Entertainment
The Newburyport native will join fellow Broadway rookie Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the first Broadway revival of the Tony Award-winning play “Other Desert Cities.”
Joe Keery (L) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus will make their Broadway debuts alongside Allison Janney (R), Ed Harris, and Lily Rabe in “Other Desert Cities.” Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP; Jamie McCarthy/Getty
May 27, 2026 | 11:36 AM
1 minute to read
Newburyport native Joe Keery survived the upside-down in “Stranger Things.” Now, he’ll face an arguably more terrifying environment: A Broadway theater on opening night.
Keery will make his Broadway debut in “Other Desert Cities,” the Tony Award-winning 2011 play by Jon Robin Baitz, alongside fellow Broadway newbie Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Seinfeld”).
Joining Keery and Louis-Dreyfus in the star-studded cast are Ed Harris (“Apollo 13”), Allison Janney (“The West Wing”), and Lily Rabe (“Shrinking”).
“Other Desert Cities,” which was also a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, is about a wealthy, politically connected Palm Springs family with a sordid history.
Polly Wyeth (Louis-Dreyfus) and her husband Lyman (Harris) have successfully hidden their dirty laundry for years. But with their daughter Brooke (Rabe), a magazine writer, planning to publish a tell-all memoir, a decades-old scandal could soon reach public view.
Janney plays Polly’s resentful sister, Silda, who is staying with couple after a stint in rehab, while Keery plays Trip, Brooke’s younger brother and a peacemaker between the conservative (Polly, Lyman) and liberal (Brooke, Silda) branches of the family.
SpeakEasy Stage Company production of “Other Desert Cities.” Pictured: From Left: Christopher M. Smith, Karen MacDonald, Munson Hicks, and Anne Gottlieb. – Craig Bailey/SpeakEasy Stage Company
The 2026 Broadway run of “Other Desert Cities” will be a 16-week limited engagement, with previews at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre starting on Sept. 29 ahead of opening night on Oct. 18 and closing night on Jan. 17, 2027.
This is the first Broadway revival of “Other Desert Cities” since its original 2011-12 run, which featured Stockard Channing (“Grease”), Stacy Keach (“The Bourne Legacy”), the late Linda Lavin (“Alice”), Elizabeth Marvel (“Homeland”), and Thomas Sadoski (“The Newsroom”).
Since breaking through on “Stranger Things,” Keery has picked out a handful of parts, including roles in the fifth season of FX’s “Fargo,” the Boston-filmed “Free Guy,” and a voice role in the Ken Burns documentary “The American Revolution.”
Keery has devoted more time and energy to his music career, performing under the name Djo (pronounced “Joe”) as a solo act and also as part of the group Glass Animal. After landing his first Billboard Hot 100 hit with “End of Beginning,” Keery embarked on back-to-back world tours in 2025 and 2026.
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