From its online description, Calamity West’s Engines and Instruments of Flight sounds like it may be riff on Angels in America: It’s about a blocked playwright named Tony in mid-1980s New York, and it’s billed as a “fantasia in three acts.” Jonathan Berry directs at Chicago’s Jackalope Theatre, Nov. 11-Dec. 19.

In an apparently long-awaited sequel to his A Very Williamston Christmas, Robert Hawlmark’s A Lansing Christmas Adventure, about a child’s search for the real Santa Claus, bows at Williamston Theatre in Michigan, Nov. 19-Dec. 27, under Tony Caselli’s direction.

West

A dark comedy set the morning after a momentous blowout, Party Trick, written and directed by Tianna Loverde, plays at Los Angeles’s Hudson Theatre, Nov. 6-15.

Writer-director Allen Barton’s The Difficulty Adjustment links the stories of two men embroiled in financial crises decades apart: one an economist facing the 2008 financial meltdown, the other a theatre owner “debanked” for his views on the Covid lockdown. It runs at L.A.’s Beverly Hills Playhouse, Nov. 6-29.

The Death of Meyerhold, at San Francisco’s Shotgun Players Nov. 28-Jan. 10, 2027, the life and art of a revolutionary Russian theatre artist maps onto current turmoil. Written and directed by Mark Jackson.

Adapting Lewis Carroll’s classic to a holiday frame, Panto in the Presidio’s Alice in Wonderland runs at the historic San Francisco venue, Nov. 28-Dec. 27.

Is putting a holiday spin on a perennial enough to qualify as a world premiere? We’d say so, and so we draw your attention to the theatre-for-a-very-audience offering Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: The Holiday Musical, at Seattle Children’s Theatre, Nov. 20-Jan. 3, 2027. The book is by Nina Meehan and music & lyrics by Austin Zumbro.

Inspired by Akira Kurosawa film, A Rashomon is set in contemporary San Francisco, in a concept by Joan Osato and a script by Ashley Smiley. Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, this Campo Santo/Magic Theatre co-production runs Nov. 18-Dec. 6 at African American Artist & Cultural Complex.