Year in review: Top Broadway theatre highlights of 2025
Relive memorable moments from Broadway and beyond, landmark wins at the 2025 Tony Awards, and fast facts about this year's new plays and musicals.
Summary
- This year-in-review roundup highlights statistics about the shows that premiered on Broadway this season; highlights from the 2025 Tony Awards; and newsworthy theatre-related moments from 2025
In 2025, Broadway theatre didn't just stay on the stage. It came to our cinemas with the release of the highly anticipated Wicked: For Good movie musical. It came to our TVs through a live broadcast of George Clooney in Good Night, and Good Luck. It came to our Instagram and TikTok feeds through viral clips from Death Becomes Her. ("That. Was. Rude...")
And those are just a few of the 2025 theatre moments that got people talking, even thousands of miles from NYC. From Hamilton's 10th anniversary to Tony Awards twopeats to the return of a haunting Broadway blockbuster, there are plenty more highlights from 2025 on Broadway and beyond.
Look back on it all with us: Rediscover fast facts, awards highlights, memorable moments, major wins, and more with our 2025 year in review below.
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2025 on Broadway: Facts and stats
It's been a busy year on Broadway. Revisit 2025 with these quick stats about the plays and musicals that premiered this year.
38 shows opened on Broadway.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning play English kicked off 2025 on Broadway, starting performances on January 3. The Carrie Coon-led Bug was the last to start, beginning performances December 17. (Its official opening night is January 8, 2026.)
Including both new shows and revivals, the year's count includes 18 musicals, 18 plays, and 2 specials: Jeff Ross's comedy show Take a Banana for the Ride and the illusion show Rob Lake Magic With Special Guests The Muppets.
7 shows transferred from London to Broadway.
As two of the world's biggest theatre hubs, Broadway and the West End pass their hit shows back and forth all the time. Blockbuster plays like Stranger Things: The First Shadow and the Sarah Snook-led The Picture of Dorian Gray, and hit musical comedies like Operation Mincemeat and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), all started in London before hopping the pond.
Additional London-to-NYC transfers include a contemporary revival of Oedipus starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville, the jubilant Stephen Sondheim revue Old Friends, and James Graham's crime drama Punch, which uniquely debuted on Broadway and in the West End at the same time.
There were 10 (+4) Broadway revivals.
Everyone loves an old favorite. Beloved shows from seasons past came back in all sorts of ways in 2025.
- The cult-favorite musical Chess and the witty comedy Art made their first returns to Broadway this year.
- The original Broadway productions of Beetlejuice and Mamma Mia! got second lives, returning to NYC as an extended stop on their U.S. tours.
- Classic, oft-produced plays like Waiting for Godot, Oedipus, Othello, and Glengarry Glen Ross all came back, as did the modern musical epic Ragtime for its third go-around.
- The Pirates of Penzance got a titular refresh (as Pirates! The Penzance Musical) and a musical one (with New Orleans jazz stylings added to the score).
- Four long-loved Off-Broadway shows finally made it to Broadway. So they're honorary revivals: the musicals The Last Five Years and Floyd Collins, and the plays Marjorie Prime and Bug.
More than 50 stars shone on stage.
We'd be here all day if we tried to name them all, but we'll speed you through some of the year's celebrity highlights.
- George Clooney, Sarah Snook, and Bob Odenkirk made their Broadway debuts.
- Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jean Smart, Nick Jonas, Kieran Culkin, Bill Burr, Sadie Sink, and Carrie Coon all returned to the stage.
- Keanu Reeves (in his Broadway debut) and Alex Winter (returning after 40 years) have a Bill & Ted reunion in Waiting for Godot.
- At 96, June Squibb plays her first Broadway leading lady as the title character of Marjorie Prime.
- The first revival of Art showcased the starry trio of Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, and Neil Patrick Harris.
- Broadway legend Audra McDonald became the most Tony-nominated performer of all time with her 11th nod, for Gypsy.
