Frontmezzjunkies reports: The Top 25+ Stage Shows of 2025
By Ross
Every year, I find myself looking back across stages—big Broadway houses, adventurous Off-Broadway spaces, the bold new work coming out of Toronto, and the luminous gems tucked into the Ontario theatre festivals—and I marvel at just how far the art form can stretch. The borders between these theatrical worlds feel thinner than ever. A play that starts on a small stage in Toronto can shake me as deeply as a mega-revival on Broadway. A radical reinterpretation at an Ontario Festival theatre can echo unexpectedly against something simmering off-Broadway. This year, 2025, felt particularly rich—full of shows that dared to rethink form, wrestle with history, and reconnect us to tenderness, joy, and danger in ways I didn’t see coming.
So what follows is not just a ranking, but a constellation: productions that moved me, challenged me, startled me, or made me fall a little harder in love with theatre’s messy brilliance. The order is almost meaningless, unlike the productions themselves. And I am seeing a bunch of shows in London, England, before the end of the year, including the Bridge Theatre‘s Into the Woods revival, the West End revival of All My Sons, Menier Chocolate Factory‘s Fallen Angels, and the National Theater‘s productions of The Importance of Being Earnest, End, and The Playboy of the Western World. So I might sneak in and add one into the mix before the clock strikes midnight on the 31st of December. And, on any given day, I might reshuffle the list, but my number one would almost certainly remain unchanged. Mainly because it moved me so surprisingly, and cut to the heart of everything I’m feeling these days, and for that, I’m truly thankful.
Here they are, FrontMezzJunkies’ Top 25+ Stage Shows of 2025—a year that reminded me again and again why I keep walking into dark rooms to watch stories come to life, live and in person.
1. Off-Broadway/Broadway’s Liberation
Liberation’s Broadway transfer not only preserves but expands the emotional and political power, capturing the fierce intimacy that made Bess Wohl’s play such a revelation Off-Broadway. It now radiates outward “with even greater resonance, with a raised fist to the sky.” Anchored by a remarkable performance from Susannah Flood, whose narrator feels so honest “we hardly could believe it is scripted,” the production preserves its incisive, time-bending structure while giving the story room to breathe and reach a larger audience. The ensemble remains spectacular, blending humour, exhaustion, and determination into something profoundly human, and the design elements continue to vibrate “in perfect harmony” with the play’s emotional core. Ultimately, Liberation is still, at its heart, “a memory play about inheritance and the question of regret,” and on Broadway, it feels even more urgent, personal, and undeniably universal. The most powerful theatrical uprising I witnessed onstage this year.
Click here to read my review.
2. Broadway’s Ragtime
Broadway’s Ragtime revival at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre is a “breathtaking and deeply resonant” production that feels both epic in scope and piercingly intimate in its emotional power. The show’s stripped-down staging allows the music and performances to live and breathe, so that the cast’s humanity – from Joshua Henry to Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz – becomes the anchor of a sprawling narrative rooted in “lived truth.” Its rotating staging and evocative design transform history into a vivid present moment, insisting that audiences confront America’s unresolved conflicts of race, class, and hope. Ultimately, this Ragtime doesn’t just revive a beloved musical — it makes its urgent relevance felt anew and “refuses to look away from the messy work of dreaming and remembering.”
Click here to read my review, and also click here to read a companion piece, Why Ragtime Matters Now: A Reflection on Revival and Resonance, written by my brilliant plus-one companion.
3. Broadway’s Oedipus & Spontaneous Theatre’s Goblin:Oedipus in Canada
Robert Icke’s political reimagining of Oedipus on Broadway is a breathtaking and unflinching tragedy that feels urgently alive in the present moment, with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville delivering performances of astonishing depth and precision. Icke’s razor-sharp adaptation strips the myth’s classical distance and deposits it inside a contemporary political maelstrom where ambition, ego, and self-deception are rendered with devastating clarity. The production’s design, from lighting to sound to video, works in seamless concert to pull the audience face-first into the psychological spiral of inevitability that defines Oedipus’s downfall. In a season filled with bold reinterpretations, this Oedipus stands out for the way it doesn’t just retell the myth but reclaims its emotional core, making it feel immediate, human, and inescapably powerful.
