the last five years – Broadway's Best Shows

Musicals Coming to Broadway This Spring

There is a slew of new musicals headed to Broadway this season. With thriving revivals already in performances like Sunset Boulevard and Once Upon a Mattress alongside Broadway first-timers like Maybe Happy Ending and Tammy Faye, the fall season is already well underway. Elf will come knocking in time for the holidays, with Swept Away, Death Becomes Her, and Gypsy to open and join the fray before New Year’s Day.

Let’s look ahead here to 2025, where an astonishing 11 musicals are currently scheduled to begin performances:

Redwood

Idina Menzel will return to Broadway in Redwood, a deeply personal new musical directed and co-written by Tina Landau, premiering at the Nederlander Theatre. This production explores the journey of Jesse, a seemingly successful woman who embarks on a transformative road trip through the forests of Northern California after her personal life begins to unravel. Previews begin January 24, 2025, with the official opening on February 13, 2025.

Buena Vista Social Club

This new musical will transport audiences to 1950s Havana, where a group of musicians create a revolutionary sound, only to be disrupted by the Cuban Revolution. Decades later, they reunite to record an album that becomes a world music sensation. Directed by Saheem Ali with choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, the show blends Afro-Cuban rhythms with a story of survival, redemption, and music’s lasting power. Previews begin at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on February 21, 2025, with an official opening set for March 19, 2025

Operation Mincemeat

This Olivier Award-winning musical makes its Broadway debut at the Golden Theatre in 2025. Set in 1943 during World War II, it tells the absurd and true story of a British intelligence operation that used the corpse of a homeless man to deceive the Nazis. Known for blending farce with espionage thrills, the musical is written and performed by the UK comedy group SpitLip. Directed by Robert Hastie with choreography by Jenny Arnold, it begins previews on February 15, 2025, and officially opens on March 20, 2025.

BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical

This vibrant new musical brings the iconic cartoon flapper Betty Boop to life on Broadway, with previews starting March 11, 2025, and an official opening set for April 5 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell (known for hits like Kinky Boots and Legally Blonde), and featuring a score by Grammy-winner David Foster, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and a book by Bob Martin, the show explores Betty’s whimsical journey from her black-and-white world to the colorful streets of New York City, where she embarks on an adventure of self-discovery.

The Last Five Years

Jason Robert Brown’s beloved musical The Last Five Years will make its long-awaited Broadway debut in 2025, with Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren leading the cast. Directed by Whitney White, this limited engagement will run at the Hudson Theatre. Previews begin on March 18, 2025, and the official opening is set for April 6, 2025. The musical chronicles a couple’s five-year relationship, told from two perspectives: Jamie’s story moves forward in time, while Cathy’s unfolds in reverse. With its intricate structure and emotional score, this production promises a fresh, heartfelt take on a fan-favorite story. The run is scheduled to conclude on June 22, 2025.

Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends

This musical revue, celebrating the legacy of Stephen Sondheim, will arrive on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Previews begin March 25, 2025, and the official opening follows on April 8, 2025. The production features an all-star cast, including Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, reprising their acclaimed roles from the West End. Additional cast members include Beth Leavel, Gavin Lee, and Ryan McCartan, among others.

Smash

The Broadway adaptation of the NBC series Smash will begin previews at the Imperial Theatre on March 11, 2025, with its official opening on April 10, 2025. This musical takes audiences behind the scenes of the fictional production Bombshell, chronicling the chaotic journey of creating a Marilyn Monroe musical. The production is helmed by director Susan Stroman and features a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, known for their work on Hairspray. Robyn Hurder and Caroline Bowman lead the cast, promising high-energy performances and a love letter to Broadway itself.

Floyd Collins

The long-anticipated Broadway debut of Floyd Collins, a musical by Adam Guettel and Tina Landau, will open at the Vivian Beaumont Theater under the direction of Landau. Previews start on March 27, 2025, with an official opening on April 21, 2025. This production marks a milestone in Lincoln Center Theater’s 40th-anniversary season. The musical, featuring a haunting score by Guettel, first premiered Off-Broadway in 1996 and has since developed a devoted following. The upcoming Broadway staging will revive the original creative vision while introducing new design elements for a contemporary audience

Just In Time

The upcoming musical Just In Time will feature Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff as the legendary singer Bobby Darin. Directed by Alex Timbers, this immersive production will transport audiences to an intimate nightclub setting, complete with a live band performing Darin’s greatest hits. Previews begin on March 28, 2025, at Circle in the Square Theatre, with the official opening on April 23, 2025.

The Pirates of Penzance

A new revival of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance will debut on Broadway at the Todd Haimes Theatre. Directed by Scott Ellis, with choreography by Warren Carlyle, this updated production will feature a jazzy, New Orleans-inspired setting, bringing fresh rhythms to the beloved operetta. The show stars Ramin Karimloo as the Pirate King and David Hyde Pierce as the Major General. Previews begin April 4, 2025, with the official opening set for April 25. The limited run will continue through June 22, 2025.

Real Women Have Curves: The Musical

Real Women Have Curves: The Musical will premiere on Broadway at the James Earl Jones Theatre this spring. Previews are scheduled to begin on April 1, 2025, with an official opening night set for Sunday, April 27, 2025. This musical adaptation of the beloved play and film will explore themes of body positivity, family dynamics, and cultural identity. It follows a group of Latina women working in a Los Angeles garment factory, finding strength and pride in their shared experiences.

Two People and Limitless Possibilities: Why the two-hander is so resilient on Broadway and beyond

“When she’s around him, her mind dilates.” That’s how Adam Rapp describes Bella, the college literary professor in his play The Sound Inside who develops a life-changing connection with a student named Christopher. In the show, which opened on Broadway last fall, the pair’s banter about novels and academia evolves into a spiritual bond so intense that during the shocking final moments, they reveal the deepest parts of themselves.

