NYT critics' picks

Jonathan Spector's "thrillingly constructed" drama follows six Jewish American friends across nearly two decades, from a 2006 Birthright trip through a fractured 2024 reunion arguing over Gaza. The Times praises his "tart, percussive comedy" and "pianissimo melancholy" across more than three hours of overlapping speech that "race along without our feeling the passage of time." Scott Pask's set moves you from Chaya's parents' suburban Virginia living room to the backyard hot tub and back, and MCC has installed metal detectors and phone pouches for the run.

It's 2014, and four 16-year-old girls in suburban Ohio are flopped on a bed at a weekly sleepover, playing The Sims on a shared laptop and choking down a soda bottle filled with stolen vodka, gin, tequila, wine, and beer. Amalia Yoo plays Mal, a possibly depressed insomniac whose own random cruelty to herself and others baffles her, in Eliya Smith's "unnerving" hangout dramedy. The Times calls it "rambunctious and delightfully, kinetically familiar," with one stunning coup de théâtre where reality drifts into the Sims' digital otherwhere.

Anna D. Shapiro's revival of Eric Bentley's 1972 docu-drama, built from real House Un-American Activities Committee testimony between 1947 and 1956. Michael McKean anchors as a committee chairman "like a snake coiled to strike," with a rotating bench of marquee actors cycling through the run as Paul Robeson, Lillian Hellman, Jerome Robbins, and other named witnesses. The Times calls it "theater to make the blood boil," a "slow burn" that turns into a "thrilling conflagration" once Robeson takes the stand.

Three 40-foot pools, 30,000 gallons of water, and 750 ceramic bowls drifting on jets in the dark Drill Hall at Park Avenue Armory. French sound artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot lets the bowls coax their own music: dings, clinks, and "kalimba tinkles" that the Times calls a "powerful simulation of inevitability." Sit on the floor in the middle and the percussion slowly resolves into something nearer Indonesian gamelan than composition.

August Wilson’s "spiritual masterpiece" returns to the Barrymore with Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson leading a "way-station drama" that feels part realistic boardinghouse and part ancient myth. While the "dry bass drum" of Cedric’s deadpan comedy keeps the house grounded, it’s the "burning-eyed" arrival of a man searching for his song that turns this 1911 Pittsburgh story into a "triumphant, gravity-altering" experience.

Director Sam Pinkleton has transformed the theater into a "vampiric castle" draped in "tinfoil and black plastic," creating a "punk/porn party" atmosphere that feels more like a "science fiction double feature" than a standard revival. While Rachel Dratch uses her "deep drollery" to expertly handle the rowdy "callbacks" from the audience, Luke Evans commands the stage in "skyscraper boots" and a latex corset, playing the iconic Frank-N-Furter as a "romantic Heathcliff" with "off the charts" magnetism.

While this stage adaptation takes a modern-day couple on a "lovingly and lavishly crafted" detour through a town trapped in 1945, it’s the way the show translates its TV roots into a "joyous, slightly deranged" live spectacle that makes it a true standout. It functions as a "rhapsodic remix" of Golden Age tropes—complete with a rebellious carnival barker and a "meticulously" choreographed ensemble—proving that the only way for these two to find a bridge back to reality is to learn how to live inside a world of "high-octane absurdity."

This revival strips away the dusty, traditional reverence for the Loman family and replaces it with a searing, high-stakes urgency that makes Arthur Miller’s 1949 script feel like it was written for this exact economic moment. Critics are calling it a "triumph," noting that Nathan Lane delivers a "career-best performance" while Laurie Metcalf provides an "iron backbone" that turns the usual sentimentality into something raw and unsentimental.

This radical reimagining trades the oversized junkyard for the high-octane energy of the underground ballroom scene, turning the classic feline pageant into an "entirely new" and "vibrant" competition of self-expression. It is a "joyous," high-fashion spectacle where the familiar score meets the precision of runway culture, creating a transformative atmosphere that earns "10s across the board" for its pure, infectious energy.

It’s easy to assume a play about depression is going to be a total downer, but this is actually one of the funniest, most life-affirming things you’ll see because it’s built around a giant, running list of every little thing that makes life worth it. It’s super interactive in a way that’s not scary—Daniel Radcliffe basically recruits the audience to help tell the story—so by the time he gets to "the smell of old books" or "staying up past your bedtime," you feel like you’re part of this secret, supportive club instead of just sitting in a dark theater.

A naive Brit arrives at JFK with a heavy suitcase and an even heavier optimism, teaming up with a cynical native New Yorker to deliver a wedding cake across a city that doesn't care about either of them. It’s a "crush note" to New York that finds the soulful, messy reality beneath the standard rom-com glitter.

Six mid-pubescent outsiders discover that the only thing more high-stakes than correctly spelling "phylactery" is navigating a "riotous" gymnasium floor while their parents watch from the bleachers. This "slanderously funny" musical creates a safe space for the socially awkward, where the prize is a trophy and the consolation is a juice box handed out by a comfort counselor on a mid-probation work assignment.

Havana, 1956: the air is thick with "rhythmic heat" and the golden-age nostalgia of a city on the brink of change. This "shimmering and soulful" reunion follows a group of legendary musicians stepping out of the shadows of history to reclaim the songs the world almost forgot.

In a neon-lit, near-future Seoul, two "obsolete" HelperBots discover an unexpected connection in a world that has moved on without them. It’s a jazzy, bittersweet musical that explores how the most human thing about us might actually be our capacity to break down.

Three distinct American lives—a stifled upper-class wife, a determined Jewish immigrant, and a daring Harlem musician—collide in a "sprawling" turn-of-the-century landscape. This production strips away the spectacle to focus on the raw, "high-stakes" friction of a country struggling to harmonize its own contradictions.

Forget the history books; this is a "slanderously inaccurate" and "completely unhinged" look at the suppressed desires of Mary Todd Lincoln. Playwright Cole Escola transforms the Lyceum Theatre into a "rumbling sea of guffaws" with a 80-minute farce that treats the Civil War as a mere backdrop for one woman’s desperate, campy quest for a "parade" of her own.

The Jellicle Cats have traded the junkyard for the high-octane energy of the 1980s Ballroom scene, where the "runway" is the ultimate stage for survival. It is a "meticulously observed" reimagining that finds the soul of Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic in the defiant, high-stakes beauty of queer subculture.

Amidst the "razzle dazzle" of 1920s jazz and gin, two murderesses compete for the headlines and the legal services of a lawyer who treats the courtroom like a vaudeville act. It remains a "startlingly smart" satire on the American obsession with celebrity, proving that a sensational crime is the only currency that never devalues.