Other Desert Cities
Opening Night: October 18, 2026
Theater: Hudson Theatre
Website: otherdesertcitiesbroadway.com
Every family has a secret. Not every family survives it. On Christmas Eve, the sunlit Palm Springs home of a politically connected family becomes a battleground of memory, loyalty, and legacy when a daughter returns with a memoir and the power to expose the explosive truth they’ve kept hidden. With cutting insight and razor-sharp wit, they excavate old wounds and long-buried secrets. As the past comes into focus, the question isn’t just what happened, but who owns a family’s story and what is the cost to tell it. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe star in the revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities, directed by John Benjamin Hickey.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
October 18, 2026
So I cannot say if it’s “worth” it to spend so much to see Louis-Dreyfus, but it is still grand to find her on Broadway. Her nervy charisma transfers nicely to the theater, where we can see her stumbles — her Polly is endearingly unsure about how to take her own husband’s arm — and her steely recoveries.
READ THE REVIEW
October 19, 2026
Other Desert Cities is an undeniably satisfying piece of narrative drama, tightly constructed and rigorously paced. Baitz doles out information with careful precision; each mini-confrontation flows naturally into the next, building a detailed overall picture; satisfyingly deployed monologues flesh out each character with compassion and care. This is, formally speaking, a very good play.
READ THE REVIEW
October 19, 2026
It’s obvious why Louis-Dreyfus chose this role for her Broadway debut. Through seven seasons on Veep, she exhibited an unparalleled ability to inject humor into every phrase and eyeroll, giving us permission to laugh at Selina Meyer’s selfish (but sometimes uncomfortably relatable) behavior. She brings that magic to the Hudson and has the audience eating out of her hand within minutes.
READ THE REVIEW
October 18, 2026
“Other Desert Cities” is a resounding piece of theater, not simply because of the subject matter but because of the performances. The entire cast works as a seamless ensemble, switching from quippy wit, including Polly’s assertion that sarcasm is “only for teenagers and homosexuals,” to heartbreaking and volatile outbursts rife with the pain of a family standing on a foundation of lies and hypocrisy.
READ THE REVIEW
October 19, 2026
If we’re going to turn Broadway into a machine for letting people sit close to celebrities for an exorbitant fee, can’t we at least put those celebrities in plays that feel less dated? (Perhaps even new ones?) Like too many commercial productions, Other Desert Cities isn’t particularly interested in what theater can or might do other than shape itself around a certain group of famous people.
READ THE REVIEW
October 19, 2026
Each actor has their moments, most are fine and one is excellent. Not for a second, however, does anybody believe that the Wyeths are a real family or something other than an impressive assemblage of celebrities.
READ THE REVIEW
October 18, 2026
Director John Benjamin Hickey’s revival of this ever-captivating play, in a production opening at Broadway‘s Hudson Theatre tonight, features a must-see cast… but the bold names aren’t the only things that justify Other Desert Cities‘ hot ticket status. Though it can feel, in tone and performance, altogether different than the acclaimed original 2011 production – of course comparisons will be made, and not always to the benefit of the new take – Baitz’ play seems just as vital in today’s bitterly divisive political and social environment.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
Louis-Dreyfus delivers one of the richest performances of her career as Polly Wyeth, a wealthy, fiercely opinionated Palm Springs matriarch whose wit and ironclad convictions make her a formidable force in her own family. Brimming with charm, quick with a cutting remark and determined to have the last word, Polly gives Louis-Dreyfus ample opportunity to flex the comic precision that has made her a television icon, while demonstrating a natural command of the stage with the ease of a seasoned theater veteran.
READ THE REVIEW
October 18, 2026
This Other Desert Cities, directed by John Benjamin Hickey, is wobbly from the start, off-rhythm and woefully imbalanced in its performances.
READ THE REVIEW
October 19, 2026
In any case, Other Desert Cities keeps the political firmly in its place behind the personal. Sparks are meant to fly as this divided family—which also includes youngest sibling Trip (Joe Keery)—finally confronts secrets and lies that have burned underground for decades, waiting to erupt. But the fire in the hearth of Scott Pask’s elegant set provides more real heat than most of the production.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
Louis-Dreyfus is impeccable, her turns to iciness genuinely chilling as a study of propriety in action; the venom she struggles to hold back seeping through her teeth.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
Despite the considerable talent onstage, the shaky A-list stars never quite congeal as an ensemble. What should be a ferocious cage match instead feels like a bowling tournament with the bumpers up: Yes, everyone is trying their damnedest, but the fireworks sputter out before they can ever really ignite.
READ THE REVIEW
October 18, 2026
While Louis-Dreyfus regales the audience at the Hudson Theatre, Harris gives a most self-effacing performance. Except for a wonderful cameo where he delivers his signature death scene, one he honed decades ago in countless movie Westerns, Harris’ Lyman Wyeth is the husband who’s missing in action. We don’t exactly miss him, either. Besides Louis-Dreyfus, there is Janney’s boisterous and wise-cracking Silda, who resembles Edward Albee’s Claire in “A Delicate Balance,” a role Elaine Stritch played to perfection in that play’s last Broadway revival. Here, Janney keeps that Ladies Who Lunch torch burning brightly.
READ THE REVIEW
October 19, 2026
The casting, especially Louis-Dreyfus, makes this a hot ticket, and fans encountering the play for the first time may find it gripping. But a revival needs more than an impressive guest list, and this production never makes a convincing case that “Other Desert Cities” needed another trip to Broadway.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
The cast certainly knocks it out of the park in this production directed by actor John Bejamin Hickey, who scored a similar commercial triumph with his staging of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite at the same theater. Their delivery of the sharp dialogue in Baitz’s entertaining if overly schematic drama about a California clan squabbling over the revelation of family secrets makes the play feel weightier than it actually is.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
On its sun-soaked surface, Other Desert Cities looks like your average dysfunctional-family drama. Mentally fragile daughter Brooke (Lily Rabe) returns to her parents’ Palm Springs oasis—the groovy midcentury modern set is by Scott Pask—for Christmas, with a tell-all memoir manuscript in tow, and unleashes a firestorm of long-simmering resentments, buried secrets, and hot-headed left vs. right debates.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
Alas, despite Baitz’s well-made play and an A-list cast, this revival is under-directed by John Benjamin Hickey, which leaves the actors feeling unmoored. Though Other Desert Cities has interesting points to make about family dysfunction, ethical obligations, and political complicity, particularly in the Republican party, the piece’s relevancy is overshadowed by the awkward production.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 19, 2026
This is a top-drawer commercial play from the American theater’s pre-preachy era, back when writers wanted to give both sides a fair shake, leave the audience questioning everything and sending them off ready to dissect the evening over a stiff post-show drink.
READ THE REVIEW