The play's the thing on Broadway this fall

Just like the school year, a new theater season comes with the crackling feel of autumn. If we're going to be precise, however, the 2011-12 year on Broadway began two nights after the June 12 Tony Awards with, you know, some modest little musical about flying spider creatures.

So if we count "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," the revival of "Master Class" that closed early this month, and last week's revival of "Follies," the new Broadway season began long before we started this annual rite of anticipation and tallying. And if we count those three, that makes 19 new productions for this half of the season, which ends Dec. 31 -- the same number as last year at this time.

A year ago, the buzz was over new musicals. This year, the shocker -- in a very good way -- is the arrival of eight new Broadway plays. Even more remarkable in our Anglophile corner of the culture, all are by Americans. A few enjoy the advantage of celebrity playwrights, particularly "Relatively Speaking," a trio of one-act comedies by Woody Allen, Elaine May and Ethan Coen (half of the Coen brothers of indie-moviedom).

But playwrights who have been infusing excitement and smarts into Off-Broadway for years are no longer excluded from the commercial mainstream. This includes Jon Robin Baitz ("Other Desert Cities"), Theresa Rebeck ("Seminar"), David Ives ("Venus in Fur"), Katori Hall ("The Mountaintop") and Lydia R. Diamond ("Stick Fly"). And David Henry Hwang, who won his Tony for M. Butterfly in 1988, is back with "Chinglish."

Stars? This is Broadway in the 21st century. Of course, it's got stars. In "Mountaintop," Samuel L. Jackson will play Martin Luther King on the night before his assassination, with Angela Bassett as a mysterious woman. Alan Rickman is sure to eat up the stage in "Seminar" as a literary lion. Also here are Frank Langella ("Man and Boy"), Kim Cattrall ("Private Lives"), Rosemary Harris and Jim Dale ("The Road to Mecca") plus Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin in a concert with a theme. And there's Hugh Jackman in his song-and-dance solo showcase.

For many people, Broadway means musicals. Counting "Spider-Man," we have just three new shows ("Bonnie and Clyde" and "Lysistrata Jones" are the others), though many more are promised for the spring half of the year.

But there are also four musical revivals, more than we saw all last year. This includes "Follies" and "Godspell" plus two radical rethinkings -- what the theater calls "revisals." Harry Connick Jr., stars in a gender-bending version of "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," and a revised "Porgy and Bess" begins previews in December after a high-profile tryout at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge.

17 big Broadway openings

BY LINDA WINER, linda.winer@newsday.com

Man and Boy (American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., Oct. 9). Frank Langella stars as a ruthless gay businessman in free fall during the Great Depression in Terence Rattigan's 1963 drama about a sociopathic financier and his estranged son who lives in Greenwich Village.

Chinglish (Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th St., previews Oct. 11, opening TBA). Playwright David Henry Hwang, who won the Tony Award for "M. Butterfly," returns to Broadway with a new comedy about an American businessman who wants to do business in China but doesn't know the language and is clueless about the culture.

The Mountaintop (Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45th St., Oct. 13). Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett star in Katori Hall's reimagining of the night before the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Relatively Speaking (Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St., Oct. 20). Three one-act family comedies by Ethan Coen, Elaine May and Woody Allen. John Turturro, beloved for his quirky acting, directs a cast that includes Steve Guttenberg, Marlo Thomas and Julie Kavner.

Other Desert Cities (Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St., Nov. 3). Jon Robin Baitz's explosive and entertaining family-reunion drama was a smash at Lincoln Center Theater's Off-Broadway playhouse last spring. The cast is changed a bit for the Broadway run, but Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach will be back as the former members of the Reagan inner circle with the Palm Springs home and the family secrets.

Godspell (Circle in the Square, 1633 Broadway, Nov. 7). Hunter Parrish stars in this revival of the 1971 up-with-people poperetta on the Gospel of St. Matthew by Stephen Schwartz ("Wicked").

Venus in Fur (Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., Nov. 8). Nina Arianda made a splash on Broadway last spring in "Born Yesterday," but her real breakthrough came months earlier Off-Broadway in this two-character power play by David Ives.

Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway (Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St., Nov. 10). He may be an action hero to Hollywood, but he is song-and-dance catnip on Broadway. Eight years after he made his irresistible stage debut here as Peter Allen in "The Boy From Oz," Jackman returns for the holidays to play himself in an acclaimed autobiographical solo of his favorite songs.

