Below is a calendar of selected theater opening* this month in New York, including one Broadway show, “Bug” by Tracy Letts, a mixed-reality play starring Ian McKellen, and the return of the wit of Dorothy Parker delivered by a quartet of the funniest ladies in New York.
The bulk of theatrical fare this month comes from 100 or so shows at the six annual January theater festivals, for which I’ve created a separate post.
Check out January Theater Festivals 2026, on which you’ll see a wide range of shows, most with very brief runs (sometimes a single performance): “Beckett and Kabuki; a campy Princess Diana and an outraged Anita Hill; a wordless, clothes-less “visual poem” and a deafening “post-rock opera”; a ten-minute play about a Superhero League, and a 12-hour unscripted piece performed in shifts by 30 non-actor workers of New York City.”
I also link below to the festivals’ websites on the date when each of the six festivals launches.
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.
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/site-specific: Silver ⬜️ .
Puppetry: Brown 🟫 Opera: Purple🟪
January 3
🟧The Exponential Festival
The 11th annual edition of this festival presents 24 shows at nine Brooklyn venues over 36 days.
January 3 – February 7
🟧2026 International Fringe Encore Series
The festival scouts fringe festivals from around the world, and presents the shows anew. This year there are 15 shows in this encore series, nine of them having originated at the Edinburgh Fringe.
January 3 – March 29
January 7
🟧Under The Radar Festival
The oldest and largest of the January theater festivals, now in its 21st edition, is offering 32 shows in some two dozen venues
January 7 – 25
🟧Prototype Festival
The thirteenth season of this unconventional opera festival will present seven pieces and concerts in six locations.
January 7 – 18
🟩Prudence Play or Sister Prudence Is Not Gay! (The Flea)
Caroline Dunn stars in her solo show (which debuted at Edinburgh Fringe last summer) about a nun waking up to feelings for a fellow sister, wrestling with her every belief, and confessing a lot.
January 7 – 11
January 8
🟥Bug (MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater)
Written by Tracy Letts and directed by David Cromer, with Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood.
An unexpected and intense romance between a lonely waitress (Coon) and a mysterious drifter (Smallwood) in a seedy Oklahoma motel room twists into something far more dangerous. This is a transfer of a recent Steppenwolf production of Letts’ 1996 play.
Closing February 8
🟪Sima and E.G. (Theater for the New City)
Two operas by Leonard J. Lehrman. In “Sima,” a wealthy couple adopt a poor Jewish girl who has been orphaned by a pogrom in 1905 Ukraine; it doesn’t go smoothly. “E.G.” is a music-theater biography of Emma Goldman, set in 1933, when she defends her life as an anarchist, activist, and revolutionary thinker in an attempt to re-enter the America that had deported her in 1919
January 8-25
🟫Packrat The Quest por la Abundancia (Dixon Place)
A puppet play about a hoarding rodent named Bud who, along with his new friend Amoz, a jackrabbit from the Comcáac territory, embark on a quest through a barrage of natural disasters.
January 7 – 23
🟧PhysFestNYC
The third annual PhysFestNYC once again describes itself as a physical theater festival (which means “Dance Theater, Commedia dell’arte, Clown, Mime, Butoh, Mukabhinaya, and limitless genre-mixing or -defying styles.”) There are 20 shows at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts.
January 8 – 18
January 9
🟪Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera)
Puccini’s poignant tale of a loyal geisha and a callous American naval officer. The return of Anthony Minghella’s production features Ailyn Pérez and Sonya Yoncheva making their Met role debuts as Cio-Cio-San, one of opera’s ultimate soprano roles, and tenors SeokJong Baek, Adam Smith (in his Met debut) and Matthew Polenzani as Pinkerton
January 9 -March 28
🟩Juxtapose: A Theatrical Shadow Box (Happenstance at 59e59)
Eccentric characters trying to coexist in a magical-realist tenement building during the sixth mass extinction have their lives interrupted and illuminated by a human shooting star who crash-lands through their roof.
January 7 – 25
January 11
🟦The Opening (Players Theater)
“The second most famous musical about chess” by the musical writing team Brooke Di Spirito and Mateo Chavez Lewis tells the story of a 17-year-old chess prodigy, facing the greatest player in the world:, who hatches an unconventional plan to cheat.
January 8 – February 8
January 15
🟩Finding Dorothy Parker (Laurie Beechman Theater)
Julie Halston, Ann Harada, Jackie Hoffman, and Anika Larsen star in the return engagement of this revue and tour of the legendary writer’s razor-sharp wit, compiled and directed by Douglas Carter Beane
January 15 – 22
🟦The Disappear (Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater)
In this comedy written and directed by Erica Schmidt, Hamish Linklater and Miriam Silverman portray a power couple who see their picture-perfect life go gloriously off script. Dylan Baker is also in the cast.
January 8 – February 15
🟩Always Young (Theater for the New City)
A British rock musical exploring school life in the 1980s
January 15 – February 1
January 18
🟦The Bookstore (NJ Rep at 59e59)
This play by Michael Walek focuses on a struggling New York indie bookstore owner and her found family of coworkers who unite over their passion for literature.
January 21
🟨⬜️An Ark (The Shed)
Ian McKellen leads a cast of four – none of whom appear in person – in this lyrical meditation on the human condition, from childhood to first love to parenting to death, in just 47 minutes. McKellen, along with Golda Rosheuvel, Arinzé Kene and Rosie Sheehy “appear” in “mixed reality glasses” to speak directly to each audience member, in this play written by Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), directed by Sarah Frankcom, conceived and produced by mixed reality pioneer Todd Eckert,
January 9 to March 1, 2026
⬜️Edward (various independent bookstores)
Playwright/performer Ed Schmidt’s solo show tells the story of the life of Edward O’Connell through each of the 27 items that were in a box when O’Connell died, from a Nader/LaDuke campaign button to a heavily annotated copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Schmidt’s opening night performance is at Rizzoli Bookstore in Chelsea, then moves to Powerhouse in DUMBO, and so on.
January 23
🟧The Fire This Time Festival
Six ten-minute plays Apollo Stages at The Victoria
January 23 – 31
January 25
🟦Data (Lucille Lortel Theater)
In this play by Matthew Libby, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, a young programmer learns his own algorithm is the key to a massive AI surveillance project, forcing him to challenge the tech world he once dreamt of joining
January 9 – March 29
*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 shows in 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.
Check out my article: What is Broadway Opening Night? How it’s changed, why it matters.
