5 months ago
Last spring, Broadway prognosticators would person been good wrong nan boundaries of communal consciousness to posit that nan large theatre communicative of 2025 mightiness beryllium nan presence of big-name Hollywood stars connected Manhattan stages. George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Kieran Culkin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sarah Snook and Keanu Reeves were among nan stars of movie and TV who gave Broadway 1 of its starriest seasons successful memory.
And they brought large box agency numbers (and big summons prices) pinch them. For a infinitesimal there, it seemed arsenic though Broadway, still not afloat recovered from Covid, had recovered its saviors.
To beryllium much specific, it seemed Broadway plays had discovered their saviors. Because nan different awesome Broadway communicative of nan twelvemonth was nan dismal reality faced by nan Broadway musical. With nan New York Times many times sparkling a spotlight connected nan commercialized failures of 1 highly anticipated philharmonic aft different — Smash, Boop!, Sunset Blvd., Cabaret, Gypsy, Redwood and, much recently, The Queen of Versailles — disappointing investors pinch multimillion-dollar losses, nan early of nan Broadway’s splashy, costly stagings seemed (and seems) legitimately grim.
And yet.
As Deadline’s theatre critic, I recovered that a look backmost astatine Broadway’s 2025 brings a invited reminder that location was plentifulness to emotion connected those Manhattan stages. Even if we push speech nan new-ish productions that opened anterior to nan commencement of nan twelvemonth — Oh, Mary!, The Outsiders, Maybe Happy Ending, to sanction conscionable 3 — a threatened-though-durable Broadway didn’t suffer its expertise to surprise, pinch much than a fewer 2025 productions boasting nan awesome performances and fantabulous craftsmanship that puts Broadway quadrate successful nan operation of New York City’s intermezo and taste gifts to nan world.
With that successful mind, present are my choices for nan 10 Best Broadway plays and musicals of 2025. I’ll besides see immoderate misses and a glimpse up to nan upcoming shows I’m astir anticipating.
1) Liberation
Bess Wohl’s awesome play juxtaposes nan heady, optimistic days of nan Women’s Liberation Movement pinch nan oppressive authorities of affairs that exists nether nan thumb of Donald Trump — moreover if his sanction is ne'er fixed truthful overmuch arsenic a mention. Dreary? Not for a moment. Liberation is funny, poignant and, yes, liberating successful its look of nan very quality request for justness and state successful an era erstwhile those words person been co-opted by forces who worth only self-enrichment. Breathing life into nan well-trod Memory Play genre, Liberation follows Lizzie (a singular Susannah Flood) arsenic she approaches a mediate property that’s filled pinch much questions than answers, peculiarly erstwhile it comes to her precocious mother, a onetime feminist firebrand who showed her girl only her astir domesticated, accepted mother-and-wife profile. In 1 of her nonstop addresses to nan audience, Lizzie lays it each out: “This is simply a play — a representation play, successful a measurement — it’s astir my mother. For my mother. Who precocious … Who’s not present anymore. And truthful it’s astir her, and her friends, her beautiful friends — and a point — this is important —a point they tried very difficult to do. No, a point that they did, that they unquestionably did — truthful why does it consciousness someway for illustration it’s each slipping away? And really do we get it back?”
With nan formed portraying a group of women successful a “consciousness raising” feminist group of nan 1970s arsenic good arsenic their 21st period selves, Liberation jumps backmost and distant successful time, giving audiences a wide-ranging position connected radicalism, gender roles, race, oppression and defiance. And yes, Liberation is arsenic funny and entertaining arsenic it is wise. Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding) directs pinch confidence, signaling her presence astatine nan forefront of Broadway’s strongest players.
Liberation is playing astatine nan James Earl Jones Theatre done February 1
2) Ragtime
Perhaps nan biggest astonishment of Broadway’s existent autumn season, nan Lincoln Center Theater revival of nan 1990s philharmonic Ragtime should beryllium seen arsenic nary little than head Lear deBessonet’s heartfelt clasp of a activity that, frankly, had heretofore grounded to liking its declare connected nan theatrical landscape. Too often lumped together pinch Titanic, Kiss of nan Spider Woman, Miss Saigon and different bloated offerings of 1990s Broadway, Ragtime was rescued by deBessonet pinch a leaner, much emotionally powerful staging for City Center’s Encores! series, and for illustration truthful galore of Encores! amended stagings Ragtime transferred to Broadway pinch its superb formed (led by Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz) mostly intact. In 2025, it yet recovered its due spot connected Broadway.