Private Lives (Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., Nov. 17). Kim Cattrall has had a well-received career on stage. Now, she and Paul Gross bring their London production of Noël Coward's 1930 romantic comedy of divorce to Broadway.

Seminar (Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St., Nov. 20). Alan Rickman plays the brilliant literary legend who manipulates -- uh, teaches -- a seminar to acolytes played by Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater in Theresa Rebeck's serious comedy.

An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin (Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., Nov. 21). Call it a concert if you want, but expect big-time theater in this program of songs that tell a love story. This is the first time these electrifying and wildly unpredictable singing actors have been on Broadway together since he was Che to her "Evita."

Bonnie & Clyde (Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St., Dec. 1). Frank Wildhorn -- pulpy composer of "Jekyll and Hyde" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" -- may not be your first thought when musicalizing Arthur Penn's bloody and brilliant 1967 movie. But here we have it, in a production that began at the adventurous La Jolla Playhouse in 2009.

Stick Fly (Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St., Dec. 8). Grammy-winning singer-composer Alicia Keys believes so strongly in this new play by Lydia R. Diamond that she is co-producing its Broadway premiere. This is said to be a comedy of manners about an affluent African-American family coming together for a summer weekend at their home on Martha's Vineyard.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St., Dec. 11). Harry Connick Jr., stars in a revised, reconceived, gender-bending version of the Alan Jay Lerner-Burton Lane 1965 musical about reincarnation and romance. Connick plays a psychiatrist who hypnotizes a male patient and falls in love with a woman he used to be.

Lysistrata Jones (Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St., Dec. 14. When Aristophanes wrote "Lysistrata" in 411 B.C., it was a protest comedy in which women withheld sex to keep their men from fighting the Peloponnesian War. But not so fast, warrior women. In this new musical, an Off-Broadway hit last spring, cheerleaders won't give it up to their boyfriends until the university basketball team wins a game.

The Road to Mecca (American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., previews Dec. 16, opening Jan. 17). Rosemary Harris and Jim Dale star in this revival of Athol Fugard's stunning 1988 drama about an elderly white woman in South Africa.

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St., previews Dec. 17, opening Jan. 12). This is the much-anticipated, much-criticized, radically reimagined version of the masterly 1935 folk opera by George and Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. After a tryout at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, the production is directed by Diane Paulus ("Hair"), revised by Pulitzer Prize-winning Suzan-Lori Parks ("Topdog/Underdog") and stars Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald.

More openings to keep in mind

The Submission (MCC Theater, 121 Christopher St., Sept. 27). Jonathan Groff co-stars in Jeff Talbott's drama about the squishy lines in creative affirmative action.

The Threepenny Opera (Brooklyn Academy of Music, Oct. 4-8). Cool-eyed visionary director Robert Wilson meets the curdled heat of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

Motherhood Out Loud (Primary Stages, 59 E. 59th St., Oct. 4). Thirteen playwrights, including Theresa Rebeck, Cheryl L. West and Leslie Ayvazian, get vocal about maternal matters.

We Live Here (Manhattan Theater Club, 131 W. 55th St., Oct. 12). Unstoppable young actress Zoe Kazan has written this play about family angst at a wedding.

King Lear (Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., previews Oct. 18). Sam Waterston climbs Shakespeare's mountain, with Kelli O'Hara seemingly cast against type as one of his scheming daughters.

Asuncion (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 38 Commerce St., Oct. 27). Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network" stars in his own play about gray areas of racism.

Dancing at Lughnasa (Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22nd St., Oct. 30). 20th anniversary revival of Brian Friel's Tony-winning play about unmarried Irish sisters.

Blood and Gifts (Lincoln Center Theater, Nov. 21). J.T. Rogers' drama about a CIA operative trying to stop the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Happy Hour (Atlantic Theater Company, 555 W. 42nd St., Dec. 5). Three dark one-act comedies by Ethan Coen about lonely travelers.

Close Up Space (Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 W. 55th St., Dec. 19). David Hyde Pierce co-stars in Molly Smith Metzler's serious comedy about the travails of a book editor on a deadline.

Shlemiel the First (Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Place, previews Dec. 13). Klezmer musical adapted by Robert Brustein from Isaac Bashevis Singer's folk tale, directed by modern-dance master David Gordon.