My fourteenth annual theater gift guide below features links and information on shopping for
theater tickets,
theater subscriptions/memberships,
cast recordings,
play scripts and books about the theater,
and theater on screen
I also suggest some souvenirs and knick-knacks intended as tangible reminders of an evanescent experience.
Also: practical gifts for theater artists.
And, just because it’s Black Friday: Black Friday Deals on Amazon
THEATER TICKETS
Gift cards: Telecharge gift cards , Today Tix gift cards and TKTS gift certificates (the last of which help support a worthy organization) allow the theatergoers on your holiday list to pick their own show to go to (or several shows – depending on how much money you put on the card.)
Some suggest it’s better to give a gift card from Visa or Mastercard,because the theater-specific gift cards charge fees for each show.
If you know what specific show your theater lover would love, or are willing to guess, you can buy tickets for them yourself directly from the show’s website or from the box office. (Broadway 2025-2026 Season Preview Guide.)
I personally would not mind returning to see any of Broadway’s six longest-running shows, and these may be the ideal gift for a budding theater lover who’s never been
THEATER SUBSCRIPTIONS/MEMBERSHIPS
Some non-profit theaters still offer subscriptions or “season packages.” Many have switched to memberships, or flex passes, or simply gift certificates. Whatever form it takes, this is a gift both to your theater lover and to the theater itself, providing much-needed support.
Among the New York City theaters I’ve joined at one time or another, and that I can recommend because they continue to produce some great work and make the theatergoer feel welcome: Brooklyn Academy of Music, which makes it easy to buy a gift membership; Lincoln Center Theater; The Public Theater; Playwrights Horizons;
CAST RECORDINGS
Five albums have been nominated this year for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album:
Buena Vista Social Club
Death Becomes Her
Gypsy
Just In Time
Maybe Happy Ending
Four timely gifts, two of them longtime popular favorites:
Buena Vista Social Club, the original album, Wicked the 2003 original Broadway cast recording, and Wicked the soundtrack from the 2024 movie, and the Wicked: For Good soundtrack from the 2025 movie.
The websites of all four record labels that specialize in theater albums are worth a browse, for their latest offerings, but more for their rich back catalogues:
Broadway Records
Ghostlight/Sh-k-Boom
Masterworks Broadway:
PS Classics:
An evergreen gift for the theater lover who still plays CDs:
Broadway in a Box – The Essential Broadway Musicals Collection — 25 (!) CDs of original cast recordings, from Annie to West Side Story.
BOOKS AND SCRIPTS
Scripts
There are some wonderful evergreen collections of theater scripts. Among my favorites:
August Wilson Century Cycle; American Musicals: The Complete Books and Lyrics of 16 Broadway Classics, 1927-1969 (Library of America); And Library of America editions of The Collected Plays of Arthur Miller and The Collected Plays of Tennessee Williams as well as Adrienne Kennedy: Collected Plays and Other Writings
A more modest gift would be individual scripts of cherished plays. (For ideas check out 50 Best Plays of the Past 100 Years)
There is also a gift subscription to the Broadway Book Club, which sends seven plays (a mix of new and back catalogue Acting Edition scripts) every three months, curated by playwrights like Lauren Gunderson, Anna Ziegler, and Lucas Hnath.
Scripts of plays on Broadway in Spring 2026:
Marjorie Prime by Jordan Harrison.
Bug by Tracy Letts
Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan MacMillan
Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo
Proof by David Auburn
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson
Theater Books
I love the following memoirs, biographies, histories and books of criticism or analysis, some of them going back decades, some published this year.
Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers written with Jesse Green (my review
Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future by James Shapiro (my review)
The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built by Jack Viertel
Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart
Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir by Jeffrey Seller (my review)
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr
Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway by Michael Riedel
Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way by Stewart F. Lane
“Blanche: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation” by Nancy Shoenberger (my review)
Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun by Charles J. Shields (my review)
Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops by Ken Mandelbaum
Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History by Glen Burger)
This Is Not My Memoir by André Gregory (my review)
Lot Six: A Memoir by David Adjmi (my review)
Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris (my review)
Books about Stephen Sondheim have proliferated since his death in 2021. These are the ones I’ve found worthwhile, none more so than his own two-volume collection of lyrics and observations published a dozen years ago.
Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim
The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia by Rick Pender
“Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created ‘Sunday in the Park with George’” by James Lapine (my review)
“Sondheim: HIs Life, His Shows, His Legacy” (my review)
How Sondheim Can Change Your Life (my review)
For the Wicked fan, there is the original novel by Gregory Maguire, the latest edition all gussied up in green; there’s Wicked: Defying Gravity: The Illustrated Lyrics. There is Wicked: The Grimmerie, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Hit Broadway Musical, published 20 years ago.