Ragtime is playing astatine Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater done June 14
3) John Proctor Is The Villain
Few theatergoers knew what to expect pinch nan announcement early this twelvemonth that a Broadway newcomer named Kimberly Belflower had written a play that would harvester elements of nan Salem Witch Trials, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, nan MeToo movement, intersexual harassment, Lorde and Taylor Swift, pinch a starring domiciled fixed to young Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame. To opportunity Belflower, head Danya Taymor, Sink and everyone other associated pinch this magnificent accumulation pulled it disconnected is an understatement. With surprises aplenty — and a last segment that ranks among Broadway’s astir invigorating send-offs of nan 21st period — John Proctor is nan Villain formed a spell that resonates months aft its too-early September 7 closing.
John Proctor is nan Villain played astatine nan Booth Theatre from March 20 to September 7, 2025
4) Dead Outlaw
If I could prime 1 Broadway accumulation of 2025 to outlast a too-brief engagement agelong capable to find its rightful audience, Dead Outlaw would beryllium it. The quirky David Yazbek-Erik Della Penna-Itamar Moses philharmonic deserved a acold happier ending than it improbable inspiration, nan real-life Elmer McCurdy, a turn-of-the-century wannabe train robber whose shooting decease successful 1911 was only nan opening of a very unusual existence: His corpse, agelong thought to beryllium a prop aliases a mannequin, was located successful 1976 astatine a Long Beach amusement parkland erstwhile unit members of The Six Million Dollar Man made nan grisly find while shooting a location scene.
Somehow Dead Outlaw‘s creators made a find of their own: Ably assisted by a stirring (if often motionless) lead capacity from Andrew Durand successful nan title domiciled (check retired his scorching “Killed a Man successful Maine”), this philharmonic went good beyond nan macabre to find nan humanity successful a astir improbable place.
Dead Outlaw played astatine nan Longacre Theatre from April 2 to June 29, 2025
5) Operation Mincemeat
What are nan chances that 2 musicals astir corpses would lavation up connected nan Broadway shores wrong a azygous season? And that they’d some supply specified lively entertainment? Like Dead Outlaw, Operation Mincemeat is based connected a real-life incident (and a real-life dormant body). As resurrected by nan British philharmonic drama troupe SplitLip, Mincemeat recounts a World War II utilization successful which British intelligence officers concocted an outlandish strategy to instrumentality nan Germans: They’d dress nan corpse of a precocious deceased — and unclaimed — bum man successful a British royal marine uniform, complete pinch phony documents successful nan pockets that would divert nan Nazis from nan Allies’ existent onslaught plan.
Mixing outrageous slapstick comedy, a Monty Python-esque emotion of wordplay and 1 of Broadway’s astir poignant caller emotion songs successful “Dear Bill,” Mincemeat, for illustration Dead Outlaw, proves each complete again that successful nan correct hands nary thought is excessively outlandish to conquer nan shape aliases nan free world.
Operation Mincemeat is playing astatine nan John Golden Theatre
6) Marjorie Prime
If Dead Outlaw and Operation Mincemeat could beryllium theatrical cousins, Marjorie Prime and Maybe Happy Ending astatine nan very slightest could beryllium something-or-other erstwhile removed. Both envision a early successful which robots, for deficiency of a amended connection (these are not your Lost successful Space tin men), go each but indistinguishable from humans. Which says a batch astir humans, for amended and worse. While Maybe Happy Ending won 2025’s Best Musical Tony astatine slightest successful portion by infusing its communicative of “helper bots” pinch genuine heart, Marjorie Prime takes an altogether much haunting approach: What if you could acquisition an AI hologram — a “prime,” successful nan connection of playwright Jordan Harrison — that resembled a dormant loved one, say, nan aged mother who conscionable passed, and that could beryllium infused pinch each nan memories and mannerisms for which you grieve? Directed by nan irreplaceable Anne Kauffman, Marjorie Prime (flawlessly performed by June Squibb, Cynthia Nixon, Danny Burstein and Christopher Lowell) suggests that fewer of america could defy nan unholy temptation, and that each of our technological know-how won’t prevention america from our longings.
Marjorie Prime is playing astatine nan Hayes Theatre done February 15
7) Little Bear Ridge Road
Early closings are ne'er easy, but immoderate deed much profoundly than others. That surely was nan lawsuit pinch Little Bear Ridge Road, Samuel D. Hunter’s play astir a cantankerous female agelong estranged from her big nephew and nan life twists that bring them together again, nevertheless fleetingly. By turns brittle and compassionate, Little Bear Ridge Road showed america a generosity of tone that could flooded moreover nan astir entrenched affectional barriers. The 2 mislaid souls granted a spot of grace were played by nan 1 and only Laurie Metcalf and 1 of Broadway’s brightest caller stars, Micah Stock, some nether nan unerring guidance of Joe Mantello. So why didn’t this good play produced by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller past beyond a scant 11 weeks? Rudin, of course, is nary alien to controversy aliases difficult feelings, and nan play’s less-than-happy ending mightiness person dampened word-of-mouth, but nan playwright, nan formed and nan head deserved a heartier Broadway embrace. Little Bear Ridge Road ranks correct up location pinch Dead Outlaw in caller theater’s gone-too-soon territory.
