Variety is proud to announce the 2026 edition of its annual 10 Broadway Stars to Watch. These actors, composers, librettists, and playwrights — working on shows including “Purple Rain,” “Warriors,” “Spring Awakening,” “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Wanted” — represent the future of theater.
This year’s roster of standouts will be honored at our annual Business of Broadway Breakfast, hosted by Tom Felton, who is currently reprising his signature role, Draco Malfoy, in the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”
At the Oct. 5 event, Variety will celebrate the upcoming season with exclusive conversations with Rachel Zegler, Diego Rodriguez and James Olivas for “Evita,” which opens in spring 2027; Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitford, Tom Blyth, Krysta Rodriguez and Michael Arden for “A Few Good Men,” which begins previews on Oct. 8; and Bartlett Sher, Adam Speers and the cast of “Dolly: A True Original Musical,” which launches in January 2027.
Here are Variety‘s 10 Broadway Stars to Watch for the 2026-27 season.
Compton likes wearing many hats. After writing the book and lyrics for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” designing the set and directing the show on the West End, he’s bringing it all stateside. The musical — which retains only the core premise of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story and departs significantly from the David Fincher film — sets the tale in a Cornish fishing village, with a folk score performed by a cast of actor-musicians as Benjamin ages backwards.
Compton’s urge to multitask came out of necessity. He started as a producer working with “exceptionally tight margins.” “I realized the only way I could make the budgets stack up was to hire myself to do as many roles as possible. It also turned out to be a wonderfully efficient way of working, as it drastically reduced the number of meetings I had to attend,” he says.
His resourcefulness is clearly working — Compton has been developing the show for seven years, and its West End iteration brought home three Olivier Awards, including for best new musical.
“For me, writing and directing are completely different skill sets that require very different ways of thinking. I don’t feel like I’m ever wearing both hats at the same time,” he says. “In the writing room, I’m a writer. In the rehearsal room, I’m the director.” He adds, “I love and loathe them in equal measure!”
Theater superstition you believe“It’s bad luck to say, “Good luck,’ on opening night.”
Years ago, Duchan was warned not to expect success as a librettist until he was in his 40s: “I’ve always understood this career as something of an endurance test.”
At 43, he’s making his Broadway debut with “Purple Rain,” the stage version of the classic Prince album and film, about the rise of a tormented young musician known as the Kid. Duchan’s big break comes more than a decade after he emerged on the New York theater scene with 2012’s Off Broadway musical “Dogfight,” based on the 1991 movie starring River Phoenix.
“We’re trying to honor what’s singular about Prince while crafting a fictional character separate from him,” Duchan says.
An adept multitasker (and an expert at translating from screen to stage), Duchan is working on another major musical adaptation, “Practical Magic,” based on the 1998 fantasy comedy starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as witchy sisters.
“These are just the two you know about!” Duchan teases. “I spend all day, every day, thinking about musical-theater storytelling. If I haven’t clocked my 10,000 hours yet, I’ve gotta be pretty close.”
First Broadway show“Les Misérables” at the Broadway Theatre
Go-to Broadway karaoke song“The Feeling We Once Had” from “The Wiz”
Show that needs a revival“We haven’t seen ‘The Most Happy Fella’ on Broadway in over 30 years.”
It’s hard to typecast Folds. The actress, comedian, writer and improviser has built a career at the intersection of musical theater, hip-hop and comedy.
As a high schooler, Folds posted on Tumblr that Freestyle Love Supreme was “everything I’ve ever wanted to do.” Years later, in 2019, she made her Broadway debut with the act. “Freestyle Love Supreme is the thing that taught me that you as yourself is enough,” she says. “You can just be who you are.”
Since then, she’s created and performed her own work and starred as Hallie Parker in the “Parent Trap” spoof “Ginger Twinsies.” “I get to do such strange things, and I love it,” she says. “My last thing was playing an 11-year-old white girl.”
Now she’s reuniting with frequent collaborator Lin-Manuel Miranda on “Warriors,” his concept album with Eisa Davis that’s headed to Broadway in spring 2027. The musical reimagines the cult film’s gang as women. And for Folds, a Queens native with “music in my blood,” it’s also a celebration of her hometown.
“It’s every single genre in the world of New York,” she says. “For anyone seeing it, listening to it, you’re going to relate to something, no matter what.” She adds, “It’s not about fragile, delicate women. It’s about women fighting and standing up for themselves.”
