Another year, another slate of starry revivals, adaptations and IP on Broadway. From Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Othello to a Stephen Sondheim extravaganza, 2025 is shaping up to be a year of megawatt star power on the Great White Way. Here are 12 of the most anticipated Broadway shows of the year:
English
Broadway kicks off the year on a high with the return of Sanaz Toossi’s play English to New York in early January, after a successful off-Broadway run in 2022 and the 2023 Pulitzer prize for drama. Set in an English-language classroom in Karaj, Iran, in 2008, where adult students practice for the proficiency exam for their own unique reasons, the comedy explores the limits of language, our desire to feel understood and, of course, the unfairly tricky foibles of English.
Redwood
Fresh off the theatrical success of Wicked, Idina Menzel returns to Broadway in a brand new musical – a rarity these days – co-conceived by her and playwright Tina Landau. Redwood, which premiered last year to solid reviews at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse, follows Menzel’s Jesse, a successful businesswoman, mother and wife who is not defying gravity – an existential crisis, of sorts, compels her to travel deep into California’s ancient Redwoods forest, on a healing journey scored by Kate Diaz.
Othello
Perhaps the starriest event during this starry Broadway season is Denzel Washington’s much-anticipated take on Othello – a role he played at 22, and still remembers by heart 47 years later – against Jake Gyllenhaal’s devilish Iago. English stage star Molly Osborne plays Desdemona, the subject of Othello’s destructive jealousy and Iago’s manipulative scheming. The classic Shakespeare tragedy, which has not been staged on Broadway since 1982, comes courtesy of director Kenny Leon for a strict 15-week residency beginning 24 February in what is sure to be one of the hottest (and most expensive) tickets of the season.
Good Night, and Good Luck
Another major celebrity fixture in midtown this year: George Clooney, making his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of his 2005 journalism drama Good Night, and Good Luck. Clooney, who played Fred W Friendly in his sophomore directorial effort, will now take on the role of journalist Edward R Murrow, a target for Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist conspiracy hearings in the 1950s. The stage adaptation, a preview of which features Clooney pointedly elevating the value of “truth” (resonant!), will be directed by David Cromer, whose credits include The Band’s Visit and A Streetcar Named Desire, for a limited run beginning 12 March.
Purpose
A year after the Tony-winning revival of his play Appropriate, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is back with a new drama about complex family dynamics. Purpose, directed by two-time Tony winner Phylicia Rashad, follow the Jaspers, a family of congressmen, pastors and civil rights leaders – a “pillar of Black American Politics”, according to the logline. But like every family, there are hidden cracks and secrets, upended when the youngest son, Nazareth, returns home with an uninvited guest in tow. The play opened to rave reviews in Chicago last year, and will begin previews at the Hayes Theater in late February.
The Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook
Another year, another much-hyped transfer from the West End. Like Jodie Comer in Prima Facie in 2023, The Picture of Dorian Gray offers Sarah Snook the opportunity to flex in a one-woman tour de force. Specifically, the Succession star takes on not one, not two, but 26 characters in this bombastic solo riff on Oscar Wilde’s Faustian tale. The reportedly dazzling production – the Guardian’s Arifa Akbar described it as “mischievous, swaggering and operatic” – features multiple screens, wigs, pre-recorded footage and a live film crew, and opens at the Music Box Theatre on 27 March.
Glengarry Glen Ross
In another celeb-studded revival with a prestige film tie-in (are you sensing a theme?), David Mamet’s Pulitzer-winning 1984 play of warring Chicago real-estate agents returns to Broadway this March. Directed by Patrick Marber, this revival – the first since 2012, for a limited 12-week run – will see Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr and Michael McKean take on the roles made famous by Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin in the 1992 film version. Let the salesmanship games begin!
Smash
The cult-favorite musical TV show about the production of a new Broadway musical – Glee but for adults, as one friend put it – has finally achieved its big break. Smash, the actual musical, opens on Broadway in April, featuring songs from the IYKYK series that ran for two seasons from 2012-2013. As in the NBC show, which starred Katharine McPhee, Debra Messing and Megan Hilty (currently at work in Broadway’s Death Becomes Her), the Broadway version concerns the development of Bombshell, a new musical about Marilyn Monroe, with no shortage of competitive divas.
The Last Five Years
The Last Five Years may be a particular favorite of musical theater fans (with a 2014 film adaptation starring Anna Kendrick to boot), but it’s still never been mounted on Broadway. Until now, starring former Broadway child actor Nick Jonas and erstwhile Tina Turner musical headliner Adrienne Warren. The musical, written by Jason Robert Brown and directed here by Whitney White, tells the five-year story of a romantic relationship from two perspectives: chronologically for writer Jamie, and in reverse order for struggling actor Cathy – a full arc (or circle?) that Brown recently described as “beautifully combustible”.
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends
This revue of Sondheim’s music, starring Tony winners Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, transfers in March from a successful, five-star heavy West End run (and on the heels of another successful Gypsy revival, starring Audra McDonald). A celebration of the late composer’s gifts to musical theater that’s more an ode to the passage of time than a story, this one is for the Broadway stalwarts and, naturally, music friends old and new.
Waiting for Godot
From slackers to existentialism – Keanu Reeves marks yet another A-list Broadway debut this fall when he and Alex Winter, his partner from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, take on Samuel Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot. Reeves will play Estragon and Winter will play Vladimir in this tale of two men waiting/grappling with the meaning of life directed by Jamie Lloyd, who most recently helmed a minimalist take on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, starring Jessica Chastain, in 2023.
Just in Time
Riding high on his Tony this year for Merrily We Roll Along, Jonathan Groff headlines a new (!) musical on the life of 1950s and 60s crooner Bobby Darin, singer of Beyond the Sea, Dream Lover and Mack the Knife, among other hits. The production, opening in April, will transform the roundabout Circle in the Square Theatre into a mid-century nightclub for this biographical tale of a teen idol turned superstar running on borrowed time – Darin suffered from heart conditions throughout his life, and died in 1973 at age 37.
