Tom Hanks & Kelli O’Hara To Star In THIS WORLD OF TOMORROW on Broadway

This World of Tomorrow, the new play by Tom Hanks & James Glossman, will arrive on Broadway for a strictly limited engagement beginning Fall 2027, at a Shubert theater to be announced. Starring Hanks and Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara, This World of Tomorrow will be directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.

This World of Tomorrow is based on a series of short stories written by Hanks. The play, which debuted at The Shed last year for a sold-out eight week engagement, marks Tom Hanks’ return to the Broadway stage in more than 14 years (He received a Tony Award nomination for his starring role in Nora Ephron’s play Lucky Guy).

In this electrifying new time-travel romance, it’s the end of the 21st century and Bert Allenberry is determined to change his future by returning to the past. When Bert journeys back—again, and again, and again—to one remarkable day at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Queens, he discovers that the future is shaped not by technology, but by the choices we make for love.

‘I’m so excited to continue this work on this amazing new American play,’ said Leon. ‘There’s no time like the present to further explore this story of love and time travel from Glossman and Hanks. More than anything, I look forward to even more audiences who will have the chance to witness the onstage chemistry of Kelli O’Hara and Tom Hanks.’

‘A beloved actor of our times, Tom Hanks co-created and starred in This World of Tomorrow with the illuminating Kelli O’Hara for their sold out run at The Shed. Reminding us that while the world changes, the deepest of human connections endures and the power of love can transcend any era,’ said Alex Poots, The Shed’s Artistic Director. ‘Now this story of second chances gets to reach an even wider audience on Broadway.’

In a statement, producer Brian Anthony Moreland said, ‘There is something extraordinary about bringing a story that explores the power of love across time to a place where the magic of live theater happens every night. Tom Hanks is one of the great storytellers of our time, and for me to bring his remarkable new play to Broadway, and to reunite with Kenny Leon (Othello) is an incredible privilege. At its heart, This World of Tomorrow reminds us that no matter how much the world changes, the one thing that remains timeless is our capacity to love.’

Complete cast and creative team details will be announced shortly. This World of Tomorrow is Produced by Brian Anthony Moreland, and 101 Productions, Ltd. will serve as general managers.

To sign up for more information, visit www.thisworldoftomorrowbway.com.

Tom Hanks (Writer, Bert) is an award-winning actor, producer, and director. One of only two actors in history to win back-to-back Academy Awards for ‘Best Actor in a Leading Role,’ he won his first Oscar in 1994 for his moving portrayal of AIDS-stricken lawyer Andrew Beckett in Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia. The following year, he took home his second Oscar for his unforgettable performance in the title role of Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump. He also won Golden Globe Awards for both films, as well as a SAG Award for the latter.

Hanks has also been honored with Academy Award nominations for his performances in Penny Marshall’s Big, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away, and, most recently, for his portrayal of Fred Rogers in Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. He also won Golden Globes for Big and Cast Away.

In 2013, Hanks made his Broadway debut in the Nora Ephron-penned play Lucky Guy. His performance earned him Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony Award nominations. He is also the author of a best-selling collection of stories titled Uncommon Type, and later, in 2023, he published his first full length novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, which was a New York Times bestseller and was also recognized by NPR as ‘Best Book of the Year.’

Hanks has received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award in 2009, a Kennedy Center Honor in 2014, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

About KELLI O’HARA

Kelli O’Hara (Carmen) has established herself as one of Broadway’s leading ladies. The Tony Award winner and Emmy, SAG, and Grammy-nominated actress has appeared in thirteen Broadway productions, earning nine Tony Award nominations.

She won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Anna Leonowens in The King and I. Other Broadway credits include Kiss Me, Kate, The Bridges of Madison County, Nice Work If You Can Get It, South Pacific, The Pajama Game, The Light in the Piazza, and Follies.

O’Hara received an Emmy nomination for ‘The Accidental Wolf’ and stars in HBO’s The Gilded Age. Screen credits include Masters of Sex, 13 Reasons Why, Blue Bloods, All the Bright Places, Peter Pan Live!, and The Good Fight. She also appears in CBS’s Sheriff Country and Ryan Murphy’s FX series The Beauty.