- Like its 2024 precursor All In: Comedy About Love, 2025's All Out: Comedy About Ambition features over a dozen comedy big shots reading funny sketches.
The 2025 Tony Awards
The Tony Awards are Broadway's biggest night of the year, celebrating the best of theatre each June. Revisit the highlights from the 2025 ceremony at Radio City Music Hall.
Maybe Happy Ending wins Best Musical.
A surprise hit upon opening in fall 2024, this acclaimed original musical about a robotic romance kept its spark alive through the Tony Awards and continues to do so night after night.
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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Kara Young, and Justin Peck get twopeats.
These artists are so nice, they won Tony Awards twice — in a row.
- Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins won Best Revival of a Play in 2024 for Appropriate and Best Play in 2025 for Purpose.
- Kara Young clinched Best Featured Actress in a Play both years, for Purlie Victorious and Purpose. Her 2025 nomination also made her one of only two actors ever, alongside Laurie Metcalf, to get four consecutive Tony nominations.
- Justin Peck won Best Choreography solo for 2024's Illinoise. Then, he won jointly with his wife, Patricia Delgado, for 2025's Buena Vista Social Club.
All eyes are on Nicole Scherzinger vs. Audra McDonald.
This year's Best Actress in a Musical race was the ultimate diva-off. Nicole Scherzinger (as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard) and Audra McDonald (as Momma Rose in Gypsy) were the neck-and-neck frontrunners for the prize, and no one knew which way it would go.
Scherzinger pulled out the win, but both women's performances will go down in theatre history. Not to mention the category's other powerhouse nominees: Death Becomes Her's Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard (whose battle, in any other year, would have been the one to watch) and BOOP! The Musical breakout star Jasmine Amy Rogers.
Nearly all the acting winners are first-time champs.
With the exception of Kara Young, everyone who took home an acting prize in 2025 was a first-time winner. They included:
- Darren Criss (Maybe Happy Ending)
- Cole Escola (Oh, Mary!)
- Natalie Venetia Belcon (Buena Vista Social Club)
- Jak Malone (Operation Mincemeat)
- Nicole Scherzinger (Sunset Boulevard)
- Sarah Snook (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
- Francis Jue (Yellow Face)
Hamilton has a 10th-anniversary reunion.
To celebrate Hamilton's 10th birthday on Broadway, the original cast reunited for a special performance at the Tonys. The musical's official 10th anniversary followed on August 6, so the reunion was a great kickoff to the festivities.
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Paul Tazewell makes awards history.
In March, Paul Tazewell became the first Black man to win the Oscar for Best Costume Design (for Part 1 of the Wicked movie musical). In June, his Tony win for Death Becomes Her on Broadway made him the first costume designer in 73 years, and the second ever, to win an Oscar and a Tony in the same year. We won't be surprised if this living legend nabs another Oscar for Wicked: For Good next year!
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2025 theatre highlights
Our favorite showtunes went viral. Fan-favorite shows made long-awaited returns. One musical defied gravity on screen for the second time. All this and more happened in 2025 — relive the biggest theatre moments from this year below.
Wicked: For Good turns the world pink and green once more.
Elphaba and Glinda flew into cinemas again in Wicked: For Good, the highly anticipated Part 2 of director John M. Chu's Wicked movie musical. Thank goodness for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, and the whole cast for giving us the thrillifying performances of our dreams. We wish we could see them do it all on Broadway, though the cast at the Gershwin Theatre is just as magical.
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Masquerade welcomes the Phantom back to NYC.
The Phantom of the Opera may have ended its 35-year Broadway run in 2023, but it's continued to haunt NYC. A mysterious teaser campaign including cryptic letters, scavenger hunts, and red carpet appearances by the Phantom himself all led up to the July premiere of Masquerade, an immersive reimagining of the blockbuster musical. It's as though the music of the night never stopped playing.
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Stranger Things: The First Shadow turns Broadway upside down.
