by Amelia Merrill

Emil Weinstein’s drama, adapted from the memoir by Rabbi Abby Chava Stein, featured stunning standout performances from lead Tommy Dorfman, Richard Schiff, and Brandon Uranowitz. Amanda Villalobos’ puppets allowed Chava (Dorfman) to reflect on life before her gender transition without a cisgender actor stand-in, and they gave the play a dreamlike quality. Becoming Eve was the rare show about Hasidic Judaism that didn’t turn its characters into caricatures, thanks to accent work and Enver Chakartash’s costumes.

If you liked it, see: Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Ragtime, featuring Uranowitz as Tateh, now extended on Broadway through June 14.

by Gillian Russo

The 2024-25 Broadway season was an embarrassment of riches, meaning some excellent shows were woefully overlooked come awards season. As such, I must take every opportunity to spotlight English, Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer-winning play that quietly came and went early in the year. But as in 2022, when it debuted off Broadway, it remains one of the year's best plays in its thoughtful meditation on how our language shapes our sense of self.

If you liked it, see: Little Bear Ridge Road starring Laurie Metcalf: another simple but profound drama centered around ordinary people. In a much different way, Samuel D. Hunter's characters struggle to find the words for who they want to be.

Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries follows two children who first meet in their elementary school nurse’s office and traces their complicated friendship over the decades through the wounds they accumulate, both physical and emotional. The two-hander starred Nicholas Braun and Kara Young, whose uncanny portrayal of an 8-year-old was nothing short of extraordinary; watching her onstage felt like witnessing a master at work. This deeply human and humorous play captures that can’t-look-away feeling, like onlookers drawn to the scene of a car crash.

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If you liked it, see: The spring 2026 Broadway premiere of Becky Shaw, a dark comedy about a blind date that goes disastrously wrong.

by Caroline Cao

When Julia Masli, an aburdist clown, ambushes you with a microphone and murmurs "Problem?", you'd better have a problem ready to share. One by one, she has her subjects do tasks that may be their solutions. One person said they don't sleep enough, so produced a cot and had them take a nap. Someone else in want of a game was paired with children to invent a clapping game on the spot, which they invited the audience to play. Each person and their action accumulated into a mosaic, and I regret I could not attend several times to experience other nights of communal improv alchemy.

If you liked it, see: Bess Wohl's Broadway play Liberation. If ha ha ha ha ha ha ha was an unorthodox application of mutual aid and community support in theatre, Liberation more traditionally examines the process of social justice within a feminist group.

by Billy McEntee

This was an inside-baseball treat, but even audiences non-fluent in the theatre industry found delight in this off-Broadway solo show that starred, you guessed it, David Greenspan. A marvel of a performer and an utterly captivating presence, Greenspan hilariously played three millennial women trying to host a play reading, but the real drama are the relationships that bubble before they read a single page.

If you liked it, see: Every Brilliant Thing, a solo show that's toured the world and now makes its Broadway debut with Tony Award winner Daniel Radcliffe.

by Sarah Rebell

The most Tony-nominated play of the 2025 Broadway season, John Proctor is the Villain is a thrilling, subversive examination of The Crucible from the perspective of high school girls in a small town at the height of the #MeToo movement. Stranger Things's Sadie Sink led the dynamic cast through primal screams, interpretative dances, empowering renditions of 2010s pop songs, and some serious yet often hilarious drama. The play’s unconventional path to Broadway through the college circuit was another reason to pay attention to its success — and the built-in fanbase who flocked to the stage door each night.

If you liked it, see: Wicked, another retelling of a classic American story that highlights female friendship and embraces witchiness.

by Sarah Rebell

It’s been a banner year for feminist plays on Broadway, as John Proctor was not the only new show of 2025 upending long-held American theatre conventions and centering women. Bess Wohl’s Liberation is a 21st-century take on the memory play that champions collective activism within a women's consciousness-raising group in the '70s. Protagonist Lizzie goes back and forth through time, memory, and two waves of feminism as she grapples with her mother's past and how far we’ve come — or haven’t — since the height of the women’s liberation movement.

If you liked this, see: Becky Shaw, the only Broadway play announced for 2026 written by a woman. Two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Gina Gionfriddo's work often explores themes like feminism, ambition, and women’s sexuality.

