What's on (and off) Broadway this season

What's on (and off) Broadway this season
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
Shrek, that cuddly green giant who fueled a movie franchise, is making his Broadway debut this season. So is Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter), in Equus and in the buff. Tom Cruise's current Mrs., Katie Holmes, is braving critical slings and arrows in a revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.
Those three shows, and the long-awaited arrival of the hit British musical Billy Elliot, are among the most buzzed-about productions as the 2008-2009 Broadway season gets under way. But there's more, much more, plus a collection of intriguing plays (and the odd musical) bound for Off-Broadway theaters.

Though Broadway's major tourist draw is its big musicals, plenty of promising plays will hit the Great White Way this season.
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Frank Langella, returning to Broadway after winning a Tony Award for playing ''Tricky'' Dick Nixon in Frost/Nixon (a role he's reprising in the upcoming movie), will play Sir Thomas More in a revival of A Man for All Seasons. Movie veteran Kristin Scott Thomas is making her Broadway debut in a production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, revisiting a performance that earned her raves in England. In the spring, more great actresses will tackle the classics: Mary-Louise Parker in Hedda Gabbler, British stage star Janet McTeer in Mary Stuart. Also expected on Broadway this season: Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen (directed by Tony winner Jack O'Brien in Michael Jacobs' Impressionism. Off-Broadway, Jane Alexander (who also led the National Endowment for the Arts during the Clinton administration) will star in the Primary Stages production of Tina Howe's comedy Chasing Manet in the spring.

If you prefer plays that are American and edgy, a pair of David Mamet revivals and the Broadway debut of the always-provocative Neil LaBute (who will have a second new play Off-Broadway) should fill the bill.

Miami's own Raúl Esparza stars opposite Jeremy Piven (of TV's Entourage) and Elisabeth Moss (of Mad Men) in Mamet's scathing look at the movie business, Speed-the-Plow. Then John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and a grown-up Haley Joel Osment tackle American Buffalo, an explosive dark comedy set in a junk shop. LaBute's play, reasons to be pretty (which will star Piper Perabo, Allison Pill and Pablo Schreiber, with Steppenwolf veteran Terry Kinney directing), will start previews in February at a still-to-be-chosen theater. Right about the same time, MCC Theater will debut LaBute's The Break of Noon, about an agnostic guy who gets religion.

As for big musicals, both new and revivals, there are several in addition to Shrek the Musical and Billy Elliot, both based on hit movies. With a score by one of the movie's original stars, Dolly Parton, 9 to 5: The Musical hits Broadway in the spring. A revival of Pal Joey, the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical about an ambitious nightclub entertainer who romances an older woman (in this case, Stockard Channing from West Wing) will play Studio 54.