Click here to read my review of the Broadway production.
Goblin:Oedipus is a riotous, razor-smart theatrical experience in which three mischievous creatures gleefully dismantle the classic myth through chaos, humor, and joyful disruption. Rejecting reverence in favor of play, the production blends slapstick, improvisation, and audience engagement into something that feels less like a performance and more like a shared ritual of myth-making. Beneath the anarchy, surprising emotional clarity emerges, revealing a deep empathy for the story’s human core. Even in its most gleefully unruly moments, this Oedipus reminds us that the myth survives not through solemnity, but through reinvention.
And click here for the Spontaneous Theatre production.
4. Broadway’s John Proctor Is the Villain
John Proctor is the Villain is a fiercely intelligent and electrifying new Broadway play that takes Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and refracts it through the vivid, combustible energy of a suburban high school honors class, creating a production that “feels like theatre shot through with defiance and heat.” Under Kimberly Belflower’s sharp writing and Danya Taymor’s bold direction, the play ignites issues of power, feminism, and perception with the same intensity as the chaos and clarity of youth, rock music, and rebellion, making every moment feel urgent and alive. The ensemble, led by an extraordinary Sadie Sink and anchored by a compelling group of young performers, brings authenticity, humour, and emotional fire to the stage, turning introspection into a collective roar and reminding us that “the personal is political until it is performance.” In its balance of ideas, design, and performance, John Proctor is the Villain doesn’t just revisit a classic; it makes its questions feel lived, urgent, and deeply, vividly charged.
Click here to read my review.
5. Stratford Festival’s Anne of Green Gables and Annie in Ontario, Canada
Both Annie and Anne of Green Gables at the Stratford Festival, Canada capture a rare theatrical alchemy: stories rooted in resilience and hope that feel both familiar and freshly illuminated on stage.
I walked into Anne of Green Gables as a blank slate, unfamiliar with the book or its screen incarnations, only to be utterly charmed by a production that is inventive, emotionally true, and endlessly engaging. Kat Sandler’s delightful adaptation and direction, supported by a stellar creative team, transform Montgomery’s beloved tale into a theatrical experience that feels both fresh and heartfelt. Caroline Toal’s luminous portrayal of Anne, paired with an ensemble that brings warmth, humor, and earnest imagination to every moment, makes the story feel living and immediate. What began as an underestimated family show becomes one of the most thoroughly enchanting and unexpectedly moving experiences of the season.
Click here to read my review.
And I also must admit that I arrived at Annie with similar hesitant expectations, only to be swept up by a production that feels like pure theatrical joy, anchored by Harper Rae Asch’s radiant performance and a thrilling ensemble of orphans who sing and dance with dazzling energy. Under Donna Feore’s assured direction and with design elements that bring New York and Hooverville vividly to life, the show balances heart and spectacle in a way that feels both nostalgic and electrifying. Laura Condlln’s deliciously exasperated Miss Hannigan and the company’s collective exuberance keep the production buoyant from the first “Hard Knock Life” to the final curtain. Ultimately, what could have been merely cute becomes a gloriously entertaining, deeply satisfying musical event that resonates far beyond its family-friendly surface.
Click here to read my review.
6. NYTW’s Saturday Church Off-Broadway
Saturday Church at New York Theatre Workshop is a gloriously alive celebration of love, defiance, and community, one that feels equal parts sanctuary and nightclub as its gospel-infused energy washes over the audience. Bryson Battle’s luminous portrayal of Ulysses anchors the show’s exploration of identity, exclusion, and yearning with a voice that soars and scenes that connect across lived experience, while J. Harrison Ghee’s irresistible Black Jesus lifts the production with charismatic, flamboyant joy. Though some structural moments waver, the astonishing collection of songs, dynamic choreography, and electrifying company make the evening feel less like entertainment and more like a rousing testimony of resilience. Ultimately, Saturday Church preaches love in the face of hate and joy in the face of oppression, building a communal, heartfelt musical sermon that demands to be heard and embraced.
