This season, there will be two shows starring corpses, two reimagined classics performed by a single actor portraying dozens of characters, two new plays by MacArthur Geniuses, three screen stars making their Broadway debuts, including George Clooney as journalist Edward R. Murrow fighting an authoritarian demagogue. There is an abundance of tantalizing shows opening on New York stages sometime before the end of April — many more than just the ten I’ve selected below.

Some of these ten may well become “can’t miss” or “must see” shows, but I don’t know that yet for sure, and I’ve been burned enough times so that I’m not using those phrases anymore. (That’s the reason for the asterisk in the headline)
All I know is that they excite me enough, or at least make me curious enough, that I want to see them, for reasons I enumerate below.  That doesn’t mean I’ll wind up liking them (which is why I add a cautionary note to some of them.)
They’re worth previewing, despite the lack of guarantees, as a way to address a dilemma facing the New York theatergoer: By the time you can be sure that a show is worth seeing (once it’s been reviewed, say, by someone whose taste you trust) it might be too late to get any tickets, or at least any tickets you can afford.

The shows are organized chronologically more or less according to opening date (when I could find the opening date; otherwise, first performance), with the titles linked to the show’s website.

Grangeville
What: Samuel D Hunter’s play takes its title from the remote Idaho town of the same name. Across a void of thousands of miles and oceans of hurt, two half-brothers tentatively reconnect over the care of their ailing mother.
When: February 4–March 16, 2025. Opening February 24
Where: Signature Theater Center
Why: Nearly every play I’ve seen by MacArthur grant winner Samuel D. Hunter (all of them taking place in his home state of Idaho) have been quietly amusing and powerfully affecting dramas about loss and hope, most memorably “Lewiston/Clarkston” (2018), “Greater Clements” (2019), and “A Case for the Existence of God”  (2022.)  This new two-character play features the interesting actors Paul Sparks (who I last saw as Vladimir in Waiting for Godot) and Brian J. Smith (Tony nominee for his role as the gentleman color in The Glass Menagerie)

A Streetcar Named Desire
What: A revival of Tennessee Williams’ play about Blanche’s arrival at her sister Stella’s doorstep, desperate and out of options, which sparks the resentment of Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski. 
When: February 28 – April 6
Where: BAM’s Harvey Theater
Why: An export from London, where it won Olivier Awards for the production and two of its stars, including Paul Mescal as the brutish Stanley.  Mescal, an Oscar nominee with an increasing screen profile (Normal People, All of Us Strangers, Gladiator II) will be making his American theater debut.
Why not:  Shows acclaimed in Britain (especially productions of American plays or on American subjects) aren’t always received well by New York theatergoers.

Ghosts
What: A new version of Ibsen’s scathing critique of 19th century morality, centered on the dark doings of the Alving family, involving adultery, venereal disease, incest and euthanasia.
When: February 13 – April 13. Opening March 10
Where: Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater
Why:  Theatergoers who saw the recent production of “An Enemy of the People” should know Ibsen wrote that play in response to the condemnation he received for this scandalous earlier play. This version by Mark O’Rowe and directed by Jack O’Brien features an intriguing cast – Lily Rabe, Billy Crudup, Hamish Linklater, Levon Hawke (Ethan and Uma’s kid) and Ella Beatty (Warren and Annette’s).

The Picture of Dorian Gray
What: Sarah Snook takes on all 26 roles in this adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel about a man who stays looking young, while his portrait turns evil and ugly.
When: March 27 to June 15. Opening March 10
Where: Broadway’s Music Box Theater.
Why: The Australian actress Snook, best known to American audiences as Shiv Roy in the HBO series “Succession,” is making her Broadway in this adaptation by Australian wunderkind director Kip Williams. It is a multimedia production, in which Snook performs in person and interacts with both live and recorded projections in a way that is said to reenforce Wilde’s themes while applying them to our social media age
Why not: Some might be turned off by the reliance on screen projections.

