Our guide to plays and musicals coming to New York stages and a few last-chance picks of shows that are about to close. Our reviews of open shows are at nytimes.com/reviews/theater.

Previews & Openings

‘AMERICAN MOOR’ at the Cherry Lane Theater (in previews; opens on Sept. 8). An actor playing Othello is disagreeing with the show’s director. The director asks if the actor is playing the race card. “Othello,” the actor argues, is “the race deck.” In Keith Hamilton Cobb’s play, produced by Red Bull Theater and directed by Kim Weild, a man reckons with Shakespeare and with race in America.

212-352-3101, redbulltheater.com

‘DERREN BROWN: SECRET’ at the Cort Theater (previews start on Sept. 6; opens on Sept. 15). Brown, a dazzling practitioner of what he calls psychological illusionism, will read minds on Broadway. Maybe yours? When Ben Brantley reviewed an earlier version of this show at the Atlantic Theater Company, he called it “enthrallingly baffling.” Some routines, he wrote, produce “results that have you slapping your forehead.”

212-239-6200, derrenbrownsecret.com

‘THE GREAT SOCIETY’ at the Vivian Beaumont Theater (previews start on Sept. 6; opens on Oct. 1). In 2014, Broadway went “All the Way” with Robert Schenkkan’s drama, which depicts Lyndon B. Johnson’s attempt to pass the Civil Rights Act. This new play, starring Brian Cox and directed by Bill Rauch, takes up Johnson’s tumultuous second term. With Grantham Coleman, Bryce Pinkham and Richard Thomas.

greatsocietybroadway.com