Click here to read my review.
7. Off-Broadway’s Prince Faggot
Prince Faggot is a thrilling and audacious Off-Broadway experience, one that blends fairy-tale romance with fierce interrogation of identity, legacy, and belonging. Jordan Tannahill’s writing and Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s direction usher the audience from a cheekily theoretical anthropological opening into a glittering, torrid reimagining of royal rebellion that feels both playful and profoundly human. John McCrea and Mihir Kumar deliver deliriously sharp and deeply sympathetic performances as Prince George and Dev, anchoring the show’s glamor and grit with emotional truth. With bold design, insurgent energy, and a layered exploration of what it costs to claim one’s self in a world that tries to contain us, Prince Faggot becomes an audacious ritual of reclamation that lingers long after the curtain.
Click here to read my review.
8. Broadway’s Little Bear Ridge Road
Little Bear Ridge Road is a quietly brutal and deeply humane theatrical experience, anchored by Samuel D. Hunter’s compassionate excavation of loneliness and connection and Laurie Metcalf’s astonishing, razor-edged performance as an emotionally marooned aunt. The play’s spare staging and stark imagery at the Booth Theatre underscore its thematic focus on isolation and the fragile, awkward attempts at intimacy between two people circling toward connection. Micah Stock and John Drea broaden the emotional palette with raw vulnerability and open-hearted awkwardness, allowing the drama’s tender moments to arrive with surprising force. In its bleak humor and profound tenderness, Little Bear Ridge Road stands as a sharply etched portrait of fear, longing, and the stubborn hope that we might still reach one another across the chasms of solitude. (And the devastating early closing announcement cut deep.)
Click here to read my review.
9. Stratford Festival’s Ransacking Troy in Ontario, Canada
Ransacking Troy is a must-see production at the Stratford Festival that reimagines the Trojan War through a vividly feminist lens, inviting audiences to witness an “altered vantage point to understand Homer’s tale from a less male-dominated perspective.” Erin Shields’s energetic adaptation and Jackie Maxwell’s compassionate direction turn the women of Troy into a fiercely united ensemble that speaks of sacrifice, grief, and the hope of ending ego-fueled war, with Maev Beaty’s radiant Penelope and Irene Poole’s regal Clytemnestra anchoring the narrative with bold presence. The cast delivers a rich tapestry of voices and stories that feels both poetic and sharply candid, navigating “wave after wave of compelling narratives about women from a variety of perspectives.” While the production’s ambitious finale teeters on its “sea legs,” the overall experience is awe-inspiring in its courage, nuance, and unwavering invitation to embrace these women’s stories as central to our cultural consciousness.
Click here to read my review.
10. Coal Mine’s People, Places & Things in Toronto
Coal Mine Theatre’s People, Places & Things is an intoxicating, wildly kinetic plunge into the psyche of addiction, anchored by Louise Lambert’s breathtakingly raw and unrestrained performance as Emma. Under Diana Bentley’s fearless direction and with a strikingly immersive design, the production transforms a familiar rehab narrative into an erratic, hypnotic odyssey that feels anything but typical. The ensemble, particularly Fiona Reid and Farhang Ghajar, provides powerful emotional counterweights that deepen the play’s exploration of pain, denial, and fragile connection. Ultimately, the show hits with both brutality and beauty, leaving audiences immersed in the chaos of dependency while offering glimpses of hope and human resilience.
Click here to read my review.
11. Broadway’s Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) is a small, quietly confident musical that dares to be sincere, funny, and unabashedly human on Broadway’s big stage. Anchored by knockout performances from Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts, the show turns a seemingly simple 24-hour odyssey across New York into a surprising meditation on hope, connection, and emotional vulnerability. Jim Barne and Kit Buchan’s score and book lean into emotional precision, nudging the audience toward a softer, more forgiving worldview without ever depending on a conventional romantic arc. In a season crowded with grand spectacle, this gentle, character-driven musical quietly expands our capacity for hope and proves that tenderness is still theatrical currency.
Click here to read my review.
