Guide to 'Dog Day Afternoon' on Broadway starring Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Based on actual events, Dog Day Afternoon follows Sonny, a desperate Brooklyn man who, with help from his friend Sal, botches a bank robbery meant to fund his partner’s gender-affirming surgery. The heist turns into a televised standoff as crowds, police, and the media gather.

Dog Day Afternoon plays at the August Wilson Theatre, located at 245 W. 52nd St. (between Broadway and Eighth Avenue), beginning March 10, 2026.

Renamed the August Wilson Theatre on October 16, 2005 — two weeks after the playwright’s death — the venue is the first Broadway venue named after a Black artist. The building originally opened in 1925 as the Guild Theatre, later serving as a radio playhouse before pivoting back to live theatre.

Recent plays and musicals at the August Wilson include Cabaret, Funny Girl, Slave Play, and Pass Over.

The running time of Dog Day Afternoon has yet to be set; this article will be updated when the information becomes available. The typical duration of a Broadway show is between 90 minutes and 3 hours and may include a 15-minute intermission.

Dog Day Afternoon plays Tuesday through Sunday, with two performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays and no performances on Mondays. This schedule is subject to one-off changes; please visit the our Dog Day Afternoon page for a complete performance calendar.

Dog Day Afternoon runs on Broadway from March 10 to July 12, 2026.

Dog Day Afternoon debuts on Broadway on March 10, 2026, at the August Wilson Theatre. The play arrives 51 years after the 1975 release of director Sidney Lumet's (Serpico, Prince of the City) Oscar-winning film, on which the stage show is based.

Dog Day Afternoon is adapted for the stage by New Jersey-born, New York City-raised playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for Between Riverside and Crazy, a drama about a retired NYC cop.

He's known for edgy, darkly comic urban dramas like The Motherf---er with the Hat, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train, Our Lady of 121st Street, and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. He also wrote the Netflix series The Get Down, about the birth of hip-hop in the 1970s.

Guirgis's play is adapted from the same-named 1975 film with a screenplay by Frank Pierson and a story by Thomas Moore, itself adapted from the 1972 Life magazine article "The Boys in the Bank" by P. F. Kluge.

Dog Day Afternoon centers on a pair of would-be bank robbers, based on real-life people, who are in over their heads.

• Sonny Amato: A volatile, desperate dreamer motivated by love and trapped by circumstance. Jon Bernthal plays him on Broadway.
• Sal DeSilva: Sonny’s introverted and anxious, but loyal, partner in crime. Ebon Moss-Bachrach plays him on Broadway.

Supporting characters on screen include Sonny’s lover, Leon; NYC cops, FBI agents, reporters, and hostages. Additional characters and cast members for the Broadway adaptation have yet to be announced.

The world premiere of Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway stars Jon Bernthal as Sonny Amato, a role immortalized on screen by Al Pacino, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Sal DeSilva, played on screen by John Cazale. Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach are both Emmy winners for The Bear and now make their Broadway debuts.

Other Dog Day Afternoon Broadway cast members have yet to be announced.

The Dog Day Afternoon play hasn’t received any awards yet; it will be in the running for the 2025-26 season’s upcoming New York honors, including Tony Awards. The 1975 film version, however, received multiple prestigious awards and nominations.

• Oscars: The film won Best Original Screenplay (Frank Pierson) and earned five more nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Sidney Lumet), Best Actor (Al Pacino), Best Supporting Actor (Chris Sarandon, as Sonny’s lover), and Best Film Editing (Dede Allen).
• Golden Globes: Dog Day Afternoon was nominated for seven prizes across acting, directing, screenplay, and Best Drama.
• BAFTAS: The film won for Best Actor (Al Pacino) and editing, and it was nominated for Best Film plus its direction, screenplay, and sound.

The recommended age for Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway is 16+. The play contains profanity, some violence, and references to drugs and alcohol. The film it's based on is rated R.

The Dog Day Afternoon play makes its world premiere on Broadway in March 2026, so there are no other major productions yet. If the production is a success, it could lead to others around the country and the world.

Before Stephen Adly Guirgis wrote a stage version of Dog Day Afternoon, the story was told in the 1975 Oscar-winning film of the same name, starring Al Pacino and John Cazale and directed by Sidney Lumet. The film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for numerous other honors.

Learn more about Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway, including what’s in a name and a memorable line we’re expecting to hear.

• On Broadway, the main character is Sonny Amato. On film, he was Sonny Wortzik, and the character is based on a real-life man named John Wojtowicz.
• The 2013 documentary The Dog covers the life of John Wojtowicz.
• Al Pacino improvised the film’s iconic “Attica!” chant, a reference to a famous prison uprising. We can’t wait to see if it’s in the play.
• The phrase "dog day afternoon" is a reference to the hot, humid "dog days" of summer. It's fitting, as the real-life robbery happened in August.

Get Dog Day Afternoon tickets on New York Theatre Guide. The play promises a raw, touching, and darkly humorous portrait of desperate lives and personal identity, and it’d be a crime to miss it.