This new musical from Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens, and five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman shines a light on the life of Marie van Goethem, a young "opera rat," as they called ballerina students at the Paris Opera in the 19th century, who inspired Degas's Little Dancer Aged 14. The sculpture was the only one the impressionist master ever displayed in public. Though critics of the era praised the piece, they also "protested almost unanimously that she was ugly," according to the National Gallery of Art, mostly because they were fucking losers. Flaherty and Ahrens's story takes you behind the curtain of a cutthroat world of ballet, where a bunch of young, working-class girls have to beg, borrow, steal, and land a perfect grand jeté to get ahead. New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck will play the title role. by Rich Smith