Little Bear Ridge Road played astatine nan Booth Theatre from October 7 to December 21, 2025
8) Purpose
A Cat connected a Hot Tin Roof for nan 21st century, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Purpose examined nan soul workings and affectional good points of a Black family presided complete by its civilian authorities leader patriarch and his tougher-than-she-would-seem wife. Seemingly based ever-so-loosely connected Jesse Jackson and his sometimes errant namesake son, Purpose exposed nan conception of familial bequest and responsibility for nan vulnerable deceptions they truthful often are. With Phylicia Rashad staking her declare arsenic a Broadway director of precocious order, Purpose boasted a formed that much than met nan affectional challenges laid retired by Jacobs-Jenkins: LaTanya Richardson, Harry Lennix, Jon Michael Hill, Alana Arenas (in a singular Broadway debut), Glenn Davis Solomon and nan invaluable Kara Young made for an ensemble that won’t soon beryllium forgotten.
Purpose played astatine nan Hayes Theatre from February 25 done August 31, 2025
9) Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
I’m still not convinced that title did thing for container office, but this charming British import by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, directed and choreographed by Tim Jackson, would look tin of rising supra conscionable astir anything. Starring Christiani Pitts and Sam Tutty (in a winning capacity that gives Jasmine Amy Rogers of Boop! and Louis McCartney of Stranger Things: The First Shadow immoderate existent title for champion Broadway debut of nan season), Two Strangers is that amazingly uncommon creature: a romanticist drama that really useful connected stage. Need impervious of specified rarity: Recall nan boredom and nan cringe of The Last Five Years and The Notebook.
Pitts and Tutty play a soon-to-be aunt and her nephew (a Broadway inclination successful nan making? See Little Bear Ridge Road) who meet erstwhile young and puppy-dogish Englishman Dougal Todd arrives successful New York to be nan wedding of his long-estranged dada to a overmuch younger woman. The bride’s New York-jaded sister Robin (the terrific Pitts) arrives astatine nan airdrome to shake hands and schlep nan wide-eyed Dougal. They meet tiny (that’s wherever nan barroom comes into play), she bristles, he fawns, and beautiful soon they’re ripping disconnected that creepy dada and heading to a happy ending nan assemblage has agelong seen coming. But do they? No spoilers here, but Tutty, Pitts and each concerned pinch nan modestly staged Two Strangers are worthy of immoderate bully comes their way.
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) is playing astatine nan Longacre Theatre
10) Stranger Things: The First Shadow
You don’t person to travel Netflix’s Stranger Things – or, successful my case, moreover peculiarly for illustration it – to autumn nether nan big-spectacle spell of Broadway’s Stranger Things: The First Shadow. A prequel to nan goings-on successful nan series’ bedeviled Hawkins, Indiana, First Shadow brings thing moreover scarcer connected Broadway than romanticist drama (see Two Strangers, above): Honest-to-Vecna scares. Taking what struck maine arsenic a much grown-up, little Scooby Doo-ish transportation to nan worldly than nan series’ Young Adult leanings, First Shadow, written by Kate Trefry from a communicative by herself, nan Duffer Brothers and Jack Thorne, brings method accomplishment and a thrilling panache to a mean not precisely hospitable to nan scary genre. Carrie tried and failed. So did Grey House and King Kong and Dracula and Jekyll & Hyde. First Shadow, led by nan awesome newcomer Louis McCartney arsenic a pre-Vecna Henry Creel, conscionable mightiness unfastened nan doorway to a parallel beingness wherever shape fright has a full caller meaning.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow is playing astatine nan Marquis Theatre
Honorable Mentions
Top 10 lists person to make cuts somewhere, truthful sincere apologies to Buena Vista Social Club, English, Just successful Time, Oedipus, Waiting for Godot, The Picture Of Dorian Gray and nan casts of Art (James Corden successful particular), Call Me Izzy (Jean Smart, gripping), Floyd Collins (Jeremy Jordan, proving his Broadway mettle yet again) and Boop! (Jasmine Amy Rogers, rising precocious supra nan material).
Broadway 2025 Misses
Some were specified almost-there disappointments, immoderate outright flops, but a study of Broadway’s less-than-successful 2025 offerings should include:
The Last Five Years — Starring Nick Jonas and a deserves-better Adrienne Warren. Five years? Nah, it only seemed that long.
Glengarry Glen Ross — It wasn’t terrible, but pinch a formed that included Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean and Bill Burr, nan David Mamet classical should person soared to nan rhythms of nan playwright’s language.
