Below is a calendar of selected theater opening* this month in New York, including one Broadway show, Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize winning “English,” which is transferring intact from an earlier Off-Broadway production. The bulk of theatrical fare this month comes from eight annual January theater festivals, for which I’ve created a separate post.

Check out January Theater Festivals 2025: from Dodos to Dictators, Gwyneth Paltrow to Yoko Ono

I also link below to the festivals’ websites on the date when each of the eight festivals launches.

The festivals offer about 100 shows to choose from, although some of them aren’t until February or March. The shows, many of them experimental, generally have shorter runs (usually just a handful of performances) and cheaper tickets. They tend to have shorter running times too.

The calendar below is organized chronologically by opening date*, or first performance, but we must consider the dates subject to change, thanks to the continuing vagaries of COVID-19, and the normal serendipity of live theater.   

Each title below is linked to a relevant website. 

Color key: Broadway: Red 🟥. Off Broadway: Blue 🟦. Off Off Broadway: Green 🟩.

Digital or Hybrid Theater: Yellow 🟨 Theater festival: Orange 🟧. Immersive: Silver ⬜️ . 

Puppetry: Brown 🟫 Opera: Purple🟪 Free 🆓

January 2

🟧Exponential Festival (various venues) until February 2.

🟧The International Fringe Encore Series (SoHo Playhouse) until March 16

January 4

🟧Under The Radar Festival (various venues) until January 19.

January 7

🟩Symphony of Rats (The Wooster Group’s Performance Garage)
An encore production of Richard Foreman’s 1988 cryptic, playful kaleidoscope on power, featuring  a president and many rats
January 7 – February 8

January 9

🟧🟪Prototype Festival (various venues) until January 19

🟧PhysFestNYC (Stella Adler Center) until January 19

🟧🟫Special Effects Festival (Wild Project) until January 11

🟦🆓Many Happy Returns (Playwrights Horizons)
Free encore presentation of this dance version of a memory play. With movement and language, Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri create a shared character, a woman in the middle of her life 
January 9 – 18

🟦Local Singles (Players Theater)
A musical by Nick Navari about the last surviving support group for lonely people, at the local YMCA’
January 9 – February 9

🟩Catching Fireflies (Players Theater)
A new folk musical by Finnigan Faye and Adam Gloc that tells the story of six queer people stuck together in Philadelphia during the 2020 pandemic through the lens of a trans writer coming to terms with his identity.
January 9–26.

January 13

🟩Loud Memory (Out of the Box Theatrics)
Ed Gavagan tells his story, parts of which he has shared over the years at The Moth, of the physical, financial, emotional and spiritual damage that occurred after he was violently assaulted/
January 13 – 26

🟦300 Paintings (Vineyard)
An encore presentation of Australian comedian Sam Kissajukian’s account of his six-month manic period in 2021, when he created 300 large-scale paintings, unknowingly documenting his mental state through the process. (Some of the paintings are in the lobby)
January 13 – February 23, 2025

January 16

🟩Rilke, One Million Words (Torn Page)
 Brazilian actor Ivo Mülle uses his fascination with the Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) to tell the story of a writer who, for nearly a year, struggles to create poetry and can only express himself through letters. An actor uses these letters to navigate his own challenges as an immigrant
January 3 – 25

January 18

⬜️🟧Art Bath (The Blue Building East 46th Street)
Part of Prototype, this one-night-only festival-within-the-festival promises an immersive ride through many disciplines and textures of art, with: “star bass Soloman Howard in an intimate performance; master puppeteer and designer Julian Crouch with Saskia Lane in their work Birdheart; choreographer Annie Rigney with countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, soprano Danielle Buonaiuto, and thereminist Rob Schwimmer, in she was becoming untethered..; sculptor and performance artist Elissavet (Betty) Sfyri in a new work; and a first-time collaboration between contemporary Gnawa collective Saha Gnawa and roller-skating artist Manuela Agudelo Roberts.”

January 19

🟦Grandiloquent (Lucille Lortel)
Comedian Gary Gulman  explores insecurity, empathy, and finding comfort in laughter.
January 7 – February 8

January 21

🟩I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan (Atlantic)
canceled because of stagehand strike
In this play by Mona Pirnot, David Greenspan plays four millennial women in a comedy about how to make a living as a playwright (or to try.) 
January 8 – February 9

January 23

🟥ENGLISH ( Roundabout’s Todd Haimes )
Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an English-language class in Iran. My review of it Off-Broadway. The show transfers to Broadway with the cast intact.
January 3 – March 2

🟦Cymbeline (NAATCO at Lynn F. Angelson Theater)
Andrea Thome’s modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s play about deceit and jealousy involving the British king Cymbeline and his daughter Imogen.
January 18 – February 15

🟩Sheltered (cell theater)
Cate Wiley’s new play offers a kaleidoscopic exploration of women experiencing homeless, through first-hand accounts, characters based on Greek myth, and a foreground story of a volunteer at a homeless shelter, who must face her own anxieties about home and family, as she tries to reconnect with her missing mother.
January 19 – February 9.

🟧The Fire This Time Festival (Wild Project) until February 2

January 27

🎶🟫The Best of Broadway Puppetry (54 Below)
In this one-night-only event, puppeteers from Avenue Q, Life of Pi,  How to Dance in Ohio, Little Shop of Horrors, Disney’s The Lion King, Shrek the Musical, War Horse, Water for Elephants sing their favorite Broadway songs.

🟧Next Stage Festival (Second Stage) until March 10.

January 28

🟦Grief Camp (Atlantic)

canceled because of stagehand strike
In this play by Eliya Smith, half a dozen teenagers gather in a summer camp in Hurt, Virginia to bond and heal, working through their loss. Directed by Les Waters.
January 9 – February 16

*Opening Night

This selection of plays is organized chronologically by opening night, but includes the dates when a show’s run starts and ends (when available.)
Opening night is usually not the same as the first performance on Broadway and Off-Broadway (although it is the same for festivals and most Off-Off Broadway shows ) For Broadway and Off-Broadway, there is usually a “preview period” that can last days or weeks, sometimes months. But professional reviews are forbidden from being published until opening night, which is why I organize this calendar by opening night (when it exists and when I can find it) rather than first performance, as a way to support the continuing relevance of theater reviewing. (Shows that begin previews in January, but officially open next month will be featured in the February calendar.),Check out my essay: Broadway Opening Night. What It Means. How It’s Changed. 7 Facts to Clear Urp The Confusion and Crystallize the Outrage.

What Is Broadway 🟥, Off Broadway 🟦 and Off-Off Broadway🟩?

Off-Broadway theaters, by definition, have anywhere from 100 to 499 seats. If a theater has more seats than that, it’s a Broadway house. If it has fewer, it’s Off-Off Broadway. 
There is a more sophisticated definition, having to do with contracts, and more elaborate distinctions, having to do with ticket prices, number and location of theaters, length of runs, willingness to take artistic risks, etc. Off-Off Broadway tends to have shorter runs and much lower ticket prices
Several performing arts venues in New York City, such as The Shed, Little Island, Park Avenue Armory, NYU Skirball and the Perelman Performing Arts Center, technically exist outside these classifications; I list them as Off-Broadway, even though, for most shows, they have more than 500 seats.