Olivier-Nominated 'Oedipus' Transfers to Broadway for Fall 2025

Broadway is bursting with opportunities for Anglophiles to catch some critically acclaimed British theater for themselves this spring, from a transfer of Sarah Snook's (Succession) award-winning turn in The Picture of Dorian Gray to Andrew Scott's (Ripley) one-man Vanya and the musical Operation Mincemeat. However, the British stage hits appear to be set to continue well into the fall with the Broadway arrival of director Robert Icke's Olivier-nominated West End production of Oedipus as part of the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2025-2026 season. 

The show, which stars acting heavyweights Mark Strong (Dune: Prophecy) and Lesley Manville (Moonflower Murders) as the doomed central duo of Oedipus and Jocasta, broke box office records for Wyndham's Theatre in the West End and racked up a raft of glowing reviews. Most people probably vaguely remember the Sophocles play from high school literature class, but it's relatively grim going. The first play in the Theban Trilogy (which includes Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone) relays the story of a king who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother. 

Oedipus is the platonic ideal of The Greek Tragedy, and the one from which we draw many of the stereotypes: full of prophecy, presumed dead offspring, suicide, self-mutilation, and a thorny debate about fate and free will. Director Robert Icke reimagines the story in a contemporary setting and gives it a political spin, setting it during a family dinner on election night and remaking Oedipus as a statesman whose determination to prove his origins to the nation after an opponent questions them leads to his family's downfall. The transfer marks the Broadway debut for Manville, and the first time Strong has returned to the Great White Way since his Tony-nominated performance in the 2015 production of A View from the Bridge. 

Here's the play's synopsis. 

Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change.

Starring the internationally renowned, multi-award-winning Mark Strong and Lesley Manville, Sophocles’ epic tragedy is transformed into an essential, explosive human thriller.

While both Manville and Strong are reprising their roles from the London production, it's unknown as yet how many of their castmates will be making the transfer alongside them. (Fingers crossed for most of them!) The West End cast also featured House of the Dragon star Phia Saban as Oedipus and Jocasta's daughter Antigone, alongside Samuel Brewer as Teiresias, Michael Gould as Creon, Sara Hazemi as Lichas, Bhasker Patel as Corin, Jordan Scowen as Eteocles, June Watson as Merope, and James Wilbraham as Polyneices.

The show originally ran for thirteen weeks at London's Wyndham's Theatre from October 4, 2024, to January 4, 2025. Over the course of its engagement, the play became the highest-grossing limited show run in the venue's history.

Oedipus is produced by Sonia Freidman Productions, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, and Patrick Catullo in association with Roundabout Theatre Company. The limited engagement kicks off the Roundabout's Fall season, with performances beginning in November at the theater company's Studio 54 venue.