The 2025 Best & Worst of Broadway/theater lists- Page 2

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 12/12/25 at 5:33pm

I know that I'm in the minority here, but I just couldn't stand Purpose. Getting to the end of that play felt like swimming through jello. That's the only show that I've seen that's popping up on these lists that I really don't think deserves to be there.

[ER765]

Posted: 12/12/25 at 7:44pm

Is The Times not doing their standard “best of” list this year?

[NewYorkTheater]

Posted: 12/16/25 at 8:47am

An aggregation and analysis: Top 10 Lists of Top 10 NYC Theater in 2025: Liberation is number 1

"Liberation” is by far the most critically acclaimed theater of 2025, featured in nine of the ten Top 10 lists below. Bess Wohl’s play about a woman’s liberation group in the 1970s is followed by “John Proctor Is the Villain,” “Purpose,” “Ragtime,” and “Vanya,” each of which were listed by five of the critics."

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 12/17/25 at 10:52pm

New York Theatre Guide

The best theatre of 2025

New York Theatre Guide's editorial staff share their favorite plays and musicals on and off Broadway this year, plus shows to put on your 2026 watchlists.

1.  Becoming Eve - Amelia Merrill

2.  English (Laura Pels / Broadway) - Gillian Russo

3.  Gruesome Playground Injuries (Lucille Lortel) - Allison Considine

4.  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (Public Theatre) - Caroline Cao

5.  I'm Assuming You Know David Greenspan (Atlantic Theatre) - Billy McEntee

6.  John Proctor Is The Villain (Broadway) - Sarah Rebell

7.  Liberation (Laura Pels / Broadway) - Sarah Rebell

8.  Masquerade (Lee's Art Shop) - Jen Gushue

9.  Mexodus (Audible) - Austin Fimmano

10.  Nothing Can Take You From The Hand of God (Playwrights Horizons) - Kyle Turner

11.  Operation Mincemeat (Broadway) - Caroline Cao

12.  Ragtime (Lincoln Center Theatre) - Gillian Russo

13.  The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (New World Stages) - Kyle Turner

14.  The Baker's Wife (Classic Stage Company) - Joe Dziemianowicz

15.  The Brother's Size (The Shed) - Billy McEntee

16.  The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire (Vineyard) - Amelia Merrill

17.  The Picture of Dorian Gray (Broadway) - Allison Considine

18.  Twelfth Night (Shakespeare in the Park, the Public) - Austin Fimmano

19.  Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) (Broadway) - Jen Gushue

20.  Wine In The Wilderness (Classic Stage Theatre) - Gillian Russo

https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/theatre-news/news/the-best-theatre-of-2025

[MB124]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 11:26am

People Magazine’s Best Theater Performances of 2025:
 

1) The cast of PURPOSE

2) Sarah Snook, DORIAN GRAY

3) Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP 

4) Sadie Sink, JOHN PROCTOR…

5) Jonathan Groff, JUST IN TIME

6) Jinkx Monsoon, OH, MARY!

7) Joshua Henry, RAGTIME

8) The women of LIBERATION

9) Kristin Chenoweth, THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES

10) Nicholas Christopher, CHESS 

[MB124]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 11:29am

TheaterMania (Broadway):

5) Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) 

4) Oedipus

3) Dead Outlaw

2) Purpose

1) Ragtime

 

TheaterMania (Off Broadway):

5) The Honey Trap

4) Playing Shylock

3) Mexodus

2) Meet the Cartozians

1) The Antiquities

Updated On: 12/18/25 at 11:29 AM

[MB124]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 11:33am

The New Yorker: 

Liberation

Vanya

The Picture of Dorian Gray

John Proctor is the Villain

Lobster 

The Brothers Size

Ragtime

The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella

The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire

Practice

[MB124]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 11:59am

Slant Magazine:

Dead as a Dodo

Mexodus

John Proctor is the Villain

Liberation

Deep Blue Sound

Not Not Jane’s

We Had A World

Becoming Eve

Vanya

Creditors

 

[MadsonMelo]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 2:54pm

ER765 said: "Is The Times not doing their standard “best of” list this year?"

Right? Super weird.

