Summer Culture Preview

May 23, 2025 / Billboard Lifestyle /

High-stakes competition makes for high drama in “F1 the Movie” (June 27), directed by Joseph Kosinski, starring Brad Pitt as a Formula One driver who is forced out of action by a grave accident and is recruited to train a younger driver (Damson Idris). Albert Serra’s documentary “Afternoons of Solitude” (June 27) follows the Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey over the course of three years of corridas. “Wild Diamond” (July 11), the first feature directed by Agathe Riedinger, stars Malou Khebizi as a young woman in a small French town who struggles fiercely to be cast in a reality-TV show.

The summer of love is heralded by Celine Song’s second feature, “Materialists” (June 13), a romantic comedy, starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans, about a matchmaker who is torn between a rich man and a poor one. Johnson returns in “Splitsville” (Aug. 22), the story of two married couples, one facing divorce, the other practicing polyamory; it’s directed by Michael Angelo Covino, who co-stars with his co-screenwriter, Kyle Marvin, and Adria Arjona. “Oh, Hi!” (July 25) is also a rom-com, directed by Sophie Brooks, about a couple (Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman) whose weekend road trip veers into breakup territory and leads to an act of revenge.

Chills of alienation thread through upcoming releases, as in Neo Sora’s dystopian drama “Happyend” (June 20), set in Tokyo in the near future, in which the friendship between two high-school students is put to the test by the threat of an earthquake and a repressive regime of surveillance. Eva Victor wrote, directed, and stars in “Sorry, Baby” (June 27), a drama about a professor who is attempting to cope with the trauma of a sexual assault that occurred at the college where she studied and where she teaches; Naomi Ackie co-stars. “Eddington” (July 18), directed by Ari Aster, is set in mid-2020, in a New Mexico town where a liberal mayor (Pedro Pascal) and a conservative sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) clash amid conflicting views of the COVID pandemic and the murder of George Floyd; Emma Stone and Austin Butler co-star.—Richard Brody

The Theatre

The Delacorte Returns, Tennessee on Ice

When people refer to the theatre “season,” they usually mean the combined fall-winter-spring, when most Tony Award-eligible productions open. But there’s a secret, better season: summer. The fairest months still boast their share of Hollywood glitz, and so Jean Smart stars in Jamie Wax’s “Call Me Izzy,” at Studio 54 (previews begin May 24); John Krasinski plays “Angry Alan,” in Penelope Skinner’s dissection of getting lost online, at the Seaview Studio (May 23); and Helena Bonham Carter’s disembodied voice narrates the immersive “Viola’s Room,” at the Shed (June 17).

Summer is primarily precious, though, for its playwrights. Donald Margulies’s marital meditation “Lunar Eclipse” comes to Second Stage (through June 22); Taylor Mac converts Molière’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” into “Prosperous Fools,” at Theatre for a New Audience (June 1); Jordan Tannahill débuts a metatheatrical queer-futurist manifesto, “Prince Faggot” (Playwrights Horizons; May 30); Abby Rosebrock’s twisted rom-com “Lowcountry” occupies the Atlantic (June 4); Emmanuelle Mattana’s high-school-debate satire “Trophy Boys” pops up at MCC (June 5); and Charles Randolph-Wright’s Afghanistan romance “Duke and Roya” plays the Lortel (June 10). New-play connoisseurs never miss Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks festival, which includes Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s “Not Not Jane’s,” (June 2) and Ro Reddick’s “Cold War Choir Practice” (June 19). July is quiet, apart from Crystal Skillman’s gonzo magic play “Open” at the WP (July 8), but August has Sophie McIntosh’s abuse drama “Road Kills” at the Paradise Factory (Aug. 15) and Romina Paula’s “The Whole of Time” at the Brick (Aug. 22).

Musicals mostly skip the dog days. But Ken Davenport and AnnMarie Milazzo mount their bio-musical of Joy Mangano, the inventor of a self-wringing mop, “Joy,” at the Laura Pels (June 21); Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy’s “Heathers,” from 2014, returns (New World Stages; June 22); and, on Broadway, the unkillable ABBA jukebox lark “Mamma Mia!” returns to the Winter Garden (Aug. 2). “Here,” as someone Swedish once sang, “I go again.”

Outside, you have more options. Little Island’s gorgeous amphitheatre hosts a number of buzzy productions, including Kate Tarker’s new take on John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera,” “The Counterfeit Opera” (May 29-June 15), Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s “The Gospel at Colonus” (July 8-26), and a communal musical celebration called “The Tune-Up,” by Suzan-Lori Parks (July 30-Aug. 3). The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park resumes in the newly renovated Delacorte, which hosts “Twelfth Night,” starring the swoon-worthy Lupita Nyong’o and Sandra Oh, directed by Saheem Ali. Other alfresco offerings include Will Power’s reworking of a Trojan War tale, “Memnon,” for the Classical Theatre of Harlem, in Marcus Garvey Park (July 5-27), and the brand-new performing-arts series Sugar, Sugar!, in Brooklyn’s Domino Park (June 4-28), which hosts the thrilling experimental artists Nile Harris, Lena Engelstein, Lisa Fagan, and Tiresias.

The nearby Hudson Valley Shakespeare—a jaunt on the Metro-North to Garrison, New York—rotates Thornton Wilder’s jolly farce (and “Hello, Dolly!” inspiration) “The Matchmaker” and Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” (June 6-Aug. 3); Dave Malloy’s song cycle about technological addiction “Octet” ends their summer on a meditative note (Aug. 11-Sept. 7). A slightly longer trip will get you to Massachusetts for the Williamstown Theatre Festival (July 17-Aug. 3), which presents Pamela Anderson in Tennessee Williams’s surreal “Camino Real”; William Jackson Harper and Chris Messina in Williams’s prison drama “Not About Nightingales”; a new piece from the festival’s creative director, Jeremy O. Harris, called “Spirit of the People”; and the director Will Davis’s tribute to Williams, choreographed for ice-skaters. Maybe save that last one for the summer’s hottest day—and sit as close to the rink as possible.—Helen Shaw

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