Best Broadway plays in New York

Check out our guide to the best Broadway plays on right now, featuring celebrity stars and time-honored stories that are often on for a limited time only.

Gillian Russo
Written byGillian Russo

Broadway is famous for its long-running hit musicals, its plays are just as exciting. Many successful musicals stick around for decades, but plays regularly rotate, ensuring there's always a new show to discover. Plus, you can often catch celebrities in Broadway plays — but only for a limited time.

Check out the top Broadway plays to see right now, including starry revivals of classic plays and fan-favorite modern hits. And for a limited time only, save on tickets to these shows and more during New York Theatre Guide's Black Friday sale — browse the complete Black Friday sale page.

Need more info on Broadway shows, theatres, and tickets? Be sure to check out our complete guide to Broadway.

Get tickets to a Broadway play on New York Theatre Guide.

Summary

  • Acclaimed Broadway plays in New York include Waiting for Godot; Oh Mary!; Liberation; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Marjorie Prime; and Stranger Things: The First Shadow
1.

Paranormal Activity

2.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

3.

Inter Alia

4.

A Few Good Men

5.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow

6.

Other Desert Cities

7.

Oh, Mary!

8.

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play

9.

The Imaginary Invalid

10.

Downstate

11.

It's a Wonderful Life

12.

Here There Are Blueberries

1.

Paranormal Activity

Horror
Screen to stage

Places aren't always haunted, but people sure are. That's the idea behind Paranormal Activity, the critically acclaimed play inspired by the hit horror film franchise. Following a married couple whose demons are rattling them inside and out, the play was described by our critic as "a white-knuckle experience" and a "solid drama [...] that happens to have exceptional special effects." Prepare to be spooked.

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Paranormal Activity

2.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Iconic show
Family show
Page to stage
Must see

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has put Broadway audiences under its spell since 2018. Harry Potter fans will recognize all their favorite characters, and some new ones, in this stage sequel to the books centered on the next generation of wizards.

And even non-Potterheads are bound to be amazed by the daring plot about time travel and the unbelievable special effects. All together, the performances and stagecraft of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will make you believe magic — or theatre magic, at least — is real.

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Photo credit: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)

3.

Inter Alia

Drama
Stars on stage
Award winner

See Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) make her Broadway debut in Inter Alia, reprising her Olivier Award-winning performance from London as a prominent judge whose life is upended when allegations emerge against her teenage son.

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Inter Alia

Photo credit: Inter Alia in London. (Photo by Manuel Harlan)

4.

A Few Good Men

Drama
Stage to screen
Stars on stage

In 1989, Bradley Whitford and Aaron Sorkin made their Broadway debuts with A Few Good Men, kicking off a long collaboration. Now, Whitford returns to star along Tom Blyth in the first revival of Sorkin's drama about a military lawyer tasked with defending two young Marines accused of murder. Can you handle the truth?

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A Few Good Men

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5.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Popular show
Screen to stage
Drama

Hawkins, Indiana, got turned upside down long before the events of Netflix's Stranger Things. In this theatrical prequel to the hit show, teenage versions of fan-favorite characters deal with the arrival of a newcomer named Henry Creel, who upends all their lives.

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Stranger Things: The First Shadow

6.

Other Desert Cities

Drama
Stars on stage
Award winner

We know Other Desert Cities will be good for five reasons: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe. That, and Jon Robin Baitz's play about a politically prominent family with dark secrets on the verge of exploding was a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist.

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Other Desert Cities

Photo credit: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe (Photos courtesy of production; Louis-Dreyfus photo by Christopher Anderson; Harris photo by O'Shane Howard; Janney photo by Robert Ascroft)

7.

Oh, Mary!

Award winner
Stars on stage
Popular show
Comedy

Search Party's Cole Escola penned this wacky comedy that brings the White House to Broadway following a sold-out Off-Broadway premiere. A rotating lineup of stars play Mary Todd Lincoln — a silly, alcoholic, lustful Mary Todd Lincoln with dreams of being a cabaret star. Her life turns on its head in the weeks leading up to her husband's assassination.

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Oh, Mary!
All comedies

The Book of Mormon

Eugene O'Neill Theatre

Operation Mincemeat

Golden Theatre

Schmigadoon!

Nederlander Theatre

Maybe Happy Ending

Belasco Theatre

Oh, Mary!

Lyceum Theatre

Little Shop of Horrors

Westside Theatre

The Play That Goes Wrong

New World Stages

Tristan & Yseult

St. Ann's Warehouse

Slam Frank

Orpheum Theatre

The Imaginary Invalid

Todd Haimes Theatre

Degenerates

Playwrights Horizons

School Pictures

Cherry Lane Theatre

Drunk Dracula NYC

The Ruby Theatre

Ghost Notes

The Royal Family Performing Arts Space

8.

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play

Comedy
Stars on stage
Award winner

Class is back in session at School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, returning to NYC almost a decade after two hit Off-Broadway runs. The years haven't dulled the sting of Jocelyn Bioh's comedy about a teenage Ghanaian queen bee vying to be Miss Ghana 1986 — if a new American transfer student doesn't steal her throne first.

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School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play

Photo credit: Jasmine Amy Rogers, Denée Benton, and Patina Miller. (Rogers photo by Nicole Wilson; Benton photo by Monica Schipper; Miller photo by Victoria Stevens)

9.

The Imaginary Invalid

Comedy
Classic
Stars on stage

See The Odyssey's Bill Irwin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator Rachel Bloom, and more in a new adaptation of Molière's classic comedy that will have you in stitches. The antics center on Argan, a hypochondriac whose plan to secure free healthcare by marrying his daughter to a doctor doesn't go as prescribed.

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The Imaginary Invalid

10.

Downstate

Drama
Stars on stage

Bruce Norris knows how to write a play that gets people talking. In the early 2010s, he was a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner for Clybourne Park, and he now returns to Broadway for the first time since with Downstate. Acclaimed in Chicago and London, and off Broadway in 2022, the drama is set at a group home for convicted child sex offenders and asks where to draw the line between retribution and redemption, and when — or if — the punishment can ever be enough for people who've done the unthinkable.

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Downstate

11.

It's a Wonderful Life

Drama
Classic
Holiday
Stars on stage
Screen to stage

It's a Wonderful Life has never been on Broadway before, but you can't go wrong with one of the most beloved holiday stories of all time. The movie is being reimagined as a live radio play with classic Christmas music and a starry cast including Lisa Rinna (Days of Our Lives, Melrose Place, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), Harry Hamlin (Clash of the Titans), Andrew Rannells (The Book of Mormon, Girls), Tituss Burgess (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Oh, Mary!), and Megan Hilty (Wicked, Death Becomes Her).

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It's a Wonderful Life

Photo credit: Lisa Rinna, Harry Hamlin, Andrew Rannells, Tituss Burgess, and Megan Hilty. (Photos courtesy of production; Hamlin photo by Tony Duran; Rannells photo by Emil Cohen; Burgess photo by Nina Duncan; Hilty photo by Tony Matula of MA2LA)

12.

Here There Are Blueberries

Drama
True story
Award winner

A 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Here There Are Blueberries dramatizes the true story of a Nazi-era photo album, the Holocaust museum it was donated to, and the national ethical debate that erupted over its display — or concealment. The docudrama, compiled from transcripts of real interviews, is the latest work from the artists behind The Laramie Project.

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Here There Are Blueberries

Photo credit: Here There Are Blueberries off Broadway. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)