12. Broadway’s Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat is a brilliantly crafted and hilariously charming Broadway import, transforming a bizarre World War II intelligence plot into an irresistible musical full of sharp satire, inventive staging, and joyful theatricality. The West End-transferred production, with its brilliantly deployed gender-swapping cast and clever ensemble interplay, delivers sharply choreographed comedy and genuinely engaging songs that feel both original and unexpectedly poignant. Jak Malone’s tour-de-force turn and the rest of the cast’s agile performances anchor the show’s momentum, giving emotional depth to an already uproarious narrative. In its perfect blend of historical whimsy, sharp humor, and theatrical ingenuity, Operation Mincemeat not only survives Broadway but thrives, proving its oddball story is a supremely well-cooked theatrical feast.
Click here to read my review.
13. Broadway’s Chess
Chess roars back to Broadway as a high-octane vocal event, less concerned with fixing its famously clunky book than with unleashing the full force of its music. The production understands that the show is “a glorious, high-octane vocal showdown,” leaning into its concert-like instincts that flourish under the direction of Michael Mayer. Anchored by powerhouse performances from Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele, Nicholas Christopher, and Hannah Cruz, the showdown becomes “Chess as competition, not just in plot, but in performance.” In the end, “the plot may occasionally wobble, but the vocals never do,” and that vocal firepower proves strategic, decisive, and completely delicious.
Click here to read my review.
14. Canadian Stage’s Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical in Toronto
Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical is a spirited and wildly entertaining production that relishes theatrical invention and communal joy, offering audiences of all ages a genuinely merry night at the theatre. The show’s exuberant performances, particularly from its ensemble of physical comedians and singers, keep the action brisk, joyful, and genuinely funny without ever veering into the cloying or contrived. With clever staging that invites playfulness and audience engagement, Canadian Stage turns an oft-told tale into a fresh and warmly communal musical adventure. Ultimately, the production proves itself not just family-friendly but family-delightful, celebrating the mischievous heart of theatre with a wink and plenty of heart.
Click here to read my review.
15. Eldritch’s Macbeth: A Tale Told by an Idiot in Toronto (and a nod to Stratford’s production)
Dark, strange, and electrifying, Macbeth: A Tale Told by an Idiot is a wildly inventive and devilishly delightful reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy, one that fuses puppetry, magic tricks, and quicksilver humour with the dark heart of the original story. Eric Woolfe’s singular performance — equal parts madman, storyteller, and puppet-master — spins a richly theatrical cosmos that is both funny and eerily compelling, bending realism with clever theatrical conjuring. While the Stratford Festival’s own inventive production proved revolutionary in its own right, Eldritch’s version astonished in ways I didn’t know theatre could, embracing absurdity without ever undercutting the text’s dark power, from floating daggers to bobble-headed porters and fiendish soundscapes. In its fearless blend of humour, horror, and Shakespearean language, Macbeth: A Tale Told by an Idiot emerges as a thrillingly fresh theatrical trick that captivates and surprises at every turn.
Click here to read my review of the Eldritch production, and here for the Stratford Festival‘s production.
16. NYTW’s Becoming Eve Off-Broadway
Subtle, thoughtful, and emotionally rich, NYTW‘s Becoming Eve at the Abrons Arts Center is a gorgeously rendered, deeply felt exploration of identity, faith, and the harrowing journey toward authenticity, anchored by a powerful performance from Tommy Dorfman and supported by a magnificently soulful ensemble. Emil Weinstein’s thoughtful adaptation of Abby Chava Stein’s memoir blends evocative puppetry, elegant design, and emotional truth to chart Chava’s life from childhood through the brave act of coming out to her ultra-Orthodox family with compassion and grace. The production balances anxiety, humor, and spiritual reckoning, using inventive theatrical language to illuminate both the pain and beauty of transformation. Ultimately, Becoming Eve is a transformational piece of theatre that artfully exposes the cost of pretending and celebrates the courageous act of living one’s truth.
Click here to read my review.