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If you possess even a bit of nostalgia for former Broadway mega-titan The Phantom of the Opera, its new immersive reimagining, Masquerade, is a must-see. You’ll dress in cocktail attire, don a mask, and step into the Phantom’s world, a fully transformed five-story space on W. 57th Street in midtown. Let your fantasies unwind as the Opera Ghost, Christine, Raoul, and a full ensemble swirl around you, singing the songs you know and love while providing new insight into the Phantom's childhood. Then, share a post-show drink with other audience groups and maybe even some actors — extra points if you can figure out when you've been in that room before.

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If you liked it, see: Cats: The Jellicle Ball, which turns another Andrew Lloyd Webber smash on its head. The feline frenzy is reinterpreted through a queer ballroom lens as "cats" vogue and strut to earn their place in the Heaviside Layer. After a hit Off-Broadway run in 2024, it opens on Broadway in March.

by Austin Fimmano

First, writer/performers Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson hit you with their charm. Then they hit you with their musical talents. Then they hit you with their story. Recreating an oft-forgotten part of history, Mexodus tells the story of the enslaved Black people who fled south to Mexico. The musical is live-looped, so audiences watched the two stars jump between a multitude of instruments, influenced by Black and Mexican music, to tell one powerful story. Despite the heavy themes, Mexodus proved a beacon of hope through Robinson’s fourth-wall breaking monologue about family and the optimistic ending about the power of intersectionality.

If you liked it, see: Joe Turner's Come and Gone, a revival of August Wilson's classic play about a Black couple (played by Taraji P. Henson and Cedric "The Entertainer") who run a boardinghouse during the Great Migration, another pivotal period of African American history.

by Kyle Turner

Before you see or hear from Frances, the prodigal queer at the center of Jen Tullock and Frank Winters' miraculous Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God, you hear from her agent, her mother, her brother, her former pastor, the church woman with whom Frances made a connection that frayed with time. The live looping and camera work from director Jared Mezzocchi was impressive, but Tullock has an extraordinary ability to breathe life into every character and build a world that extends its hands to the audience. She brought a keen empathy and awareness of our collective search for something bigger.

If you liked it, see: Another drama about memory and family like Marjorie Prime. Jordan Harrison's 2015 play about a dementia-stricken matriarch (an incredible June Scquibb) is emotionally potent and anticipates conversations about technology and intimacy that feel especially resonant today.

by Caroline Cao

It's a love letter and lampoon of idealized history all at once: Operation Mincemeat knows "based on a true story" tales are often given plenty of theatrical flair. A WWII history chapter about a dead body being used for trickery against the Nazis, this musical has the surface shine of a crowdpleaser: a catchy, rousing score and blistering comic performances. But it also tackles multiple ways history gets told: inflated by ego, shaped by the forgotten, exploited, and given Hollywood-esque pageantry.

Get *Operation Mincemeat* tickets now.

If you liked it, see: The fellow British export Six, a pop musical about the ill-fated marriages endured by Henry VIII's wives. Like Operation Mincemeat, its telling of history is glitzy and often silly, with an undercurrent of darkness.

by Gillian Russo

Last year's concert staging was on my 2024 best-of list, and it's only gotten better. A musical epic about sociopolitical change in turn-of-the-century New York, the revival hasn't changed much in the move to Broadway, still boasting a minimal set that lets the performers — standouts include Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, Brandon Uranowitz, Ben Levi Ross, and Shaina Taub — shine. But a new marvel of the Broadway version is how well it fills up the cavernous Beaumont stage that has swallowed many gaudier productions whole. Director Lear deBessonet runs the 40-person cast like an assembly line: in fluid, perfectly placed motion.

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If you liked it, see: Chess, another megamusical with a large, spirited ensemble and a powerhouse trio at its center. Both musicals also blend real-world history with fictional figures, making them catnip for history and Broadway buffs alike.

by Kyle Turner

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is back off Broadway after 20 years. Writer William Finn's warm sense of humor and open empathy frames Spelling Bee as the rare show that takes the kids at its center seriously without taking itself too seriously. Jasmine Amy Rogers has a star turn as Olive, and her voice shimmers like a shard of glass catching the light. Spelling Bee shuffles gently to its profundity, letting the generosity of its characters' inner lives illuminate both the absurdity and preciousness of youth.

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If you liked it, see: Another charming musical like Maybe Happy Ending, a sci-fi rom-com about two androids. Beneath its shine is a sophisticated show about regret, isolation, and the difficulty of creating a new life for yourself in an increasingly disconnected world.

by Joe Dziemianowicz

The year’s best musical revival is a show by Stephen Schwartz and Joseph Stein that debuted 50 years ago and never made it to Broadway. The Baker’s Wife, a lyrical fable featuring the soaring song “Meadowlark,” follows a woman who abandons her husband, leaving him so desolate he can no longer bake bread — and the entire town suffers. Gordon Greenberg’s beguiling Off-Broadway production, starring Ariana DeBose and Scott Bakula, reminds us how deeply our lives are intertwined.