We understand how Hollywood magic can create a sci-fi spectacle like Stranger Things, but we have no idea how the creators of The First Shadow, the TV show's stage prequel, pulled off the large-scale, supernatural effects live. After bingeing the Netflix series's fifth and final season, you can check out The First Shadow to have your mind blown all over again.
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Death Becomes Her goes viral three times over.
Julia Mattison and Noel Carey's score for this movie-to-musical adaptation had people dramatically lip-syncing all over the internet. If you don't think you've heard the songs <a href=“https://youtu.be/QiIu21PD4Lc?si=p41CBb49zBki9luZ” target="_blank">"Tell Me, Ernest," <a href=“https://youtu.be/RqGLIBGMCB0?si=mNZu8a1mlSGV5Zkc” target="_blank">"The Confrontation," or <a href=“https://youtu.be/C9w4qq63Wb0?si=COlpL7_DZJH2H3ML” target="_blank">"Let's Run Away Together," there's a good chance you have if you're on social media. Either way, they're worth experiencing live.
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Liberation proves a surprise standout.
Centered on a 1970s feminist group born in an Ohio rec center basement, Bess Wohl's Liberation premiered off Broadway at the below-ground Laura Pels Theatre in January. It collected so many awards and rave reviews that it got a Broadway transfer this fall, making it all but a guaranteed Tonys contender. Small basements can make big impacts.
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Mamma Mia! and Heathers have homecomings.
There's no place like home, as Mamma Mia! and Heathers can attest. Both musicals had their first NYC revivals at their original venues: Mamma Mia! at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre, where it premiered in 2001, and Heathers at Off-Broadway's New World Stages, where it debuted in 2014.
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Chess finally gets its Broadway revival.
Despite having a short, ill-fated NYC premiere in 1988, the musical Chess — which uses American/Soviet chess matches to represent political and romantic battles — has developed a cult following, and talk of a revival has surfaced and resurfaced in the theatre community for decades. At long last, Chess is back on the boards, with Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele, and Nicholas Christopher powerfully delivering the beloved score. Checkmate.
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George Clooney gets Broadway on the airwaves.
Usually, the only way to experience a Broadway show in real time is by, well, going to the theatre. But Good Night, and Good Luck — co-written and produced by its star, George Clooney — broke the mold by broadcasting its second-to-last performance live on CNN.
It was a historic first: Though a few shows have livestreamed performances online in recent years, a live performance of a Broadway play had never been televised before.
Prince Faggot gets everyone talking.
One of the year's buzziest plays has a name many theatregoers daren't even say. The title of Jordan Tannahill's Prince Faggot may have initially sparked gasps and pearl-clutching, but its story — in which queer actors imagine Prince George of Wales as a grown-up, openly gay man — invited real and complex conversation about who is allowed to feel like royalty.
John Proctor Is the Villain gets the green light.
One of 2025's most thrilling Broadway moments was the ending scene of Kimberly Belflower's John Proctor Is the Villain, in which a group of high schoolers perform a wild, cathartic dance to "Green Light" by Lorde. Online and at post-show dance parties, the song was the anthem of both the play and its many fans who cried, cheered, and danced along. Lorde herself even came one night!
Jeremy Jordan goes yodeling.
You've seen him sing, act, and dance — and as the title cave explorer in the musical Floyd Collins, fans of Tony Award nominee Jeremy Jordan got to see him yodel. That's something you don't hear on Broadway every day — or every year.
Happy anniversaries!
"HamilTen" may be 2025's most publicized theatre birthday, but it's not the only one. The sci-fi family drama Marjorie Prime is having a 10th-anniversary Broadway premiere; it previously ran off Broadway in 2015. And the quirky musical charmer The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee returns to its Off-Broadway roots with a 20th-anniversary revival at New World Stages.
There's more to look forward to in 2026 as Chicago marks its 30th anniversary and The Book of Mormon, its 15th. It's already shaping up to be a great year in theatre.
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