17. Coal Mine’s Waiting for Godot in Toronto (also the Broadway adaptation)
Existential and beautifully austere, Coal Mine Theatre’s Waiting for Godot and Broadway’s revival of the same play reveal the astonishing elasticity of Beckett’s masterpiece, thriving both in intimate immediacy and daring spectacle. Broadway’s production is a “triumph of clever craftsmanship,” using scale, abstraction, and star power to push Beckett’s bleak comedy into bold theatrical territory. Coal Mine’s staging, however, lets “the human pulse through every crack,” where its intimacy makes the waiting feel tactile, funny, and achingly present. Both productions endure as vital thought experiments, but it was Coal Mine’s Godot, raw, bodily, and quietly devastating, that echoed longest.
Click here to read my review of the Coal Mine production. And here for the Broadway production.
18. Talk is Free Theatre’s Cock in Toronto
Sharp, intimate, and emotionally charged, Talk Is Free Theatre’s production of Cock is a ferocious, intimate theatrical encounter that confronts the tangled anxieties of desire, identity, and commitment with both visceral energy and sharp clarity. Jakob Ehman’s central portrayal of John is magnetic and complex, navigating a bewildering sensual wilderness that forces him and the audience to grapple with attraction and self-understanding in a space that feels both raw and alive. Supported by the captivating work of Michael Torontow and the brilliant Tess Benger, the production unearths the play’s emotional and physical tensions with intensity and believable confusion. The play unpacks an overall effect that is thrilling, candid, and fiercely alive, making this production stand tall alongside other acclaimed stagings of Bartlett’s remarkable play.
Click here to read my review.
19. Off-Broadway’s VaNYa
Vanya — Andrew Scott’s astonishing one-man journey through Chekhov’s world — is a masterful blend of intimate theatrical craft and profound emotional resonance, guided by a performer at the absolute height of his powers. Scott’s fearless embodiment of Vanya’s despair, humor, and longing turns the play into a visceral experience that feels both deeply personal and universally reflective. With nimble physicality, linguistic precision, and striking vulnerability, he carries the audience through the shifting emotional terrain of Chekhov’s themes of regret, love, and missed chances. Ultimately, this Vanya stands as one of the most captivating solo performances of recent memory, a production that reminds us why theatre’s simplest settings can hold the richest revelations.
Click here to read my review.
20. Shaw Festival’s Major Barbara & Gnit in Ontario, Canada
In Major Barbara, the production leans fully into Shaw’s moral provocations, becoming “a play that refuses easy answers while daring the audience to interrogate their own values.” The performances and direction sharpen the ideological tension between charity, capitalism, and conscience, allowing the play’s arguments to feel urgent rather than academic. What emerges is a staging that honors Shaw’s wit while exposing the unsettling relevance of his questions in a modern world still governed by money and moral compromise.
Click here to read my review of Major Barbara.
Gnit, by contrast, is a thrilling act of theatrical mischief, “a theatrical experiment that shouldn’t work, and somehow thrillingly does.” Its playful instability and self-interrogating structure turn identity itself into the battleground. By embracing confusion, humor, and contradiction, Gnit becomes less about answers than about the dangerous freedom of asking who we are.
Click here to read my review of Gnit.
21. Broadway’s Buena Vista Social Club
A warm, atmospheric musical that pulsed with rhythm and memory, Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway is irresistible and joyously infectious, filling the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre with the spirit and rhythm of Cuba from the very first chord. The production’s exceptional band and ensemble — led by Marco Paguia and driven by Dean Sharenow’s musical direction — deliver rich, invigorating performances that make the music feel alive in every corner of the space. With Saheem Ali’s keen ear for musicality and a creative team that elevates design and movement, the show becomes less a conventional narrative and more a dazzling, emotional odyssey through sound and memory. Ultimately, this is a musical experience that sweeps you up like a sunset breeze on the Gulf, a must-see celebration of culture, song, and the intoxicating power of live performance.
Click here to read my review.
