NEW YORK – There’s a bit of everything for theatergoers this fall in New York, from a play about porn to a musical about proselytizing Christians.

Al Pacino and Katie Holmes are the star headliners, while David Mamet makes a big return and the sun comes out for “Annie.”

Even The Fonz makes it to Broadway for the 2012-13 season.

It wouldn’t be Broadway these days without A-list celebs, and this season has lured Pacino, Holmes, Paul Rudd, Jessica Chastain and Alec Baldwin.

Returning Broadway veterans include Patti LuPone, Judith Ivey, Katie Finneran, Bobby Cannavale, Cheyenne Jackson, Henry Winkler and Chita Rivera, who turns 80 in January. Ed Asner makes his first Broadway appearance in more than two decades.

Mamet returns to Broadway after a two-year absence with two shows that might overlap: a revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross” with Pacino and Cannavale, and his new play, “The Anarchist,” debuting at the same time with Debra Winger and LuPone.

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The playwright isn’t the only one with dueling shows. Thomas Meehan, who wrote the book for “Annie,” also wrote the story of “Chaplin,” a new musical opening in September that depicts the life of film icon Charlie Chaplin. It will go up against a new production of “Annie” with Finneran as Miss Hannigan.

The romantic comedy “The Performers,” about two guys who reconnect at the Adult Film Awards in Las Vegas, will open in November starring Winkler and Jackson, likely with plenty of sex puns.

It will immediately face off against “Scandalous,” a musical with book and lyrics by TV host Kathie Lee Gifford about the American evangelical leader Aimee Semple McPherson, who preached about a return to simple biblical Christianity.

Questions of faith and religion also get tossed about in Craig Wright’s play “Grace,” with Rudd and Asner.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II — with an assist from Douglas Carter Beane — return to Broadway in January with “Cinderella.”

Tony-winning playwright Richard Greenberg returns with the world premiere of his “The Assembled Parties,” and Sharr White’s “The Other Place” makes the jump from off-Broadway. “Seminar” and “Smash” writer Theresa Rebeck’s five-character “Dead Accounts,” which had its world premiere at the Cincinnati Playhouse this winter, comes to Broadway with Tom Cruise’s ex-wife Holmes among the stars.

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Two foreign musicals land on Broadway — “Rebecca,” originally produced in Austria, and “Matilda: The Musical,” based on Roald Dahl’s tale of an extraordinary little girl from an ordinary family, which has become a smash hit in London. Written by the playwright Dennis Kelly, with music and lyrics by Australian comedian Tim Minchin,

“Matilda” took more prizes than any show in the 36-year history of the British theater’s Olivier Awards.

This spring, two singer-songwriters known more for rock and pop than Broadway will be pitted against each other. Sheryl Crow has written songs and lyrics to the musical “Diner,” based on the film about friends reuniting for a wedding in 1959 by Barry Levinson, while Cyndi Lauper has penned songs for “Kinky Boots,” a musical based on the 2005 British movie about a failing shoe factory that’s struggling until it finds new life in fetish footwear.

Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce star in Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” at the Lincoln Center Theater; Jake Gyllenhaal appears in Nick Payne’s “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet” at the Roundabout Theatre Company; Edie Falco stars in “The Madrid” at Manhattan Theatre Club; Eve Ensler’s “Emotional Creature” makes its New York premiere in October at The Pershing Square Signature Center; the Transport Group will present “House for Sale” by National Book Award winner Jonathan Franzen; Terrence McNally’s “Golden Age” with Bebe Neuwirth will be produced by the Manhattan Theater Club; and Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Revisionist” will be produced by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

 


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