Top Off-Broadway Shows for April 2025
Stars hitting the off-Broadway stage this April include Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Tommy Dorfman, Kate Burton and more.
By: Sidney Paterra Apr. 01, 2025
What's happening off-Broadway? BroadwayWorld is here to guide you through the top picks for theatre this month. April brings a diverse array of productions to the Off-Broadway scene, including US premieres featuring A-list stars, new musicals, and more. world premiere plays, starry revivals, and more. From classics with a modern twist, to world premieres, there's something for every theater lover to enjoy. Top shows include Vanya starring Andrew Scott; A Streetcar Named Desire starring Paul Mescal and more.
BroadwayWorld selects shows to feature based on a variety of factors such as popularity, critical acclaim, unique concepts, star power, and more. BroadwayWorld's senior editorial team closely follows the Off-Broadway scene to stay informed about upcoming and currently running productions. They consider a range of offerings each month, including musicals, plays, and more to provide a well-rounded selection of recommendations to readers. Their goal is to offer theater enthusiasts a comprehensive guide to the most exciting shows happening Off-Broadway each month.
Take a look at BroadwayWorld's recommendations for the best shows to catch off-Broadway in April!
According to Howard
April 5- April 13, 2025
According to Howard is an unconventional love story and a reminder that money can never buy (or substitute for) what love can offer. It’s about winning — but at what cost? It’s about decisions, choices, ideas, and incredible intuition.
Through a score reminiscent of the golden age of Broadway, According to Howard delves into the unique life and times of one of the most fascinating individuals of the 20th Century, a human being who shaped the world of aviation, film, business, and Hollywood gossip: Howard Robard Hughes, Jr.
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A Streetcar Named Desire
BAM Harvey Theater
Now through April 6, 2025
Paul Mescal stars in a new revival of A Streetcar Named Desire off Broadway, reprising his award-winning performance from London. The production is making its U.S. debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He reprises the leading role of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire from director Rebecca Frecknall's (Cabaret on Broadway) in London's West End in 2023. The show won three Olivier Awards there, including Best Revival and Best Actor for Mescal.
Tennessee Williams's play takes place during a New Orleans summer, when fading Southern Belle Blanche comes to visit her sister, Stella, and Stella's husband, Stanley. Reality and illusion collide as Blanche tries to escape her past, which Stanley is determined to unravel.
All Nighter
Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space
Now through May 18, 2025
All Nighter is written by Natalie Margolin (The Power of Punctuation) and directed by Jaki Bradley (DiscOasis). It’s finals week at a small liberal arts college in rural Pennsylvania. A tight-knit group of roommates pull one last all-nighter to complete their final assignments. Holed up in an old ballroom, the pressure mounts as the truths that bind this group together are put to the test. What will be left when the sun rises?
The cast of All Nighter includes Kristine Frøseth (“The Buccaneers”), Tony Award nominee Kathryn Gallagher (Jagged Little Pill), Tony Award nominee Julia Lester (Into the Woods), Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms), and Alyah Chanelle Scott (“The Sex Lives of College Girls”). Tessa Albertson (“Younger”) and Olivia Puckett (Dear Evan Hansen) will serve as understudies.
Amerikin
Primary Stages
Now through April 13, 2025
In small-town Maryland, Jeff Browning resolves to give his newborn son every possible advantage – by joining a local white supremacist group. When his attempt to join is thwarted by some surprising ancestry test results, the line between “us” and “them” gets incredibly blurry. Jeff scrambles to maintain appearances, but his sanitized story starts to unravel when a prominent Black journalist and his daughter start asking questions.
Both bitterly funny and deeply compassionate, Amerikin explores the lengths we go to protect our own, the lies we tell ourselves, and the cost of division on us all.
Becoming Eve
Harry De Jur Playhouse / Abrons Arts Center
April 7 - April 27, 2025
A week before the High Holidays, three rabbis find themselves in a room fighting to save a family by building a bridge between orthodoxy and modernity. One of these rabbis is Chava, the child of a dynastic Hasidic rabbinical family and destined to become a leader of the next generation before the revelation of her trans identity clashed explosively with the strictly gendered world in which she was raised. As we jump through memory—and wrestle with theology—truths and secrets emerge that ensure no one will read the old stories the same way again.
