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Best Broadway plays in New York

Check out our guide to the best Broadway plays on right now, featuring celebrity stars and time-honored stories that are often on for a limited time only.

Gillian Russo
Written byGillian Russo

Broadway is famous for its long-running hit musicals, its plays are just as exciting. Many successful musicals stick around for decades, but plays regularly rotate, ensuring there's always a new show to discover. Plus, you can often catch celebrities in Broadway plays — but only for a limited time.

Check out the top Broadway plays to see right now, including starry revivals of classic plays and fan-favorite modern hits. And for a limited time only, save on tickets to these shows and more during New York Theatre Guide's Black Friday sale — browse the complete Black Friday sale page.

Need more info on Broadway shows, theatres, and tickets? Be sure to check out our complete guide to Broadway.

Get tickets to a Broadway play on New York Theatre Guide.

Summary

  • Acclaimed Broadway plays in New York include Waiting for Godot; Oh Mary!; Liberation; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Marjorie Prime; and Stranger Things: The First Shadow
1.

Waiting for Godot

2.

Liberation

3.

Oh, Mary!

4.

All Out: Comedy About Ambition by Simon Rich

5.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

6.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow

7.

Oedipus

8.

Bug

9.

Marjorie Prime

10.

Every Brilliant Thing

11.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone

12.

Dog Day Afternoon

13.

Becky Shaw

14.

Fallen Angels

15.

Proof

16.

Giant

17.

The Balusters

1.

Waiting for Godot

Drama
Classic
Stars on stage

The wait is over: Bill & Ted co-stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are back together once more — this time on Broadway. Reeves makes his Broadway debut, and Winter returns for the first time since he was a teen, in Samuel Beckett's existentialist play about two friends awaiting the arrival of the titular Godot, passing the time — and an often confusing, bleak life — by each other's side.

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Waiting for Godot

2.

Liberation

Play
Drama
Award winner

Transferring from off Broadway with its entire award-winning ensemble intact, Bess Wohl's Liberation spans 50 years in which a lot has changed — and a lot hasn't. In the present day, a woman looks back on her mom's past as a radical feminist in the '70s, trying to piece together where her mom's life drastically changed and the movement went astray.

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Liberation

3.

Oh, Mary!

Award winner
Stars on stage
Popular show
Comedy

Search Party's Cole Escola penned this wacky comedy that brings the White House to Broadway following a sold-out Off-Broadway premiere. A rotating lineup of stars play Mary Todd Lincoln — a silly, alcoholic, lustful Mary Todd Lincoln with dreams of being a cabaret star. Her life turns on its head in the weeks leading up to her husband's assassination.

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Oh, Mary!
All comedies
Chicago

Chicago

Ambassador Theatre

Aladdin

New Amsterdam Theatre

The Book of Mormon

Eugene O’Neill Theatre
Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat

Golden Theatre
Oh, Mary!

Oh, Mary!

Lyceum Theatre
& Juliet

& Juliet

Stephen Sondheim Theatre
Maybe Happy Ending

Maybe Happy Ending

Belasco Theatre
Death Becomes Her

Death Becomes Her

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
The Play That Goes Wrong

The Play That Goes Wrong

New World Stages
Heathers The Musical

Heathers The Musical

New World Stages
Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors

Westside Theatre
Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels

Todd Haimes Theatre
The Bookstore

The Bookstore

59E59 Theaters Theater A
Cold War Choir Practice

Cold War Choir Practice

The Newman Mills Theatre at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theatre Space

4.

All Out: Comedy About Ambition by Simon Rich

Stars on stage
Comedy

A follow-up to last season's All In: Comedy About Love, All Out features a celebrity cast reading short stories about ego, envy, and greed by Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich.

Four stars appear at each performance in rotation. The full lineup includes Eric Andre, Jim Gaffigan, Abbi Jacobson, Jon Stewart, Ben Schwartz, Wayne Brady, Cecily Strong, Mike Birbiglia, Heidi Gardner, Jason Mantzoukas, Craig Robinson, Sarah Silverman, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and Ray Romano.

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All Out: Comedy About Ambition by Simon Rich

Unlock your 24-hour New York City itinerary

Unlock your exclusive guide, full of the best attractions, food, free events and more.

