8 New Shows Our Theater Critics Are Talking About

New York Times

21-03-2025

Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott …
Directed by Sam Yates and adapted by Simon Stephens, this one-man 'Vanya' — in which Andrew Scott delivers a tour-de-force performance — arrives Off Broadway after a run in London, where it won an Olivier for best play revival. Though faithful to the original material, the production offers not just modern touches, but also 'a new way of seeing into the heart of its beauty,' our critic wrote.
From Jesse Green's review:
Through May 11 at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Read the full review.
The lush sounds of Havana.
The joyous horns and full-bodied voices that make up the beloved 1997 album come alive in this Broadway musical, with a book by Marco Ramirez, direction by Saheem Ali and choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck. Though the show offers a fictional back story for these veteran Cuban musicians who shot to global fame after recording the album, the thrill here is the music, exuberant and expansive, which fills in the beats of Cuba's history, both in sorrow and in revelry.
From Elisabeth Vincentelli's review:
At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. Read the full review.
A ferocious Paul Mescal in a Tennessee Williams classic.
Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran dance with violence and desire as Stanley and Blanche in Rebecca Frecknall's gritty revival of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In the absence of beauty, brutality pervades in Frecknall's darker production, which features a utilitarian set and exhilarating performances that ratchet up the fury.
From Jesse Green's review:
Through April 6 at the Harvey Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music. Read the full review.
The vicious nature of the truth.
Joshua Harmon follows up last seasons's 'Prayer for the French Republic' with this 'wonderfully textured' new play, whose protagonist, Josh (Andrew Barth Feldman), breaks the fourth wall to guide the audience through notable incidents of his childhood and adult life relating to his mother and grandmother.
From Maya Phillips's review:
Through April 27 at New York City Center. Read the full review.
Unearthing more than ancestry.
You'll have to act fast if you want to catch Nia Akilah Robinson's time-hopping historical drama before it closes next week. Directed by Evren Odcikin, the play takes place on the same plot of land two centuries apart, and draws from the real-life history of grave robbing Black corpses in a disturbing recall of the more nefarious side of medical research.
From Laura Collins-Hughes's review:
Through March 26 at Playwrights Horizons. Read the full review.
A merciless dissection of hypocrisy.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins knows how to write about a reckoning. In 'Appropriate,' a father's death leads the Lafayettes home to their Arkansas estate, where they reckon with the buried secrets lurking in a dark family history. In 'The Comeuppance,' a group of reunited millennials reckon with the world of mass shootings, pandemics and generational malaise they've inherited. Now, in 'Purpose,' directed by Phylicia Rashad, a high-profile family must reckon with their tangle of social, political and theological trespasses.
From Jesse Green's review:
Through July 6 at the Helen Hayes Theater. Read the full review.
Counterintelligence with comedic timing.
Laughter abounds in this satirical comedy about a fantastical but real World War II spy mission involving a planted corpse to deceive the Nazis. The show was a hit in London, winning an Olivier last year, and though it was updated for Broadway to rework its Britishisms for a New York audience, humor, our critic writes, isn't so translatable.
From Jesse Green's review:
Through Aug. 18 at the Golden Theater. Read the full review.
Haunted and haunting.
Ghosts, restless and doomed, alive and dead, haunt the stage in this Off Broadway production of Henrik Ibsen's 1881 drama about medical and moral contagion. Directed by Jack O'Brien, Mark O'Rowe's adaptation of the relentless drama, where depravity is passed on from generation to generation like an inheritance, stars a riveting Lily Rabe as Mrs. Alving.
From Jesse Green's review:
Through April 26 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Read the full review.