Based on the critically acclaimed memoir by Abby Chava Stein, Becoming Eve is a remarkable playwriting debut from Emil Weinstein with direction by Tyne Rafaeli and puppetry by Amanda Villalobos. Tommy Dorfman (Romeo + Juliet, “13 Reasons Why”) will star as Chava. The cast also features Tony Award nominee Judy Kuhn as “Mami,” Tedra Millan as “Fraidy,” Rad Pereira as “Chesky,” Justin Perkins as “Puppeteer,” Emmy Award winner Richard Schiff as “Tati,” Tony Award winner Brandon Uranowitz as “Jonah,” and Emma Wiseman as “Puppeteer.”
The Cherry Orchard
St. Ann's Warehouse
Now through April 20, 2025
The American Premiere of The Donmar Warehouse production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in a version written and directed by Benedict Andrews unites a number of artists who have crafted unforgettable theater at St. Ann’s through the years.
The production stars Nina Hoss (Tár, Homeland), as Ranevskaya, returning to St. Ann’s following her unforgettable performance in the Schaubühne’s adaptation of Didier Eribon’s Returning to Reims, directed by Thomas Ostermeier; and BAFTA nominee and BAFTA Television Awards winner Adeel Akhtar as Lopakhin.
Curse of the Starving Class
The Pershing Square Signature Center [The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre]
Now through April 6, 2025
Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class at The New Group, stars David Anzuelo, Kyle Beltran, Calista Flockhart, Cooper Hoffman, Jeb Kreager, Stella Marcus and Christian Slater, directed by Scott Elliott.
Sam Shepard’s fiercely funny, OBIE award-winning play Curse of the Starving Class returns to the stage. With their family home on the verge of collapse and the creditors closing in, the Tate family white-knuckles to their past, while scratching and clawing their way towards a better future. This timeless story dismantles the American dream in its look at a family fighting to stay alive.
Vanya
Lucille Lortel Theatre
Now through May 4, 2025
Olivier Award winner Andrew Scott stars in a radical new adaptation of Chekhov’s Vanya at the Lucille Lortel Theatre! Scott is reprising his wildly acclaimed performance, originated in London. See stars on the red carpet here, including Antoni Porowski, Cole Escola, Noah Galvin and Ben Platt and more.
The Olivier Award-winning production is co-created with Mr. Scott, adaptor Simon Stephens, designer Rosanna Vize and director Sam Yates. Get a first look at Scott in the production here!
Anton Chekhov’s timeless masterpiece has captivated audiences and influenced dramatists for more than 125 years, thanks to the emotional depth and subtle humor it brings to the exploration of unfulfilled dreams, existential yearning, and the complexities of human relationships. A trove of history’s greatest stage stars, including Laurence Olivier, Ian McKellen, and Peter O’Toole, have tackled its titular character. None of them played every role...until now.
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Irishtown
Irish Repertory Theatre
April 2 - May 25, 2025
Irishtown is a new play by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth and directed by Nicola Murphy Dubey. The Irishtown Players, a celebrated Dublin-based theatre company, have just started rehearsals for their new play. After the astounding success of their last production, the company are scheduled to open on Broadway, with the same visionary playwright at the helm. However, trouble arises when the actors decide she’s going too dark, too experimental, and… not Irish enough? Taking matters into their own hands, the company fights to restore the Hibernian flair. Irishtown is a hilarious, searing new comedy that explores the commercialization of a culture and invites audiences to experience the fragile creative process and the potential collapse of a collective.
Irishtown will feature Emmy and Tony Award nominee Kate Burton, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Kevin Oliver Lynch, Brenda Meaney, and Angela Reed with voiceover work by Roger Clark.
BATSU!
Wara
Now running
In Japan, there is a style of comedy known as batsu game (罰ゲーム), where comedians compete in challenges of all kinds with the losers receiving a punishment. BATSU! NYC brings this comedy style to America, with comedians competing to avoid electric shocks, paintballs, a giant egg-smashing chicken, and many more hilarious jaw-dropping punishments! With a yokocho (横丁・横町) vibe, behind an unassuming door in the East Village, transport yourself to the alleyways of Tokyo with authentic food, drinks, and fun.
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