New York City Center's 2025-2026 musical theatre season holds lots of surprises for theatre fans! Arguably chief among them is an all-Black revival of Jerry Herman and 2025 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award honoree Harvey Fierstein's La Cage aux Folles, which will come to the Manhattan venue to coincide with 2026 NYC Pride. Tony nominee Robert O'Hara (Slave Play) will direct, with Tony winner Billy Porter starring as Albin.
The finale of the venue's Encores! series, La Cage performances will run June 17-28, 2026, with Joseph Joubert leading the Encores! Orchestra as guest music director. Originally debuting in 1983, the musical adapts Jean Poiret's 1973 play (also the source material for the 1996 film The Birdcage), about a drag nightclub-owning gay couple whose son becomes engaged to the daughter of an ultra-conservative politician. The original production ran for more than four years and won Best Musical at the 1984 Tony Awards, becoming a surprise commercial hit despite the then-incendiary plot material (the entire original Broadway run was during the famously anti-gay Ronald Reagan administration). The musical has since been revived twice on the Main Stem, in 2004 and 2010.
Also in the Encores! season is a new production of Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray's High Spirits (an adaptation of No毛l Coward's Blithe Spirit) to be directed by Tony nominee Jessica Stone (Kimberly Akimbo) and performing February 4-15, 2026; and the rescheduled run of Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe's The Wild Party, performing March 18-29 and directed by Lili-Anne Brown. The latter had been announced for the 2024-2025 season, but was postponed due to scheduling conflicts, and replaced by the recent run of Wonderful Town.
Audiences will also be getting a gala musical, and City Center has selected Off-Broadway cult favorite Bat Boy: The Musical, which will perform this fall, October 29-November 9. Tony winner Alex Timbers will direct the new staging of the work, which features a story and book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming and a score by Heathers and Legally Blonde composer Laurence O'Keefe. The irreverent musical is adapted from the recurring character from the late Weekly World News, a half-boy, half-bat. The musical's story follows the titular Bat Boy as he is adopted by a human family and attempts to become a part of regular life, only to find violent hate from his hometown. The show premiered in 1997 in California, coming to Off-Broadway in 2001, largely launching the career of Kerry Butler (soon to be back Off-Broadway in another O'Keefe musical, Heathers) and now-three-time Tony-winning original orchestrator Alex Lacamoire.
The season is the first to be programmed by the venue's newly appointed Vice President and Musical Theatre Artistic Director Jenny Gersten. 鈥淲hat I love about all four of this season鈥檚 productions is the diversity of eras and styles they bring to our stage鈥攆rom the pop-rock sound of Bat Boy: The Musical to the glorious original orchestrations [by Jim Tyler] for La Cage aux Folles,鈥� says Gersten in a statement. 鈥淭hese shows are all fun in very different ways, but they also all have narratives about understanding and respecting our differences. It feels like the right moment to offer stories about acceptance during these times.鈥�
鈥淛enny and the musical theatre team have put together an extraordinary season for our growing audiences,鈥� adds City Center President and CEO Michael S. Rosenberg. 鈥淓ach of these four musicals will run for two weeks and every performance will have $28 tickets available through our Access Club. Our goal is to produce great work and make sure people can afford to see it.鈥�
Casting for the season, to be announced, is by The Telsey Office. Encores! music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell will lead the orchestra for High Spirits.
Tickets for Bat Boy are on sale to City Center members, with general sales beginning June 24 at . Encores! subscriptions are available for renewal through June 30, with new subscriptions becoming available August 5 for members and August 26 for the general public. Single ticket sales for the Encores! series begin October 14 for members and October 21 for the general public.
