Tour the city with these Broadway shows set in New York

From Hamilton to A Beautiful Noise and more, these shows aren't just performed here — they tell real and fictional stories of NYC past and present.

Joe Dziemianowicz
Joe Dziemianowicz

If you can make theatre there, you can make it anywhere. There’s a story on every corner in New York, so it’s hardly a surprise that this multifaceted, multicultural metropolis is the setting for so many plays and musicals. That’s always been the case. Tales of New York as diverse as the city itself and can be found in everything from Wonderful Town to Hair to In the Heights.

Read on to discover all the New York-set shows you can see now, and then come on, come through to see them in the city where they belong. Together, they paint a diverse portrait of New York past and present.

Get tickets to a Broadway show on New York Theatre Guide.

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Hell's Kitchen

Alicia Keys sings about "the concrete jungle where dreams are made of" in "Empire State of Mind," and she'd know. She grew up in that jungle — the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, to be specific. The story of how she came of age and discovered her passion for music there, thanks to the community of artists that surrounded her, is the loose basis for this musical featuring over a dozen of Keys's songs.

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Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical covers the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s Founding Father who gazes at you from $10 bills. Early on, the show celebrates NYC as Hamilton’s future wife, Eliza Schuyler, steps on stage with her sisters. They sing, “History is happening in Manhattan, and we just happen to be in the greatest city in the world.”

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A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

This bio-musical about pop superstar Neil Diamond weaves in more than 25 tunes from his catalog – and New York City is all over them. “Well, I’m New York City born and raised,” an older Diamond, played by Mark Jacoby, sings while performing “I Am... I Said.”

We see a young Diamond, played by Will Swenson, recall writing songs as a 15-year-old kid in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Later, he breaks through at the Bitter End music club in the West Village.

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Merrily We Roll Along

Big city, big dreamers. Three New York artists with grand plans for the future form the core of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1981 bittersweet musical, returning to Broadway for the first time beginning September 19. Told in reverse order, the show begins in mid-1970s Los Angeles and rewinds two decades, when Frank (Jonathan Groff), Charley (Daniel Radcliffe), and Mary (Lindsay Mendez) meet. They envision the future while on an NYC apartment building rooftop — before their ambitions and friendship fall apart.

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The Great Gatsby

Okay, most of The Great Gatsby takes place on Long Island. But multiple key scenes of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel — and thus, the musical adaptation — take the characters into Manhattan. The glamour of the Roaring Twenties coupled with the bright and bustling nature of the city sets the tone for the story, in which a mysterious billionaire goes to great lengths to win back his former (now married) love, Daisy Buchanan. Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada star in the Broadway production.

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Doubt

Bronx-born playwright John Patrick Shanley often sets his shows close to home — if not right in the Bronx, then in a different borough. His Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning Doubt is no exception, set at a Bronx Catholic school for boys where a nun suspects a priest of inappropriate conduct. The events are fictional, but as Shanley told New York Theatre Guide, one character, Sister James, is named for a teacher at his own Catholic elementary school.

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Brooklyn Laundry

We told you Shanley doesn't stray far from his home neighborhood. His newest world-premiere play is set (as the title suggests) in Brooklyn, where a laundromat owner and three sisters deal with the ordinary difficulties of adulthood — which give way to life-changing moments. Cecily Strong and David Zayas star.

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