7 Broadway Icons on Stage This Fall

As school starts and Broadway gears up for the fall season, the Great White Way is set to welcome back some of its most beloved icons. From celebrated performers who’ve set theater history to stars making their grand return, this fall promises experiences like no other. Here’s a rundown of the Broadway legends making their triumphant returns over the next few months.

Sutton Foster
During a two-week run at New York City Center Encores! last winter, Foster reminded us of her comic prowess as Winnifred the Woebegone in Once Upon a Mattress, after which she launched right into an extended run as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. Now, Foster is back with Mattress, this time on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre, which goes through Thanksgiving. If you can’t make it to the Big Apple, she’ll bring the production to Los Angeles just in time for the holidays.

Patti LuPone
You can’t keep a legend away — Broadway is their home. LuPone returns to the stage for the first time since Company in The Roommate, Jen Silverman’s 2015 dark comedy about two women of a certain age who become roommates, and the secrets that come out. Once described as The Odd Couple meets Breaking Bad, LuPone stars opposite Mia Farrow in Jack O’Brien’s new production.

Andrea Martin
In Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the marquee name is Robert Downey Jr. But director Bartlett Sher has cast an equally A-list team of supporting players, including his longtime collaborator Ruthie Ann Miles and Andrea Martin, the two-time Tony-winning comedy icon. She probably won’t sing upside down in this one…but then again…

Audra McDonald
What do you do after you win a record-setting number of Tony Awards? You climb the mountain. After Patti and Bernadette and Angela and Ethel and Linda and Tyne, Audra becomes the latest actor to play Madame Rose in the beloved musical Gypsy. You won’t want to miss it, especially since it’s reopening the renovated Majestic Theatre.

Donna McKechnie
The last time Donna McKechnie was on Broadway full time was 1996, in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair. Twenty-seven years later, the Tony-winning original Cassie from A Chorus Line is back on the boards as Madame Morrible in Wicked, a role she’s been playing since March.

Stephanie Mills
Stephanie Mills is another artist with a decades-long Broadway absence — notwithstanding a solo concert in 1989, Mills’s last Broadway role was Dorothy in The Wiz, which she originated. Now, she’s following in the footsteps of fellow greats André De Shields and Lillias Right as the latest Hermies in Hadestown.

Bebe Neuwirth
The sun will rise and the moon will set and Eddie Redmayne will depart, but Bebe will still be at the Kit Kat Klub as the kindly old landlady Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret. Her quiet, ruminative performance is a stark opposite of the decadent glamour of the club world within, and that’s why she got a Tony nod.