Broadway’s Best Shows About Summer

By Katie Devin Orenstein

Now that summer has been officially kicked off, here are our five favorite Broadway shows set during the summer. 

A Little Night Music

Way up north in the Swedish countryside, the sun doesn’t set in summertime. In Stephen Sondheim’s adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, this perpetual anticipation is the perfect opportunity for romantic entanglements and chaos, for the aristocracy and their servants alike. The act 1 finale sends everyone and their spouses and lovers to a “Weekend in the Country”:

In The Heights

In The Heights captures everything about a New York summer: Fourth of July fireworks, absurd heat and humidity, block parties, blackouts, and frozen treats from street vendors. Here’s Chris Eliseo as In the Heights’ Piragua Guy, ready to go to war with Mr. Softee:

The Light in the Piazza 

“We’re on vacation!” trill Victoria Clark and Kelli O’Hara in the opening number of Adam Guettel’s rapturous score. The original production’s lighting and set design, by Christopher Akerlind and Michael Yeargan respectively, capture the heat and passion of a Florentine summer. 

110 in the Shade

110 in the Shade is a small-town Western love story set during a brutal drought and heatwave over the Fourth of July, with a romantic score by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones of The Fantasticks. The 2007 revival starred Audra McDonald. 

Carousel

“Just because it’s June, June, June”! Most of this Rodgers & Hammerstein classic takes place during a summer in coastal Maine, and features traditions like community clambakes, and the classic song “June is Bustin’ Out All Over.” And of course, the titular carousel, which traveled up and down the Eastern seaboard as part of summertime traveling carnivals in the 1890s.