Mary-Louise Parker and Will Hochman in The Sound Inside on Broadway

“It’s kind of metaphysical,” Rapp says. “He walks into her world and wants to throw himself into the fire of great art, and she’s inspired by him, because she’s lost that passion. There’s an element of her seeing who she was and him seeing who he wants to be.”

Crucially, Bella and Christopher don’t see anyone else, at least not on stage. The Sound Inside was one of the season’s most notable two-handers (or play for two actors), a form that has proven to be one of the most resilient in modern theatre.

On Broadway alone, two-handers like The Fourposter and Red have won the Tony Award for Best Play, while Talley’s Folley and Topdog/Underdog earned the Pulitzer Prize in the midst of their runs. Two-handers also led to Tony Award-winning, breakout roles for Anne Bancroft (Two for the Seesaw) and Nina Arianda (Venus in Fur) and earned Tony nominations for Ruth Wilson (Constellations) and Diana Sands (in a production of The Owl and the Pussycat that famously broke the color barrier in 1964).

And that doesn’t even account for two-hander musicals. I Do! I Do!, adapted from The Fourposter, is arguably the most notable example on Broadway, running for over 500 performances in the 1960s. And titles like The Last Five Years, John and Jen, Goblin Market, and Murder for Two have made two-person tuners part of the Off-Broadway landscape for decades.

But why? What is it about this type of show that’s so appealing?

Sometimes it’s a practical choice. “When I was coming up, a lot of playwrights would talk about things like unit sets and small casts, because you’d be more likely to be produced,” says Rapp. “It was more cost efficient.” He wrote Blackbird, his first two-hander, after downtown theatre troupe Mabou Mines gave him a grant to experiment with directing his own work. Company founder Lee Breuer encouraged him to cut his teeth on something straightforward, so he wrote a play about a troubled couple trying to survive in a dank apartment.

What started as professional prudence, however, led Rapp to some deeper reasons a two-hander can work.

“It forces you to ask really in-depth questions about the characters,” he says. “You have to keep finding reasons for them to stay together. And those questions — ‘Who’s in love with who?’, ‘Who wants to hurt whom?’ — feel more feral because two people are stuck in a room together.”

Lauren Gunderson says the form crackles with energy, and she should know. Her two-handers like I and You and The Half-Life of Marie Curie have helped her become America’s most produced living playwright. (That’s according to the record-keepers at TCG, who note that despite not having a Broadway credit, she has had an incredible number of regional productions in the last few years.) Speaking of two-handers, she says, “When you only have two people, then you know that something is going to happen between them. You can’t think, ‘Well, I don’t know. Who’s the story about?’ It can only be about these people, so for us in the audience, part of the excitement comes from wondering where we’re going with them.”

As an actor, Mary-Louise Parker has experienced that excitement firsthand. Her two-hander credits include the Broadway productions of The Sound Inside (with co-star Will Hochman) and Simon Stephens’ play Heisenberg (with co-star Denis Arndt). She says both created an unparalleled sense of urgency. “It’s risky because you’re so dependent on that other person,” she explains. “It’s like life. If you’re stuck somewhere with one other person, it’s risky, but it’s wonderful because it forces you to create a real closeness. And when it’s working, the audience feels that, too.”

Many two-handers are potent because of how they wield the dynamic between the people on stage. In Edward Albee’s A Zoo Story and Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman, for instance, seemingly banal interactions in public places escalate to horrific violence. In ‘night Mother (another Pulitzer Prize winner), Marsha Norman exploits our assumption that a woman can’t be serious when she enters the play and tells her mother she’s going to kill herself.

Kathy Bates and Anne Pitoniak in the original Broadway production of ‘night Mother

Sometimes, a two-hander pulls us out of reality altogether. Take Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, in which two actors play eight characters in a camp satire about monsters run amok on a posh estate. “That play lets the audience enjoy the impossibility of what they’re seeing,” says Catherine Sheehy, Resident Dramaturg of Yale Repertory Theatre. It would be much less satisfying with eight actors, she notes, because that wouldn’t let us savor how the performers (and the playwright) create so many people with so few bodies.

“There’s tension and conflict just in the act of performing it. And it turns theatrical tradition on its head, because it refuses to let us associate one body with one character.”

That underscores how challenging a two-hander can be for the actors. “I have never had another job that called on me to do as much as that one did,” says Jeff Blumenkrantz, who played a collection of suspects in Murder for Two during its extended Off-Broadway run in 2013 and 2014. “The challenge really hit me in rehearsal. I was on stage the whole time, so for the entire eight-hour rehearsal day, I was required to fire on all cylinders. It was exhausting, but it was also really rewarding. Whatever was happening on stage, I knew for a fact that I was contributing to it.”

Brett Ryback and Jeff Blumenkrantz in Murder For Two

For Parker, the primary effort comes in staying connected with her co-star. “You have to keep the energy between two people really taut,” she says. “It’s like somebody at the top of a mountain dangling a rope: You can’t let go. I think of it being that intense.”

While performing in The Sound Inside, she was especially fascinated by the interplay between Bella’s monologues to the audience and her intense scenes with Christopher, who never addresses anyone but her. “There were some moments when I actually felt like I was in two places at once,” she recalls. “I was with him and with [the audience], talking to them. I was still working on that quite actively when the play ended, and I would just die to get the chance to do it again.”

And there it is again: The reminder that two-handers, these seemingly small theatrical jewels, can feel enormous. Just like a relationship with another person, the best ones can create an intimacy that dilates our minds.

Mark Blankenship is the founder and editor of The Flashpaper and the host of The Showtune Countdown on iHeartRadio Broadway.