Frontmezzjunkies reports: Manhattan Theatre Club announces a new Broadway production of Clifford Odets’ landmark American drama.
By Ross
It truly is the return of a genuine American classic. Manhattan Theatre Club has announced that it is planning on bringing Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! back to Broadway, and the news is causing quite the stir, not only because of the play’s towering reputation, but because its questions feel every bit as urgent today as they did when it first appeared nearly a century ago. As someone who has long admired this play, I am genuinely honoured to have the opportunity to experience this new production when it arrives at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.
Manhattan Theatre Club will be staging a new Broadway production of Odets’ landmark 1935 drama beginning with preview performances in December 2026 ahead of a January 2027 opening night. The production will be directed by Tyne Rafaeli (NYTW’s Becoming Eve), who will make her Broadway directing debut with the revival.
Leading the company will be Tony Award winner Danny Burstein (Broadway’s Marjorie Prime) alongside Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht (Broadway’s Dog Day Afternoon) and Tony Award nominee Jeremy Shamos (Broadway’s Meteor Shower). Additional casting and creative team members will be announced at a later date. Years ago, I was fortunate enough to see the acclaimed 2006 Broadway revival at the Belasco Theatre, and it remains one of those theatrical experiences that has stayed with me ever since. Directed by Bartlett Sher and featuring Ben Gazzara, Zoë Wanamaker, Mark Ruffalo, Pablo Schreiber, and Lauren Ambrose, I remember leaving the theatre convinced I had witnessed something both deeply powerful and timeless, a play whose questions seemed destined to resonate well beyond the era in which it was written.
Originally produced by the legendary Group Theatre in 1935, Awake and Sing! helped establish Clifford Odets (Golden Boy) as one of the defining voices of American theatre. According to Arthur Miller, “An Odets play was awaited like news hot off the press, as though through him we would know what to think of ourselves and our prospects.” Set during the Great Depression, Awake and Sing! follows three generations of the Berger family as they struggle to navigate poverty, ambition, disappointment, and the competing visions of what a better future might look like. Trapped together inside a cramped Bronx tenement, they confront questions of survival, dignity, sacrifice, and hope that continue to resonate decades after the play first appeared on Broadway.
Caught between old ideas and new possibilities as economic hardship presses in from every direction, the Bergers occupy the fragile space between the lives they dream about and the realities they must face. MTC Artistic Director Nicki Hunter described Awake and Sing! as one of the great masterpieces of the theatrical canon, praising its ability to balance humour and heartbreak while examining ambitions and sacrifices that remain deeply relevant today.
What has always drawn audiences to Awake and Sing! is not simply its portrait of a family in crisis, but its belief that ordinary people can continue searching for meaning and dignity even when circumstances seem stacked against them. That emotional struggle sits at the heart of Odets’ play, and it is precisely what makes this revival such an exciting prospect. As the Berger family wrestles with hope, disappointment, and the possibility of something better, Broadway audiences will once again have the chance to encounter a work that speaks directly to questions that never seem to grow old. For me, those are exactly the qualities that made the last revival unforgettable, and they are the reason I am so eager to sit in the theatre once again and discover how a new generation of artists will bring this remarkable play to life.