Not exactly a book but a fun gift is the Playbill Broadway Trivia: 200 Questions for Fans of Musicals, Plays, and Theatre History, each question on a card, with the answerupside down. Sample question: Which playwright won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936 (Hint: Jack Nicholson played him in the 1981 movie Reds.) A. George Bernard Shaw. B. Eugene O’Neill, C.Jean-Paul Sartre. D. Samuel Beckett. Answer: Although all those playwrights have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Eugene O’Neill won it in 1936.
THEATER ON SCREEN
Digital programming has become a part of some theater companies’ regular offerings. But the theater on screen that you can purchase as gifts are the platforms that existed before the pandemic: BroadwayHD, Digital Theatre, and Marquee TV. (A tip: If you have Amazon Prime, a purchase of a subscription to BroadwayHD or Marquee TV through Amazon Prime is less expensive than subscribing directly — in the case of BroadwayHD, less than half the price.)
Throughout the year, the National Theatre Live broadcasts its productions in movie theaters throughout the United States.
For those who would prefer something now considered old-fashioned, the Royal Shakespeare Company sells CDs and DVDs of its productions. The most extravagant offering: The Royal Shakespeare Company Collection with 37 discs of Shakespeare’s plays filmed onstage in his hometown of Stratford-on-Avon.
SOUVENIRS AND KNICK-KNACKS
How about a hat or a it-shirt that says: Eat Sleep Musicals Repeat, Or a Comedy and Tragedy Masks Wall Clock, Or a Shakespeare Twelfth Night Toy Theater.
.The National Theatre gift page for Shakespeare lovers offers magnets and mugs printed with Shakespeare’s insults, a “Shakespeare insult generator,” and both a poster and a tea towel printed with a chart of how each character dies in Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Each Broadway show offers its own branded merchandise: posters, calendars, t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, keychains, umbrellas, magnets, plush toys. You can buy these baubles at the theater itself and in gift shops in the theater district, and online at each show’s website (Here again is my calendar of the Broadway season, with a link to each show’s website.), as well as on a variety of other sites, for example at the Playbill.com store, which is offering a Playbill-branded pet bandannas and pet collar and leash for the canine and feline theater lover in your family.
Christmas ornaments of Playbill covers and Broadway legends (the latest Kristin Chenoweth) are among the most popular items in the online store of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, (proceeds from which help the needy.) As always, Broadway logos are big everywhere theater knick-knacks are sold: Etsy offers quilts and blankets and scarves made of them. So does Printyfly
The Public Theater has an inspired gift idea this year: “a Delacorte Raccoon plush—your cuddly companion and official Free Shakespeare in the Park mascot.” — available for a contribution to the theater of $75 or more.
TDF recommends “SCENERY,” which “gives new life to retired theatrical materials by upcycling them into bags, accessories and home goods, all handmade in the US…. A portion of each sale supports TDF.” So, for example, keychains made out of promotional banners for Phantom of the Opera.
The Al Hirschfeld Foundation has put the famous theater cartoonist’s drawings on everything from books to mugs to t-shirts and tote bags, as well as offering fine art prints.
Shopping for theater gifts can feel like its own rich theatrical experience at the Drama Book Shop, which reopened in 2021 (new co-owner Lin-Manuel Miranda; an account of my first visit), and at the Museum of Broadway, which opened in 2022. (my review: 10 things I learned, 11 rooms I liked.) The book shop sells both in-person and online. The museum, too, has both a gift shop and an online store, selling its own branded apparel, such as a t-shirt printed with a map of the theater district on the front, and a list of all 40 Broadway theaters on the back, as well as sayings from “Moulin Rouge” and “Hamilton”
PRACTICAL GIFTS FOR THEATER ARTISTS
If the theater lover in your life is also a theater artist, they would surely appreciate any of the gifts above, but they could probably also use some practical items, as suggested by the theater-service company OTS:
Actor/dancer essentials: character shoes, tights, leotards, warm-up clothes.
A Beltbox, which muffles singers’ voices when they need to practice full-out … but want to remain respectful to roommates or neighbors.
Rehearsal goodie bag: throat coat tea, Emergen-C, socks, face masks, even a gift certificate to a spa.
Yes, socks can be a theater gift
Black Friday Deals on Amazon
Click on the image: These are not necessarily theater-related.
I may earn a small commission from purchases made at some of the links in this post.