If you liked it, see: Ragtime, another excellent musical revival now on Broadway. The sweeping show follows three different communities intersecting in 1910s New York.

by Billy McEntee

Theatrical, expertly acted, and revived in a stunning production at The Shed, Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brothers Size zeroes in on the dynamic between two brothers navigating life post-incarceration and deftly traces fraternal ties and male vulnerability in rare and refreshing ways. The play featured breathtaking and soaring monologues alongside live music and movement to create an unforgettable theatrical experience.

If you liked it, see: Night Side Songs with Lincoln Center Theater. Similarly staged in the round, the play leans less traditional, bolder, and more imaginative. While not about brothers, it's crafted by them: Daniel and Patrick Lazour are rising musical theatre stars.

by Amelia Merrill

Anne Washburn and The Civilians did what they do best: Put on a show about the twisted, messy, manipulative reasons we tell ourselves stories. The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire — which featured astoundingly lifelike, nightmare-inducing puppetry design by Monkey Boys Productions — followed a California commune as they covered up a member’s possibly-accidental death. With a children’s play-within-a-play in the second act, Washburn’s story becomes a ouroboros of secrets, double meanings, and revelations.

If you liked it, see: Radio Downtown, The Civilians’ next showing from Burning Cauldron director Steve Cosson and Jocelyn Clarke. The experimental archival play about '70s visionaries runs at 59E59 Theaters from January 11 to February 9.

by Allison Considine

This solo stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel — with Sarah Snook portraying dozens of characters — left me agape. In Kip Williams’s inventive production, onstage cameras allowed Snook to perform live alongside pre-recorded versions of herself, transforming from the title character to many others through rapid-fire changes of wigs, corsets, and costumes. It was a dazzling exploration of beauty and youth, reimagined for the 21st century with playful nods to Facetune, lip fillers, and the aesthetics of our digital age.

If you liked it, see: Every Brilliant Thing starring Daniel Radcliffe, another screen star tackling an emotionally heavy, intimate solo performance on Broadway.

by Austin Fimmano

Twelfth Night marked the return of The Public Theater's free Shakespeare in the Park program after a major renovation of the Delacorte Theater. And what a triumphant return it was, from the starry cast to the exuberant, neon-and-glitter dance number that closed the show. Lupita Nyong'o flexed her comedic chops and her talent for gender-bending as the plucky Viola (alias Cesario), while the rest of the cast, from Sandra Oh to Peter Dinklage to Jesse Tyler Ferguson, showed us Shakespeare's lords and ladies can be as funny — and messy — as reality TV stars.

If you liked it, see: Romeo and Juliet, the first Shakespeare in the Park production of summer 2026, staged by Twelfth Night director Saheem Ali. It will no doubt have the personal flourish that has made Ali's past productions so accessible.

By Jen Gushue

When the world is scary and the news is heavy, I turn to an endearing musical rom-com for a few good laughs. Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), written by British childhood friends Kit Buchan and Jim Barne, provides just such a balm. In the snappy two-hander, Dougal, a golden retriever of a Brit, travels to New York City for his estranged father's wedding. Native New Yorker, Robin (Christiani Pitts), the bride's sister and Dougal's cynical foil, is assigned to retrieve him from the airport. Hijinks ensue as the musical skips through the city, packed with humorous winks New Yorkers will appreciate.

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If you liked it, see: Maybe Happy Ending follows a similarly heartwarming rom-com structure, but its leads are two obsolete robots facing the realities of their draining batteries.

by Gillian Russo

We need to revive Alice Childress's plays more often. Classic Stage Company's production of Wine in the Wilderness, her rarely seen 1969 work about classism in the Black community, was an unfussy, exquisite 85 minutes of theatre under the direction of LaChanze. Grantham Coleman and Olivia Washington, as a painter and his subject who enter a tense battle of appearances and wits, were perfectly matched in tension, chemistry, and softness alike. There wasn't a single stray brushstroke — that is, an out-of-place or weak element — in this tightly constructed show.

If you liked it, see: Any and all shows Classic Stage is putting on next. Its hot streak has continued with an equally gorgeous and rare revival of The Baker's Wife, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the season — including Marcel on the Train and The Emporium — holds.