Two of the best plays I saw this year are closing on Sunday – way too soon, if you ask me. They are reason enough to post this list of shows (seven of them on Broadway) that are closing within the next six weeks, including ten that are closing this weekend!
The shows are listed according to their scheduled closing dates with links to their websites and to my reviews, not all of which are recommendations. I put an asterisk* next to the three I consider must-see.
Closing Sunday, December 21, 2025
*Little Bear Ridge Road (Broadway’s Booth Theater)
The premature closing of this critically acclaimed play is baffling and heartbreaking. It is the latest quietly amusing and powerfully affecting drama by Samuel D. Hunter, a playwright making his long-deserved Broadway debut. Like the many excellent plays I’ve seen Off-Broadway written by Hunter over the past dozen years, all of which are set in Hunter’s native state of Idaho, “Little Bear Ridge Road” somehow transforms what seems to be a simple story about ordinary people – focusing on the warming relationship between Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock as initially estranged aunt and nephew — into a cosmic contemplation of loss and hope. This was one of my favorite plays of 2025. My review.
* The Baker’s Wife (Classic Stage Company)
“The Baker’s Wife” offers dual stories of redemption that make it feel designed for the holidays: There is the fable of all the villagers in a small French town setting aside their petty squabbles to repair their baker’s marriage, thus giving them back their daily bread. Then there is the equally unlikely story of Stephen Schwartz’s 1976 musical that was viewed as an unfixable flop. I found the new production, led by Scott Bakula and Ariana DeBose, so inviting that it’s hard for me to fathom what went wrong half a century ago. My review.
Art (Broadway’s Music Box Theater)
Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris star in a revival of a play about an argument over an all-white painting that gets out of hand. My review.
Oklahoma Samovar (La MaMa)
Spans a century in the lives of one Jewish family. Inspired by the stories that playwright Alice Eve Cohen heard about her own ancestors, My review
The Queen of Versailles (Broadway’s St. James Theater)
Stephen Schwartz’s new musical starring Kristin Chenoweth based on a 2012 documentary about socialite Jacqueline Siegel, whose plan to build a mansion in Florida to rival Versailles went awry. My review.
This World of Tomorrow (The Shed)
A quaint, unremarkable time travel play co-written by and co-starring Tom Hanks. It has its charms; how could it not, when it’s a romance between Hanks and Kelli O’Hara? My review.
(Other shows closing Sunday: The American Soldier , Protest Song, Richard II, The Slide is the Negative)
Closing December 28
Gruesome Playground Injuries (Lucille Lortel Theater)
Kara Young and Nicholas Braun were so much fun to watch in this latest production of Rajiv Joseph’s peculiar play that it hurt. As Kayleen and Doug, they portray friends who are consistently ill or injured over a span of thirty years, from age eight to 38. My review
Closing January 3
Beetlejuice (Broadway’s Palace Theater)
The second return to Broadway of the musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 1988 comic horror movie, which debuted on Broadway in 2019. It has a closing date, but didn’t have an official opening date, which means it avoided reviews although the cast is new. My review of the 2019 production.
Closing January 4
Waiting for Godot (Broadway’s Hudson Theater)
Keanu Reeves makes his Broadway debut co-starring with Alex Winter in Samuel Beckett’s existential tragicomedy about two men , Vladimir and Estragon, endlessly wait for a mysterious figure. My review.
Closing February 1
*Liberation (Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theater)
Bess Wohl’s warm, funny play, about a group of feminists meeting weekly in 1970, looks back at a time when “women’s lib” was neither pejorative nor ironic. The real-life gathering that inspired the consciousness-raising group in the play was led by her mother. “Liberation” is another dramatically inventive play by a writer who has a long list of them, starting (for me) with “Small Mouth Sounds,” which tells the story of six characters at a silent retreat using almost no dialogue. It is the number 1 choice of critics in Top 10 lists of 2025. (Maybe it will be extended again) My review.
Anna Christie (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
It is hard to deny the creaky aura that hangs over “Anna Christie,” which is probably still best known for the play’s adaptation as silent screen star Greta Garbo’s first “talking picture” (“Garbo Talks” was the now legendary marketing slogan) – and that movie was released a full decade after the stage debut. But director Thomas Kail smartly leans into the expressionism from that same era in his production of “Anna Christie,” opening today at St. Ann’s Warehouse; the results are a bracingly muscular stagecraft that helps create electrifying moments. If the acting is uneven, sometimes even indecipherable because of the characters heavy Swedish and Irish accents, the actors led by Michele Williams with a standout performance by Brian d’Arcy James are always watchable. My review.
Mamma Mia (Broadway’s Winter Garden)
The return of the long-running jukebox musical featuring the music of ABBA that tells the story of Sophie, a bride-to-be, secretly inviting three potential fathers to her wedding on a Greek island to discover who her true father is. My review.
Note: I am scheduled to see “Diversion,” which has been extended through January 11, and “Picnic at Hanging Rock” which opens tonight and closes January 17)
