Frontmezzjunkies reports: Jocelyn Bioh’s hit comedy heads to Broadway while Nick Payne returns with a poignant American premiere
By Ross
Certain theatre companies earn your trust over time, mainly because of the feeling that settles in when you take your seat, that quiet sense that you are about to encounter something thoughtful, something specific, something worth your attention. For me, Manhattan Theatre Club has long been one of those places.
So when a new season announcement arrives, it never quite feels like routine news. It feels like an invitation. This week’s unveiling of two productions for the 2026–27 season carries that same sense of anticipation, pairing a long-awaited Broadway debut with the return of a playwright whose work I have admired ever since I saw his MTC Broadway production of Constellations.
Leading the announcement is the Broadway premiere of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh, directed by Whitney White. The production reunites the team behind the acclaimed Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and arrives at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre beginning September 8. Set in 1986 at a Ghanaian boarding school, the play follows Paulina, the reigning queen bee, whose dreams of winning the Miss Ghana pageant are thrown into disarray when a new student from America arrives. What begins as competition quickly becomes something sharper, funnier, and far more personal.
The play premiered Off-Broadway in 2017 and has since enjoyed an impressive life beyond New York, with dozens of productions across the country and abroad. Somehow, I missed it the first time around, which makes this Broadway debut feel like a long-overdue second chance.
Alongside it, MTC will present the American premiere of The Unbelievers by Nick Payne, directed by Knud Adams at New York City Center Stage I beginning October 13. Payne returns to a theatre that has already served as an important home for his work, including the American premieres of Constellations and Incognito. His newest play explores a family grappling with the unexplained disappearance of a teenage son, charting how faith, grief, and the quiet passage of time reshape the world they are left to navigate. Directed by Adams, whose recent work includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning English and Primary Trust, the production promises a piece that is both intimate and expansive in its emotional reach.
Taken together, these two productions offer a compelling snapshot of what Manhattan Theatre Club continues to do so well. It creates space for bold, specific voices while also inviting audiences into stories that linger long after the curtain falls. One is a bright and biting comedy that has been waiting for its Broadway moment to shine. The other is a quietly devastating new play about loss, belief, and the fragile act of moving forward.
Both feel like exactly the kind of theatre worth making time for.
