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The producers of Broadway’s Maybe Happy Ending and Buena Vista Social Club have announced national tours for the shows to launch in 2026.

Both shows were nominated for 10 Tony Awards last week, including Best Musical.

Maybe Happy Ending by Will Aronson and Hue Park directed by Michael Arden will embark on a multi-year North American tour beginning in the fall of 2026. Launching in Baltimore at the Hippodrome Theatre at The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, the tour has stops planned in 30+ cities including Los Angeles, D.C., Chicago, Tampa, St. Louis, Detroit, San Francisco, Providence and many other cities. Additional engagements, casting and the route for the tour’s first year will be announced soon.

“We’re thrilled to launch the North American tour of Maybe Happy Ending in the vibrant city of Baltimore, where the spirit of innovation and storytelling runs deep,” said Ron Legler, France-Merrick Performing Arts Center President.

We’re about halfway through the 2024-25 Broadway season, and there are 12 productions of musicals set to open this spring. Could any of them contend at this year’s Tony Awards? Below, find the summaries of each plot, as well as its author, cast, composer, and director. You’ll also get the opening, and (where applicable) closing dates.

SEETony Talk: Plays ‘Oh, Mary!’ and ‘The Hills of California,’ actor Kit Connor are on track for nominations Redwood

Previews began: Jan. 24

Opens: Feb. 13

Official synopsis: Jesse seems to have it all, a successful career and devoted family, until a life-altering event drives her far from everyone and everything she knows. When she finds herself at the foot of the redwoods in Northern California, a chance encounter and a leap of faith will change her life forever.

Book by Tony nominee Tina Landau

Score by Kate Diaz and Tina Landau

Directed by...

Buena Vista Social Club, a new musical about the acclaimed group of Cuban musicians who recorded a seminal 1997 Grammy-winning album and were the subject of an acclaimed 1999 documentary, will open on Broadway in March, with Saheem Ali (Tony nominee for Fat Ham) directing.

The musical, which made its world premiere Off Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company last December, will begin performances at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on Friday, February 21, 2025, with an opening night set for Wednesday, March 19.

Featuring music from Cuba’s 1940s-era golden age and a book by Marco Ramirez, Buena Vista Social Club is performed by an ensemble of artists including a band of musicians from across the globe. The musical tells the story of the artists who recorded the original album. Choreography will be by Patricia Delgado and Tony Award winner Justin Peck.

The music team will be...

New musical Buena Vista Social Club is transferring to Broadway this winter.

The musical follows a group of musicians from Cuba’s golden age and is inspired by the true story of the artists who came together in 1996 to record the Grammy-Award winning album. Buena Vista Social Club comes to Broadway after a well-reviewed world premiere at the Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company in December 2023.

The show features direction by Saheem Ali (Fat Ham) on Broadway, choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck ((Illinoise), a book by Marco Ramirez (The Royale) and a music team led by David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit). It is slated to open at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre Feb. 21, before opening March 19.

In 1996, Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos González and two producers flew to Cuba and recorded an album with a group of musicians who had been well-known in the country in the 1950s. The album, and the assembled group,...

One tweet is all it took. “Thank me when you’re famous,” wrote Rachel Zegler’s friend Makena Reynolds, who sent the then-highschooler a tweet in 2019 announcing an open casting call for “West Side Story.”

One “I-don’t-know-how-i-booked-it” self-tape and several months of callbacks later, Zegler got the part. She was going to be Maria in Steven Spielberg’s newest musical adaptation.

“It’s kind of crazy to look back on that girl who was singing show tunes in her bathroom, and I wonder what she would think of me now,” the 20-year-old tells Variety.

The young actress says hers was the second self-tape Spielberg saw during casting calls for Maria. “I sent him my first take in January, and I started going in steadily to meet with Cindy Tolan up until March,” she says.

Later that month, Zegler received a phone call saying that Spielberg wanted to meet with...

Chicago – “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way … “ And there is no more appropriate way to lyrically pay tribute to a classic staging of the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim musical, “West Side Story.” There is a new staging currently at Lyric Opera of Chicago, which runs through June 2nd, 2019. Click here for more details and tickets.

Play Rating: 4.5/5.0

The musical first opened in 1957, and its message of fearing the “other” – by adapting the universality of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” – will resonate as long as people suffer through their bigotry. Two rival gangs, girl-from-one-side-guy-from-another then meet/fall in love, tragedy ensues, and along the way are one of the greatest collections of songs/lyrics in one musical, so standard that they are practically in everyone’s DNA. It’s “West Side Story,” babies, and this latest adaptation at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is spot on entertaining.