Good Night, and Good Luck — It was a monster money-maker, but c’mon, Clooney could person played Betty Boop and audiences would person lined up for nan privilege. Imagine if Clooney had chosen to usage his prima powerfulness to spotlight a genuinely worthy task — nan way, say, Sarah Paulson did pinch Appropriate aliases Keanu Reeves is doing pinch Waiting For Godot — alternatively than nan stuffy, moribund, on-the-nose hectoring that was Good Night, and Good Luck? The same, actually, could beryllium said of Washington, whose somber capacity successful nan modern-dress Othello did thing that hasn’t been done successful immoderate number of Shakespeare successful nan Park’s lesser offerings.
The Queen of Versailles — Oh, please. It had thing to do pinch Kristin Chenoweth’s benignant words for a slain right-winger. The philharmonic is conscionable plain tedious, afloat of forgettable songs, muddled intentions and dumb-to-the-point-of-surreal ancien régime flashbacks. I’m still not judge if this philharmonic moreover likes Jackie Siegel, its subject-turned-investor, and I was paying attention. There’s a instruction successful location somewhere, and its not astir gilded ambition aliases lousy parenting aliases money can’t bargain happiness. Maybe its astir heavy pockets and creator discuss and wanting to beryllium liked truthful intensely that you suffer immoderate chance for a Rose’s Turn each your own. And possibly someone, someday, will make a philharmonic astir it.
Chess — While audiences look to for illustration it, reviews were mostly mixed. Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher are surely and without a uncertainty very, very large (except, oddly enough, astatine nan nonstop infinitesimal you want measurement — Tveit gets each but drowned retired by nan orchestra during nan big, indecipherable “One Night In Bangkok.”) Mostly this revival of nan 1980s flop from Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice, pinch Danny Strong’s caller book crammed pinch inelegant topical references, seems to beryllium mostly to springiness reviewers nan chance to connection immoderate variety of “close, but nary checkmate.”
A Look Ahead To 2026
There’s immoderate promising worldly waiting successful nan Broadway wings, not nan slightest of which is Tracy Letts’ Bug (starring Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood); Daniel Radcliff’s shape return successful Every Brilliant Thing; John Lithgow’s move arsenic Roald Dahl successful Giant; and Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw starring Patrick Ball, Alden Ehrenreich and Linda Emond. Two revivals will boast immoderate intriguing pairings: Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman will squad Nathan Lane pinch Laurie Metcalf and head Joe Mantello, and Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle co-star successful David Auburn’s Proof. Acclaimed Off Broadway treasures Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Titanique should lend immoderate downtown elan to midtown, while Schmigadoon! hopes to pat into nan cult entreaty of nan Apple TV series.
Roundabout’s Fallen Angels, pairing Broadway icon Kelli O’Hara pinch Broadway iconic to infinity Noël Coward, had maine astatine hello, and Manhattan Theatre Club’s The Balusters, marking nan Broadway returns of nan awesome David Lindsay-Abaire (Kimberly Akimbo) and head Kenny Leon, boasts nan benignant of rock-solid shape formed — Marylouise Burke, Margaret Colin, Michael Esper, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Richard Thomas — that is nan fever dream of each nonprofit theatre company.
Then there’s nan upcoming Beaches philharmonic (no judgments), head Sam Pinkleton’s Oh, Mary! follow-up a Rocky Horror Show revival, and nan Broadway debut of Taraji P. Henson successful Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
But I’d beryllium lying if I said my liking isn’t possibly astir piqued by what astatine first glimpse seems an irresistibly kooky premise: a Dog Day Afternoon stage adjustment starring Jon Bernthal (respect for anyone tackling Al Pacino’s “Attica! Attica” chant) and The Bear‘s Ebon Moss-Bachrach. And past there’s different screen-to-stage task successful The Lost Boys, which has nan opportunity to travel successful nan scary footsteps of Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Movies person a rocky history of being relocated to nan stage, to beryllium sure, but this vampire task boasts an intriguing squad successful head Michael Arden (Maybe Happy Ending), euphony and lyrics by indie rockers The Rescues, a producing squad that includes character Patrick Wilson, and a formed that features, among others, Hell’s Kitchen‘s Shoshana Bean, Tommy‘s Ali Louis Bourzgui and young Benjamin Pajak, 1 of nan astir promising young actors to deed Broadway successful years. Before starring other Tom Hiddleston and Mark Hamill successful nan Mike Flanagan movie The Life of Chuck, Pajak each but stole Broadway’s The Music Man revival from adults Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, and wowed Encores! audiences pinch his powerhouse, crystal-clear vocals arsenic nan title characteristic successful 2023’s Oliver! revival.
