The best fall shows to see on Broadway in 2021

What it is: This superb musical, with a libretto by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), offers a deep, empathic and imaginative look at the crossroads of an African-American maid in 1963 Louisiana.
Why to go: One of the great musicals of recent decades, this show was ahead of its time in 2003—but the times may finally have caught up. This is the rare work of musical theater that, if you let it, can change the way you see the world. 

What it is: Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s path-breaking 1970 musical about love in the big city gets a twist: The commitment-averse main character is now a woman, played by Katrina Lenk. 
Why to go: Lenk was mesmerizing in The Band’s Visit, and the promising cast of Marianne Elliott's revival also includes Broadway überdiva Patti LuPone. The central gender switch seems like an interesting way to bring new dimensions to a now-familiar show.

What it is: Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster return to Broadway in a revival of Meredith Willson's beloved 1957 musical about a wily con man who stirs up "Trouble" in small-town Iowa but meets his match at the library.
Why to go: First-class stars and a first-class supporting cast in a first-class musical in a first-class production that reassembles nearly the entire creative team of the Bette Midler Hello, Dolly!, including director Jerry Zaks. This one sells itself.

What it is: Skeletons come tumbling out of the casket at the funeral of the patriarch of a squabbling African-American family in this new comedy by Douglas Lyons.
Why to go: Most of the plays this season lean heavily toward drama, so this scrappy show may provide a welcome dose of laughs. The Broadway cast is led by Broadway favorites Norm Lewis and Michael Urie.

What it is: Playwright Lynn Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey team up for a new work about a truck-stop sandwich joint staffed by ex-cons trying to create the perfect snack. 
Why to go: Nottage and Whoriskey's previous collaborations include Ruined and Sweat, both of which won Pulitzer Prizes, and the excellent cast includes Uzo Aduba, Ron Cephas Jones and Edmund Donovan.

What it is: Deirdre O’Connell lip-synchs the unusual text that Lucas Hnath (A Doll's House, Part 2) has constructed out of real audio recordings of an interview with his mother about her harrowing 1997 abduction by a mental patient.
Why to go: The story is gripping, and O'Connell—who won a Special Citation last year from the New York Drama Critics' Circle for this performance—delivers a tour de force of virtuoso naturalism that you will never forget.

What it is: Director Tina Satter takes the full actual transcript of the FBI's first interrogation of convicted classified-info leaker Reality Winner and enacts it with a mixture of vérité and stylization.
Why to go: A strange and fascinating glimpse into the mechanics of information and justice in America, Is This A Room was one of the most compelling shows of 2019, and Emily Davis gives a heart-grabbing performance as Winner.

What it is: The rise and crash of the Lehman Brothers' financial empire is the subject of this epic by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power and directed by Sam Mendes (Skyfall). 
Why to go: Tired of the slender one-acts that have been in vogue? This massive production, which was sold out at the Park Avenue Armory in 2018, covers more than 150 years of history and lasts three and a half hours. 

What it is: Four workers at a dying Detroit auto-parts plant are torn between strategies for survival in Dominique Morisseau's meaty drama. 
Why to go: Five years after earning critical plaudits in its Off Broadway debut at the Atlantic, Skeleton Crew makes the leap to Broadway in a production that stars Broadway royalty Phylicia Rashad.

What it is: Playwright and slam poet Keenan Scott II sheds theatrical light on Black men in a group portrait of seven Brooklyn denizens.
Why to go: This production makes history as the first Broadway show written, directed, starring and lead-produced by Black artists. Rising director Steve H. Broadnax III helms a cast that includes Pose's Dyllón Burnside.