Purpose
What: For decades, the influential Jasper family has been a pillar of Black American Politics: civil rights leaders, pastors and congressmen. But like all families, there are cracks and secrets just under the surface. When the youngest son Nazareth returns home with an uninvited friend in tow, the family is forced into a reckoning with itself, its faith and the legacies of Black political power and familial duty
When: February 25 – July 6. Opening March 17.
Where: Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater
Why: The playwright  Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (the other MacArthur grant winner) scored mightily with the 2024 Tony-winning play Appropriate, which told the story both of a dysfunctional family and the larger, darker story of race in America. Phylicia Rashad is making her Broadway directorial debut helming this new play., with a stellar cast that includes Kara Young, Harry Lennix, and Latanya Richardson Jackson

Vanya
What: Andrew Scott  portrays all the characters in an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, a play about a group of characters life regrets and unrequited love.
When: March 11 – May 4. Opening March 18.
Where: Lucille Lortel Theater
Why: A production that was greatly acclaimed in London. One can’t help feeling curious how Scott, a much admired Irish actor (All of Us Strangers, Ripley) pulls this off.
Why not: Tickets are forbiddingly high-priced, and selling out quickly. Shows acclaimed in Britain aren’t always received well by New York theatergoers.

Good Night and Good Luck
What: George Clooney stars a stage adaptation of his 2005 film, about Edward R. Murrow’s television crusade against Senator Joseph McCarthy.
When: March 12 – June 8, opening April 3 
Where: Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater
Why: I liked the movie, which tells the true story of how a journalist went up against a bullying demagogue that had everybody else cowed.  Cooney is making his Broadway debut as both performer and playwright in an adaptation directed by David Cromer, masterful at finding the humor and poignance in small moments, in such works as The Band’s Visit, The Case for the Existence of God and the 2009 Off-Broadway production of Our Town.

Hold Me in the Water
What: In his solo show, Ryan Haddad tells the story of his first love
When: April 10 – May 4
Where: Playwrights Horizons
Why:  Haddad’s previous play, “Dark Disabled Stories,” was amusing, charming, pointed, and blushingly candid; it also set the gold standard for a show about (and by) the disabled – the most accessible show I’ve ever attended. Haddad is an inviting raconteur, even when he’s talking about things you might not necessarily want to hear.

Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.
What: An evening of four short plays by Caryl Churchill: “A girl made of glass. Gods and murders. A pack of ghosts. And a secret in a bottle.”
When: April 3 – May 4. Opening April 16
Where: Public Theater
Why: Caryl Churchill, now 86 years old, is widely considered one of the world’s greatest living playwrights, and among the most elusive, whose work over the last half century is consistently inventive,  as New York theatergoers have been able to sample first-hand in productions over the past few years of “Cloud Nine” and “Love and Information” — both of which I found delightful.
Why Not: Her breadth and inventiveness includes work that is highly….cryptic, such as “Light Shining on Buckinghamshire”. I saw a digital version of “What If If Only” in 2021, one of the four new plays, and it was only 14 minutes long, full of feeling, and quite hard to follow.

Encores!
What: Three concerts of old Broadway musicals
When: Urinetown Feb 5 – 16, Love Life March 26-30, Wonderful Town April 30 – May 11
Where: New York City Center
Why: The Encores! series was launched in 1994, and if their mission has changed to something that feels more commercial-minded, they were undeniably on a roll last year

You’ll notice that most of the selections are Off-Broadway. That’s because they get less attention than Broadway, and they are easier to plan for in advance than Off-Off Broadway.

But there are many more shows that promise to delight. Check out my Broadway Spring 2025 Preview Guide which includes some big marquee names — Denzel Washington as Othello, Jonathan Groff as singer Bobby Darin, Idina Menzel in a new musical she co-conceived, Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga together in a Sondheim revue, etc — all of which I hope to see.

Also look at  my current monthly calendar of New York theater openings, which I update at the beginning of each month.

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