09:00

Breakfast at Liberty Bagels

Regularly named one of the city’s best bagel shops, the unassuming Liberty Bagels is the perfect spot to get a classic NYC breakfast sandwich.

10:00

Macy’s Herald Square

One of the world’s largest stores, Macy’s is a sight to behold, especially when it’s decked out for the holidays.

5.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Iconic show
Family show
Page to stage
Must see

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has put Broadway audiences under its spell since 2018. Harry Potter fans will recognize all their favorite characters, and some new ones, in this stage sequel to the books centered on the next generation of wizards.

And even non-Potterheads are bound to be amazed by the daring plot about time travel and the unbelievable special effects. All together, the performances and stagecraft of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will make you believe magic — or theatre magic, at least — is real.

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

6.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Popular show
Screen to stage
Drama

Hawkins, Indiana, got turned upside down long before the events of Netflix's Stranger Things. In this theatrical prequel to the hit show, teenage versions of fan-favorite characters deal with the arrival of a newcomer named Henry Creel, who upends all their lives.

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Stranger Things: The First Shadow

7.

Oedipus

Stars on stage
Classic

The classic Greek tragedy gets a slick new reimagining thanks to adapter/director Robert Icke, who sets Sophocles's story of secrets, incest, and fate that spell a powerful ruler's downfall on a tense election night. Mark Strong, a Tony nominee for A View from the Bridge, stars in the title role opposite Phantom Thread Oscar nominee Lesley Manville as Jocasta.

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Oedipus

8.

Bug

Drama
Stars on stage

Nearly 30 years after its 1996 world premiere, Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts (August: Osage County) is finally making its Broadway debut. Emmy and Tony Award nominee Carrie Coon (*Fargo, The White Lotus, The Gilded Age, Broadway's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) returns to the stage as a lonely waitress whose paranoid lover (Namir Smallwood) pulls her into a downward spiral of conspiracy and insanity.

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Bug

10.

Every Brilliant Thing

Drama
Stars on stage

Tony Award winner Daniel Radcliffe returns to Broadway to lead a solo play about the things that make life worth living. In Every Brilliant Thing, he plays a man who makes a list of such things: first for his mom, then, for himself, and now for us, as his story involves plenty of audience interaction.

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Every Brilliant Thing

12.

Dog Day Afternoon

Stars on stage
Screen to stage
Drama

The Bear Emmy winners Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach make their Broadway debuts in this adaptation of the hit 1975 film. Inspired by a true story, Dog Day Afternoon follows a pair of would-be bank robbers whose plan flies wildly off the rails and sends the nation into a frenzy.

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Dog Day Afternoon

13.

Becky Shaw

Award winner
Comedy

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Gina Gionfriddo's Becky Shaw finally makes its Broadway debut after more than 15 years. Following a blind date that goes spectacularly haywire, this dark comedy might make you swear off dating for a while.

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Becky Shaw

14.

Fallen Angels

Stars on stage
Comedy

A classic Noël Coward comedy that sparkles like champagne, Fallen Angels stars Rose Byrne and Kelli O'Hara as two married women with the same former lover. It's all in the past until it's not, when he decides to pay a visit.

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Fallen Angels

15.

Proof

Stars on stage
Drama
Award winner

See Don Cheadle and Ayo Edebiri in their Broadway debuts, playing father and daughter in David Auburn's Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play. Catherine (Edebiri) discovers the cost of proving herself when she sets out to verify the true authorship of her late, genius dad's (Cheadle) work without going down the dark path that ruined him.

Check back for information on Proof tickets on New York Theatre Guide

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Proof

16.

Giant

Stars on stage
Drama
Award winner

John Lithgow is a stage and screen giant, so it's only fitting that he plays a literary one, too. In Giant, he reprises his award-winning performance from London as Roald Dahl, who enters a battle of wits in both public and private in response to one of his articles deemed antisemitic.

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Giant

17.

The Balusters

Stars on stage
Comedy

The newest comedy play on the block is David Lindsay-Abaire's The Balusters, starring Richard Thomas, Margaret Colin, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and more as members of a small neighborhood association with big opinions. Turmoil erupts when one person suggests the unthinkable: putting a stop sign on the area's prettiest corner.

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The Balusters