New York’s Broadway theater scene is set for a dynamic fall season featuring a mix of classical revivals, new works, and notable debuts. Among the highlights is Julia Louis-Dreyfus making her Broadway debut in a revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s “Other Desert Cities,” where she stars as Polly, a mother navigating family tensions around a controversial memoir. The production also features Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Lily Rabe, and Joe Keery, and is scheduled to run through mid-January at the Hudson Theater.

Comedy and drama share the stage with historical narratives and solo performances this season. Jocelyn Bioh’s “School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play,” a sharp comedy addressing beauty standards and identity in 1980s Ghana, returns under the direction of Whitney White at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater until November 1. Meanwhile, Billy Crystal brings a personal solo show, “860,” reflecting on loss after the 2025 Palisades fire that destroyed his Los Angeles family home; it will run through early January at the Imperial Theater.

Classics also anchor the season with new interpretations. Bill Irwin leads an adaptation of Molière’s “The Imaginary Invalid,” blending clowning and classic farce at the Roundabout Theater Company’s Todd Haimes Theater through November 22. Tom Hiddleston returns to Broadway in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” playing Benedick opposite Hayley Atwell’s Beatrice in a production infused with contemporary music and choreography, running at the Winter Garden Theater through January.

Also notable is “A Few Good Men,” Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 play that launched his career, revived by Lincoln Center Theater and starring Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth. This courtroom drama will be staged at the Vivian Beaumont Theater through mid-January. Another new offering, “Wanted,” is an Old West musical featuring gospel and R&B influences that tells the story of Black sisters in 1893 Texas passing as white and taking vigilante action; it opens in mid-October at the James Earl Jones Theater.

The season embraces challenging themes as well, with Bruce Norris’s “Downstate” portraying the lives of sex offenders in an Illinois group home as they navigate reintegration after prison. Directed by Joe Mantello with an ensemble including K. Todd Freeman and Thomas Sadoski, the production begins in mid-October at the Booth Theater.

Historically charged material appears in “Here There Are Blueberries,” a new play by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich about the Nazi personnel who operated Auschwitz, combining documentary photographs with dramatic storytelling. It opens in early November at the Barrymore Theater.

Finally, after decades of off-Broadway success, “The Fantasticks” arrives on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater, directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli. The musical features a gender-swapped cast and runs from late October into early February.

This varied season marks a blend of veteran performers’ returns and fresh voices in theater, offering audiences an array of stories that span humor, history, and personal reflection across New York’s marquee stages.