As for what’s next? “Theater is in a weird place right now. Let’s just fuck it up.”
First Broadway show“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”
More than a decade after Jepsen made her Broadway debut in the 2014 revival of “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” she’s returning to the New York stage — this time as a songwriter. She and Gruska are composing the music for “10 Things I Hate About You,” a musical by Lena Dunham and Jessica Huang that’s based on the classic 1999 teen rom-com.
Jepsen is best known as the Grammy-nominated singer of “Call Me Maybe” and “I Really Like You,” while Gruska is a producer who has worked with Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, and Bon Iver. They first collaborated on Jepsen’s 2023 album “The Loveliest Time,” and Gruska describes having “immediate chemistry.”
For Jepsen, crafting tunes for Broadway requires a “different side of the brain” than writing pop songs. “I find it so challenging in the best way,” she says. “We get to play with humor and all these deep emotions, which is so satisfying.”
Knowing how much people love the movie, the duo is striving to handle the material “with care but not trepidation.” With a year until the musical begins previews, Jepsen says, “I’m trying to not get too bogged down by other people’s expectations of the show. I know it’s beloved, but that doesn’t scare me — that excites me.” Adds Gruska: “Making sure we are telling that story, honoring the tone of the movie, and being free to push it forward and be ourselves has been a wonderful and rewarding challenge.”
Most listened to cast album “Jesus Christ Superstar” (Jepsen)
Go-to Broadway karaoke song “Maria” from “West Side Story” (Gruska); “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady” (Jepsen)
Twenty years after “Spring Awakening” launched the careers of Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, a new generation is getting its turn. Thousands of performers responded to an open casting call before Kamibayashi, Maddox, Jordan Wesley and Yoo emerged as the leads of the Off Broadway revival. “It was like the Hunger Games of New York,” jokes Kamibayashi, who plays Moritz, the troubled schoolboy. “I skipped Jury Duty to go to my first appointment!” says Maddox, who plays the leading naïve Wendela.
The foursome came to auditions with varying familiarity with the show and were encouraged to “approach it like it’s a new work,” says Yoo, who plays the free-spirited Ilse. “It hasn’t been done with people who look like us, people with our lived experiences.”
For Wesley, who plays the rebellious lead Melchior, that opportunity is personal: “Having been a little Black boy from South Carolina seeing this industry and being like, ‘I want to carve out a piece of this for me’ … to be realizing that with this show is very cool.”
None of the four has connected with their predecessors yet, though Wesley is looking forward to meeting Groff. “I know that he’s a Beyoncé lover. I also love Beyoncé, so I think we’ll hit it off there,” he says.
And if history repeats itself? Kamibayashi jokes, “Hopefully we all get to book our version of ‘Glee’ after this.”
Dream shows or roles on BroadwayBobby in “Company” or George in “Sunday in the Park With George” (Kamibayashi); “Carnival” (Maddox); Judas in “Jesus Christ Superstar” (Jordan Wesley); the Witch in “Into the Woods” or Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” (Yoo)
LaFontaine is one-half of the duo at the center of the new musical “Wanted” — a Western about biracial sisters who pass for white and rob their way through 1893 Texas. “Hot — sign me up!” LaFontaine jokes. But it was the “depth and truth” of the story that captivated her.
After leading West End productions of “Dreamgirls” and “Moulin Rouge!,” LaFontaine is making her Broadway debut this season at the James Earl Jones Theatre. “I’ve been working towards this moment for the last decade,” she says. “I’m just kicking my feet.”
LaFontaine has been developing the role of Martha since the show’s earliest iterations, alongside now co-star and “twin flame” Solea Pfeiffer. Playing the biracial sisters has allowed the pair to unpack questions about their own identities. “It feels like we get to represent ancestors we didn’t know we had,” LaFontaine says.
Martha and her sister, Mary, are based on the real-life great-great-aunts of book writer and lyricist Angelica Chéri, giving LaFontaine a “direct line” to their history — and a particular responsibility in bringing Martha to the stage. “I feel an immense pressure to get it right, but I also feel so much freedom knowing people don’t know her yet and I’m the one chosen to introduce her to the world,” she says. “Creating a character is such a gift, but also a very different kind of responsibility.”
First Broadway show“I saw my mom play Sarah in ‘Ragtime’ when I was 3 and scream-cried because I thought she got killed onstage.”
