Many new musicals and plays have opened and closed during this Broadway season. There are eleven shows to be enjoyed that have opened and are opening soon but, unfortunately, five shows are closing that one must check out before the cast takes its final bows.

Eight shows have already started their “previews,” meaning that tickets are available even though their official openings have not happened yet, such as Carousel, which will star Joshua Henry (Billy Bigelow), Jessie Mueller (Julie Jordan), and Renee Fleming (Carrie Pipperidge). Carousel is about “a free-spirited carnival barker who falls in love with a curiously soulful girl who persists beyond the circles of time,” as said by the Playbill.

One show that has already opened is Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplay to the 2004 movie that it is based upon, as well as starred in it as Ms. Norbury. The new cast of Mean Girls includes Erika Henningsen (Cady Heron), Taylor Louderman (Regina George), Ashley Park (Gretchen Wieners), Kate Rockwell (Karen Smith), Barrett Wilbert Weed (Janis Sarkisian), and Greg Henson (Damian Hubbard). This musical is almost exactly like the movie; yet with songs and a refreshing new ending. Freshman Victoria Donovan saw the production of Mean Girls” on March 28, and said, “It was really good, and it has a great message to today’s teens. The storyline was very uplifting. The entire show is about how girls should all come together and not fight with each other, but they all help each other, and this is a great message especially for today’s society.”

Another show is My Fair Lady, starring Lauren Ambrose (Eliza Doolittle) and Harry Hadden-Paton (Henry Higgins). This musical is based on the play Pygmalion, which some of the Lynbrook students read in seventh grade. Some other productions that recently opened are Children of a Lesser God (opening April 11), The Iceman Cometh (opening April 26), Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (opening April 23), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 and 2 (opening April 22), Travesties (opening April 24), Saint Joan (opening April 25), and The Boys in the Band (opening May 31).

Five shows are closing, so make sure to grab tickets before they are gone. The Off-Broadway show, Later Life closed on April 14, and is about a couple who met then lost touch with each other than met again 30 years later. The shows that are closing on April 15 were The Winter’s Tale and Good for Otto. Playbill staff describes Good for Otto as “Like their patients and their families, Dr. Michaels, his colleague Evangeline, and the clinic itself teeter between breakdown and survival, wielding dedication and humanity against the cunning, inventive adversary of mental illness, to hold onto the need to fight – and to live.” The Winter’s Tale is about trying to get forgiven for crimes. Amy and the Orphans, which is about two siblings who grew apart and then came together again after their unexpected father’s death, closes on April 22. Finally, Admissions, which will be closing on May 6, is about an admissions director trying to gain diversity for his prep school.

Broadway fans are going to be so excited for these new additions, but will be upset the shows that will be closing. However, all good things must come to and end. Fortunately, though, the shows are replaced, beginning a new story in the Broadway scene.