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Vanya, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Lempicka
Vanya, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Lempicka

Off-Broadway Shows to Look Out for in Spring 2025

With spring being the busiest time on Broadway, it can be hard to keep track of all that’s new Off-Broadway. We’re here to help!

Here’s a look at some of the Off-Broadway productions we’re looking forward to this coming season.


Robin Lord Taylor and Brandon Flynn in Kowalski. Photo by Russ Rowland.
Robin Lord Taylor and Brandon Flynn in Kowalski. Photo by Russ Rowland.

Kowalski, The Duke on 42nd Street
In performances

Before A Streetcar Named Desire opens Off-Broadway this spring (more on that in a moment), a new play about playwright Tennessee Williams and original Streetcar star Marlon Brando’s first meeting has premiered at The Duke on 42nd Street. The new play stars Robin Lord Taylor (Gotham) as Williams and Brandon Flynn (13 Reasons Why) as Brando.


Liberation, Laura Pels Theatre
In Performances

Ahead of directing the highly anticipated Broadway premiere of The Last Five Years, Tony Award nominee Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding) is helming the world premiere of Tony Award nominee Bess Wohl’s Liberation. The production describes the new play as “a provocative, revealing, and irreverent jolt of a play about what really goes on when women meet behind closed doors.”


 

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Urinetown, New York City Center
Performances begin February 5

For the first time since ending its Tony Award–winning run in 2004, Urinetown is returning to New York. The musical, which takes place in a dystopian world where one must pay to pee, features a cast of theater favorites, including Jordan Fisher, Christopher Fitzgerald, and Keala Settle. The production also marks a return to the stage for Rainn Wilson of The Office. Urinetown is part of New York City Center’s annual Encores! series, which will also include productions of Love Life and Wonderful Town this spring.


Ghosts, Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre
Performances begin February 13

A stacked cast is leading a new production of Ibsen’s Ghosts Off-Broadway. Under the direction of Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien, the cast will feature Ella Beatty, Billy Crudup, Levon Hawke, Hamish Linklater, and Lily Rabe. The production describes Ghosts as “a devastating moral thriller in which ideas of love, duty, and family are mercilessly put to the test.” This new version of the play is penned by Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe.


The Jonathan Larson Project, Orpheum Theatre
Performances begin February 14

Never-heard-before work from the late Jonathan Larson, best known for creating RENT and tick, tick…BOOM!, is being performed Off-Broadway this spring. The Jonathan Larson Project, conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper and directed by John Simpkins, features more than 20 undiscovered songs by the Pulitzer- and Tony Award–winning writer. Among the cast bringing this to the stage are Adam Chanler-Berat, Taylor Iman Jones, Lauren Marcus, Andy Mientus, and Jason Tam.


All Nighter, The Newman Mills Theater in The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space
Performances begin February 25

Kristine Froseth (The Buccaneers), Tony Award nominee Kathryn Gallagher (Jagged Little Pill), Tony Award nominee Julia Lester (Into the Woods), Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms), and Alyah Chanelle Scott (The Sex Lives of College Girls) are the buzzy cast members of the upcoming world-premiere play All Nighter by Natalie Margolin. Taking place during the week of finals at a small liberal-arts college in rural Pennsylvania, a group of roommates pull an all-nighter to complete assignments, and “the truths that bind this group together are put to the test.”


We Had a World, NY City Center Stage II
Performances begin February 25

Tony Award winner Johanna Gleason (Into the Woods) and Andrew Barth Feldman (Dear Evan Hansen, No Hard Feelings) return to the stage this spring in We Had a World, a new play by Joshua Harmon (Prayer for the French Republic, Significant Other). As described by the production, Feldman’s character writes a play re-creating “30 years of family fights, monstrous behavior, enormous cruelty, and enduring love” at the request of his dying grandmother, played by Gleason.


Patsy Ferran and Paul Mescal in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by Marc Brenner.
Patsy Ferran and Paul Mescal in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by Marc Brenner.

A Streetcar Named Desire, BAM Harvey Theater
Performances begin February 28

Rebecca Frecknell’s (Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club) Olivier Award–winning production of A Streetcar Named Desire is leaping across the pond this spring. Much of the anticipation for this revival of the Tennessee Williams classic is due to its leading man, Paul Mescal. The rising Hollywood actor and recent star of Gladiator II will make his New York stage debut in the role of Stanley Kowalski, reprising a performance that earned him the Olivier Award for Best Actor. The five-week limited engagement is already proving to be the hottest ticket of the spring.


Wine in the Wilderness, Classic Stage Company
Performances begin March 6

After starring in the recent Broadway production of Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress, Tony Award–winning actress and producer LaChanze will make her New York directorial debut this spring with a new production of Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness. Set against the backdrop of the 1964 Harlem riot on a hot summer night, the play’s cast includes Olivia Washington, Grantham Coleman, Brooks Brantly, Lakisha Michelle May, and Milton Craig Nealy.


Andrew Scott in Vanya.
Andrew Scott in Vanya. Photo by Marc Brenner.

Vanya, Lucille Lortel Theatre
Performances begin March 11

Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers, Fleabag) takes the Off-Broadway stage this spring in a new adaptation of Chekhov’s masterwork, Uncle Vanya, which he co-created with adaptor Simon Stephen. The Sam Yates–directed production, in which Scott plays all the roles, won the Olivier Award for Best Revival in 2024.


Amber Iman in Lempicka.
Amber Iman in last year’s Lempicka. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

Goddess, The Public Theater
Performances begin April 29

Fresh off her standout performance in last year’s Lempicka which earned her a Tony nomination, Amber Iman returns to the New York musical stage in Goddess. Making its New York premiere at the historic Public Theater, the new musical revolves around a mysterious singer who casts a spell on the patrons of an Afro-jazz club in Mombasa, Kenya. Conceived and directed by Tony Award nominee Saheem Ali (Buena Vista Social Club, Fat Ham), Goddess features music and lyrics by Michael Thurber, a book by Tony Award nominee Jocelyn Bioh (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding), and choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie.


In case you missed it, make sure to check out Broadway Direct’s Broadway Spring Preview.