Leavitt became famous on reality television as the breakout star of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and later on “Dancing With the Stars,” but she secretly dreamed of performing on Broadway. Though she grew up as a competitive dancer, she abandoned her acting ambitions to become a stay-at-home mom. Still, she made her Broadway debut last year in “Chicago” as Roxie Hart, and her run broke the box office record for highest weekly sales in the show’s nearly 30-year history.
“I walked into the Ambassador Theatre hoping I could do the role, and I left that experience wanting even more,” Leavitt says.
She didn’t have to wait long for her next gig. In December, Leavitt is returning to the stage in the Bobby Darin musical “Just in Time” as singer Sandra Dee. “I wanted my next role to challenge me and feel completely different from ‘Chicago,’” says Leavitt. “I’ve experienced people forming opinions about me based on pieces of my life, and Sandra’s story made me think about how important it is to protect the parts of yourself that are yours.”
Leavitt’s pivot from reality TV to theater is notable because she’s bringing new audiences to Broadway. “That’s one of my favorite parts of this experience,” she says. “If someone came because they knew me from TikTok, ‘Secret Lives’ or ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and left loving Broadway, that’s a win. Because once you see one, you’re going to want to see them all!”
Go-to Broadway karaoke song “If They Could See Me Now” from “Sweet Charity”
Theater superstition you believe“Not wishing someone good luck before they go to stage; I don’t want to hear that!”
Levy isn’t new to Broadway — he has four shows under his belt — but his fifth feels different. “Just now, with this show and with this role, I’m finally arriving,” he says. “It’s all starting to make sense.”
This fall, Levy will originate Lewis in the Broadway debut of “The Fantasticks,” more than 65 years after the musical premiered Off Broadway. The new production reimagines the central romance as a queer love story, turning Luisa — a role traditionally played by a soprano — into Lewis. For Levy, that gender-bend allows him the freedom to explore the character separately from those who’ve come before him. “It’s essentially a new role, so I can just sort of approach it as that,” he says. “It could be super intimidating to go down the rabbit hole and see all the great women, all the great sopranos, that have come before me. But it’s nice and refreshing to know that we’re switching it up.”
The change also gives the decades-old love story a new perspective. “It’s really refreshing to see a queer love story these days where the sexuality is not necessarily the struggle or the main conflict,” Levy says. “It just is.”
First Broadway show “Newsies,” with “The Fantasticks” choreographer Christopher Gattelli
Go-to karaoke song “Bohemian Rhapsody” or something from “Legally Blonde”
After lighting up the West End in productions of “Cabaret,” “Oh, Mary!” and “The Tempest,” Park, who’s nonbinary, is making their Broadway debut as Margaret in “Much Ado About Nothing.”
“I think London has finally had enough of me,” Park cracks.
Director Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Shakespeare’s comedy, starring Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell, drew raves on the West End. During that production, Park learned the importance of taking the work, but not themself, seriously.
“We are so fortunate to get to make fools of ourselves amongst talented friends for a living, so might as well enjoy as much of it as possible,” they say.
Having acted in two Shakespeare plays, Park is no longer intimidated by the material: “There’s so much room for interpretation and play, might as well take a big swing. The legacy of his work should liberate you rather than scare you.”
If Park does get nervous about a project, they remember their favorite piece of advice: “Embrace your singularity. If they wanted someone else, they’d just call them to do it instead.”
Most listened to cast album “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”
Show they’re most excited to see this season “Evita”
Sarnak and Weiner’s first writing session started like a jam. “She picked up her guitar. I go to the piano. We talk; we sing together, band style,” Weiner says. “It kind of evolves really organically from there, just going back and forth.”
The first-time collaborators wrote the music and lyrics for “Galileo,” a musical about the father of modern science. The show marks Sarnak’s Broadway debut and Weiner’s first Broadway musical since 2013’s “First Date.”
Their style of collaboration — a “yes, and” approach, as Sarnak describes it — has helped them create a score that gives each character a distinct musical identity. For Galileo, the answer was rock. “He felt like a rock star in his generation — one of those rebellious people who would challenge authority — which is what rock music is all about,” Weiner says.
Sarnak has her own connection to the material. The daughter of a scientist, she double majored in molecular biology and music before pursuing songwriting. “I have always felt that math and science minds, they’re artists, they’re dreamers,” she says. “They see the world in this unexpected, outside-of-the-box, expansive way.”
First Broadway show“A Chorus Line” at the Shubert Theatre (Weiner); “Guys and Dolls” or “Chicago” (Sarnak)