22. Outside the March’s Performance Review in Toronto
A bold piece of contemporary theatre, OtM‘s Performance Review is a razor-sharp, hilariously incisive theatrical exploration of workplace absurdity that feels both deeply personal and universally recognizable. The show’s clever structure and pointed comedic rhythms turn the work environment into a surreal battleground where power plays and performance anxieties are exposed with precision and wit. Our guide, creator, and performer, Rosamund Small, delivers an energetic, committed performance that elevates the script’s satirical bite while keeping the laughter and connection grounded in real human frustration. Performance Review excels beyond expectation, “whooshing in” most brilliantly, using laughter as both a weapon and balm, while landing squarely in our shared, anxious humanity.
Click here to read my review.
23. Audible’s Mexodus Off-Broadway
Experimental and deeply atmospheric, Mexodus at Audible Theater is a profoundly inventive and emotionally electrifying musical that “explodes onto the stage, enthralling and enlightening all who see it,” turning a little-known chapter of history into compelling, high-impact theatre. Created and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, the two-person, live-looped show uses layered music, poetry, and historical narrative to make audiences feel as though they are running “alongside Robinson, and fully experience the panic of seeing the Rio Grande.” Under David Mendizábal’s infectious direction and with captivating sound design and staging, the production makes this previously untold story resonate with urgency and empathy. In its melding of rhythm, resistance, and personal and historical insight, Mexodus becomes not just a musical journey but a call to remember and reimagine narratives of liberation.
Click here to read my review.
24. Canadian Stage’s Slave Play in Toronto
Provocative, unsettling, and fearless, Canadian Stage’s Slave Play is a production that “doesn’t ask for your comfort, but it does demand your participation and your attention,” confronting audiences with whip-smart, volatile interrogations of race, sexuality, power, and intimacy. Directed with “sharp tactical precision” by Jordan Laffrenier, the staging keeps us “deliciously off-balance,” shifting between re-enactment, fantasy, and therapy-gone-rogue while forcing us to wrestle with how history and desire shape our responses. Standout performances from Sophia Walker, Gord Rand, and the ensemble deepen the play’s emotionally charged exploration of privilege and pain, making the drama feel both absurd and rawly human. In Toronto, the production emphasizes that this isn’t just a U.S. story; it “forces that reckoning forward,” reflecting back our own cultural mirrors with unflinching urgency.
Click here to read my review.
And finally, the Last Entry: #25. 2ST Broadway’s Marjorie Prime
Marjorie Prime is a quietly devastating and deeply resonant Broadway revival that reframes Jordan Harrison’s meditation on memory, loss, and love in a moment when its themes feel uncomfortably close to everyday life. The play “remains a tender and poignant meditation on memory, love, aging, and death,” even as its AI premise “feels newly loaded, and oddly passé,” allowing relevance to seep in rather than clang loudly. June Squibb anchors the piece with warmth and vulnerability, but it is Cynthia Nixon who “locates the sadness and sarcastic aloneness at the center of the play,” giving Tess a combustible emotional edge that defines the production. While the show could push its interrogation of artificial intelligence further, wanting “more discomfort, more risk,” the revival ultimately lands with considerable emotional weight, leaving audiences with the ache of reframed memory and the fear of being forgotten, long after the lights dim.
Click here to read my review.
Honorable mentions? Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s Purpose is one that I would have liked to have added, but I didn’t see another that I wanted to drop. “The buzzing purpose behind Purpose is clear and true, and the language carries a new era of truth and drama onto the Broadway stage. For that, we can be eternally grateful“. The other was Audible Theater’s Dead Outlaw. I did see it, off-Broadway in 2024, and wrote: “It’s an exciting and wonderfully entertaining gallop, thanks to the most excellent band of musicians, creators, actors, and bandits, both alive and dead.” But I didn’t get the opportunity to see it when it opened on Broadway in the spring of 2025. Which is a shame, as “it’s too good to get lost in the back of some closet somewhere. It rightfully deserves the big city spotlight he never found in his lifetime“.
A Note on Film: Check out the films I reviewed this year, mostly from the phenomenal Toronto International Film Festival, which so graciously let me come armed with a press pass and watch and review so many amazing films. My favourite is TIFF50‘s 2025 People’s Choice Award-winning “Hamnet“. Click here to read my review, where “History Breathes, Grief Burns, and Love Soars Higher Than All” thanks to director Chloé Zhao.
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