Helen Shaw News

Happy New Year! This week, we’re catching up on a few different stories that you might have missed while you were out for the holidays - including the ongoing tumult at the Kennedy Center, multiple Broadway box office records, and the controversial reopening of a theatre in Mariupol.

As 2025 comes to a close, New York City's top theatre critics have been taking stock of this theatre season- deciding on their personal choices for their favorite productions of the year. The season has been full of so many stellar plays, musicals, revivals and new works, both on Broadway and off.

This week’s newsletter brings together stories of growth, innovation, and transformation across the theater and performing arts landscape. Inside, you’ll find updates on new BroadwayWorld features and partnerships, strong Broadway attendance figures, and evolving development plans in the heart of Times Square. We also spotlight major real estate and venue news shaping theater communities in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, alongside a look at artists pushing creative boundaries in dance.

What did critics think of ANNA CHRISTIE, running at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse, directed by Thomas Kail, and starring Michelle Williams and Tom Sturridge?

Rise and shine, BroadwayWorld! It is December 9, 2025 and it's time to catch up on all of the theatrical happenings you may have missed in the last 24 hours.

This week’s stories highlight a theater landscape in motion, with notable leadership shifts, community celebrations, and major institutional changes shaping the field. Helen Shaw’s appointment as Chief Theater Critic at The New York Times marks a significant moment in arts journalism, while audiences worldwide engage with the newly opened voting for the 2025 BroadwayWorld Regional Awards. