The advent of premium ticket pricing and the cachet of adding Broadway to the resume have resulted in a plethora of marquee names braving the boards in recent years. The new season is no exception and may even be something of record-setter by the time Tony nominations are being tabulated in late spring. Just looking at the fall line-up leaves one starry-eyed. So book your tickets now since most of these shows are limited engagements. Diane Lane in Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”In Chekhov’s popular 1904 classic, the glamorous and improvident Lyubov Ranevskaya tearfully returns to her beloved Russian estate only to preside over its sale to an arriviste. This production is also homecoming of sorts for Lane, who at, age 12, played a peasant child in the famed 1977 Lincoln Center revival directed by Andrei Serban. The cast included Meryl Streep, Raul Julia, and Irene Worth. Thirty-nine years later, Lane takes on the mindless Madame Ranevskaya, who can’t quite help herself. “I know I’m a fool,” she says at one point plaintively. But foolishness has never been quite as glamorously packaged as in this revival, directed by Brit Simon Godwin and with a translation provided by Stephen Karam (“The Humans”). Performances begin at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre on September 16 with an opening on October 16.Mary Louise Parker in Simon Stephens’s “Heisenberg”With a title referring to Werner Heisenberg, the physicist who theorized the uncertainty principle, you can be sure that this new drama has more on its mind than a rom-com about the unlikely pairing between an obsessive young woman, Georgie Burns, and her much older prey, Alex Priest. Nobody does crazy with as much verve as Parker, who plays opposite Denis Arndt in the drama by the Tony-winning author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.” The Manhattan Theatre Club production, directed by Mark Brokaw, received strong notices when it opened last year off-Broadway, warranting a transfer to MTC’s Friedman Theatre, beginning performances September 20 and opening October 13.Nathan Lane and John Slattery in Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s “The Front Page”Hold onto your hats! Reporters are cynical, ink-stained wretches in Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s vintage 1928 comedy “The Front Page,” which enjoys its sixth Broadway revival courtesy of producer Scott Rudin. The prolific producer has recruited an A-Team, headed by director Jack O’Brien and led by Lane and Slattery, as an editor and star reporter, respectively, who love antagonizing each other. Chaos ensues with the escape of a convict who is accused of killing a black policeman in Depression-era Chicago. Also caught up in the shenanigans are John Goodman, Sherie Rene Scott, Jefferson Mays, and Rosemary Harris. The show begins previews at the Broadhurst on September 20 prior to an October 20 opening.Liev Schreiber and Janet McTeer in “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”The game of love has never been played quite so brutally as in the classic 1782 French novel by Choderlos de Laclos in which the Marquise de Merteuil first teases then destroys her lover the Vicomte de Valmont. London’s Donmar Warehouse successfully revived the play, directed by Josie O’Rourke from an adaptation by Christopher Hampton, last year with McTeer in the role of the scheming Marquise. Liev Schreiber takes on the role of Valmont (played in London by Dominic West) thereby guaranteeing a match deliciously made in hell. The drama begins performances at the Booth Theatre on October 8, with an official opening on October 30.Josh Groban in “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812”“The Great Comet of 1812,” Dave Malloy’s electropop opera excerpted from Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” was something of a sensation when it first bowed at the tiny Ars Nova in 2012. It then transferred to a pop-up tent, the Kazino, first located in the meatpacking district and then in the theater district. Now the show, directed by Rachel Chavkin, will be at the Imperial Theatre, a fittingly named venue for a musical set among vodka-sotted royals in Czarist Russia on the eve of Napoleon’s invasion. Groban has chosen to make his Broadway debut in the role of Pierre, a bibulous and philosophical aristocrat who casts a jaundiced eye on the machinations of his social set. Malloy is said to have written additional songs to take advantage of the pop star casting in the production, which begins performances on October 18 and opens on November 14.Also rumored to join the fall line up are two London productions: Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder,” starring Ralph Fiennes in the title role; and Nicole Kidman in Anna Zigler’s “Photograph 51,” reprising her acclaimed performance as Rosalind Franklin, the unsung scientist who cracked the DNA code. Depending on when and if these stars alight on Broadway, they will join a roster which next year will also include Cate Blanchett (“The Present”), Bette Midler (“Hello, Dolly!”), Jake Gyllenhaal (“Burn This”), Sally Field (“The Glass Menagerie”), and Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon (“The Little Foxes).
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