[Ensemble1665759202]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 9:54pm

The 10 Best Broadway and Off-Broadway Performances of 2025 (TheaterMania)

Danny Burstein — Jon in Marjorie Prime

Felicia Curry — Lemon Pepper Wings in Bowl EP

Micaela Diamond — Sabina in The Seat of Our Pants

Patsy Ferran — Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Names Desire

Jonathan Groff — Bobby Darin in Just in Time

Joshua Henry — Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime

Amber Iman — Nadira in Goddess

Laurie Metcalf — Sarah in Little Bear Ridge Road

Zachary Noah Piser — Spencer in Redwood

Andrew Scott — All the Roles in Vanya

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 12/18/25 at 10:28pm

Star Tribune: 10 best Twin Cities theatre performances of 2025

[MezzA101]

Posted: 1/1/26 at 6:10pm

Top 10 Broadway Shows Of 2025 By Deadline Theater Critic Greg Evans

https://deadline.com/2025/12/top-10-broadway-shows-2025-1236658702/

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 1/1/26 at 6:58pm

^ Great list. With the exception of 7 and 10, I completely agree with it and every one of the misses except Chess, which was incredible. I also enjoyed their 2026 look ahead, with Fallen Angels being at the top of my list so far. Kelli O'Hara and Rose Byrne doing a Noël Coward play? Cannot wait. 

[MezzA101]

Posted: 1/1/26 at 11:43pm

London’s 2025 Theater Highlights

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/arts/london-theater-lookback.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BVA.Kxnr.YnXj_6XuoZBe&smid=nytcore-android-share

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 1/2/26 at 6:51pm

Deadline’s Theater Critic Greg Evans Picks His Top 10 Broadway Shows Of 2025

1.  Liberation

2.  Ragtime

3.  John Proctor is the Villain

4.  Dead Outlaw

5.  Operation Mincemeat

6.  Marjorie Prime

7.  Little Bear Ridge Road

8.  Purpose

9.  Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York)

10.  Stranger Things:  The First Shadow

Honorable Mentions:

Buena Vista Social Club, English, Just In Time, Oedipus, Waiting For Godot, Picture of Dorian Gray and the casts of Art (particularly James Corden), Call Me Izzy (Jean Smart, gripping), Floyd Collins (Jeremy Jordan, proving his Broadway mettle yet again) and Boop! (Jasmine Amy Rogers, rising high above the material).

Broadway 2025 Misses: 

The Last Five Years — Starring Nick Jonas and a deserves-better Adrienne Warren. Five years? Nah, it only seemed that long.

Glengarry Glen Ross — It wasn’t terrible, but with a cast that included Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean and Bill Burr, the David Mamet classic should have soared to the rhythms of the playwright’s language.

Good Night, and Good Luck — It was a monster money-maker, but c’mon, Clooney could have played Betty Boop and audiences would have lined up for the privilege. Imagine if Clooney had chosen to use his star power to spotlight a genuinely worthy project — the way, say, Sarah Paulson did with Appropriate or Keanu Reeves is doing with Waiting For Godot — rather than the stuffy, moribund, on-the-nose hectoring that was Good Night, and Good Luck? The same, actually, could be said of Washington, whose somber performance in the modern-dress Othello did nothing that hasn’t been done in any number of Shakespeare in the Park’s lesser offerings.

The Queen of Versailles — Oh, please. It had nothing to do with Kristin Chenoweth’s kind words for a slain right-winger. The musical is just plain tedious, full of forgettable songs, muddled intentions and dumb-to-the-point-of-surreal ancien régime flashbacks. I’m still not sure if this musical even likes Jackie Siegel, its subject-turned-investor, and I was paying attention. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, and its not about gilded ambition or lousy parenting or money can’t buy happiness. Maybe its about deep pockets and artistic compromise and wanting to be liked so intensely that you lose any chance for a Rose’s Turn all your own. And maybe someone, someday, will make a musical about it.

Chess — While audiences seem to like it, reviews were mostly mixed. Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher are certainly and without a doubt very, very loud (except, oddly enough, at the exact moment you want volume — Tveit gets all but drowned out by the orchestra during the big, indecipherable “One Night In Bangkok.”).  Mostly this revival of the 1980s flop from Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice, with Danny Strong’s new book crammed with inelegant topical references, seems to exist mostly to give reviewers the chance to offer some variation of “close, but no checkmate.”