Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Kara Young will lead Mix and Master, a new play by Dominique Morisseau, when it opens on Broadway at the Todd Haimes Theatre. Directed by Kamilah Forbes, the production is part of Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2026/27 season, with previews beginning January 5, 2027, and opening night set for January 27. Tickets are now on sale, click here..
The play centers on the last record shop in the Bronx, where a rising DJ refuses to let the music die. As vinyl spins and tensions rise, what starts as a fight to save the shop turns into a deeper reckoning over legacy, survival, and what it takes to stay in the mix, with live hip-hop and jazz DJ sets woven directly into the performance. It’s familiar territory for Morisseau, a MacArthur Fellow whose past work, including Skeleton Crew and the jazz-centered Paradise Blue, has built a career out of dramatizing the people and spaces industries tend to overlook.
This marks a reunion of sorts behind the scenes. Forbes, executive producer of the Apollo Theater, previously won an Obie Award shared with Santiago-Hudson for their work together, and now directs him in a lead role for the first time on Broadway. The casting also brings together two of the stage’s most decorated performers: Young recently became the first Black performer to win two consecutive Tony Awards, with four consecutive nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Play, while Santiago-Hudson won a Tony for his performance in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars and made his Broadway acting debut alongside Gregory Hines in Jelly’s Last Jam.
For a Broadway season built largely around revivals and musicals, Mix and Master stands out as a world premiere play from a Black woman writer, directed by a Black woman, centering two Black leads, and built structurally around live hip-hop and jazz rather than treating the music as background texture. That combination, original work, Black creative leadership at every level, and a story rooted in a specific New York community, is still the exception rather than the rule on Broadway stages.
Santiago-Hudson’s additional Broadway credits include Stick Fly and Gem of the Ocean, while Young’s include Purpose, Purlie Victorious, Cost of Living, and Clyde’s. Mix and Master runs at the Todd Haimes Theatre, located at 227 West 42nd Street, as part of Roundabout’s 60th anniversary season.
With previews just months away, the real test will be whether Broadway audiences show up for a story about a dying record shop with the same energy the show is bringing to the stage.