In 2015, O’Hara made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Lehár’s The Merry Widow, opposite Renée Fleming. She later returned in Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte and starred as Laura Brown in Kevin Puts’ The Hours, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Opera Recording.

O’Hara starred in Broadway’s Days of Wine and Roses, winning the 2024 Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical. She most recently received her ninth Tony nomination for Fallen Angels, opposite Rose Byrne.

A frequent PBS performer, O’Hara has appeared at The Kennedy Center Honors and with the New York Philharmonic and New York Pops. Her solo albums, Always and Wonder in the World, are available on Ghostlight Records.

Kenny Leon (Director) is a Tony and Obie Award-winning director. His Broadway credits include The Balusters; Othello; Our Town; HOME; Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch; Topdog/Underdog; Ohio State Murders; A Soldier’s Play; American Son; Children of a Lesser God; Holler If Ya Hear Me; A Raisin in the Sun; The Mountaintop; Stick Fly; and August Wilson’s Fences, Gem of the Ocean, and Radio Golf. His Off-Broadway credits include This World of Tomorrow (The Shed); King James; The Underlying Chris; Everybody’s Ruby; Emergence-See! (The Public Theater); and Smart People (Second Stage). His opera credits include Amahl and the Night Visitors and Margaret Garner. His television work includes ‘Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia’; ‘Colin in Black & White’; ‘The 4400’; ‘Amend: The Fight for America’; ‘American Son’ (adapted for Netflix); ‘Hairspray Live!’; ‘The Wiz Live!’; ‘Steel Magnolias’; ‘Dynasty’; and ‘In My Dreams.’ He is the author of Directions and Take You Wherever You Go.

Leon presently serves as Chairman of the board of The American Theatre Wing. He is Artistic Director Emeritus of Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, serves as Vice President of the Board of Trustees of The Public Theater, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entertainment Community Fund. He is the recipient of the Entertainment Community Fund Medal of Honor, the George Abbott Lifetime Achievement Award for American Theatre, and the Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre.

About JAMES GLOSSMAN

James Glossman (Writer). In addition to This World of Tomorrow at The Shed (2025), and the previous Hanks & Glossman play, Safe Home (2022), his most recently produced works as a writer are the new musical Scaramouche (co-written with composer/lyricist Kingsley Day), which had its world premiere in Chicago in spring 2026; and the music-theatre piece Shostakovich and the Black Monk, co-written with Philip Setzer and performed in concert halls around the world by the Emerson Quartet and a revolving cast including Sean Astin, Len Cariou, Jeffrey DeMunn, Jay O. Sanders, David Strathairn & Richard Thomas. A reading of his adaptation of The Door Into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein’s classic science fiction noir, was held at the Ed Sullivan Theater with a cast including DeMunn and Stephen Colbert. His stage version of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest will premiere in Baltimore in spring 2027.

He has adapted/directed (among others) Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Suzanne Berne’s A Crime in the Neighborhood, Faulkner’s The Hamlet, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and A Connecticut Yankee, Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado, and the Raymond Chandler double-feature Trouble Is My Business.

In a collaboration over three decades, adapted and directed award-winning author and journalist Jim Lehrer’s novels Kick the Can, The Special Prisoner, and Flying Crows (available, along with Hadleyburg, from Dramatic Publishing), as well as directing Lehrer’s play The Will and Bart Show.

Other recent directing projects include world premieres of Michael Tucker’s A Tailor Near Me (w/James Pickens Jr & Richard Kind) and Jeffrey Sweet’s A Change of Position; a weekend of benefit readings at The Mark Twain House of Elizabeth Diggs’ Grant & Twain (w/David Strathairn & Tony Shalhoub), and a sold-out staged reading in October 2026 at Westport Playhouse of Nicky Glossman’s Portrait of a Woman in Repose (w/Shalhoub, Wendie Malick & Tom Hanks).

Graduate of Northwestern University (with the training and encouragement of Frank Galati, Robert Breen, and Paul Edwards), American Conservatory Theatre Advanced Training Program, BADA-Oxford, and Yale School of Drama. Proud member of the Dramatists Guild (DG), Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), and Actors Equity Association (AEA). Alumnus, ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop (book writer). Current (longtime) faculty: Johns Hopkins University, Far Brook School.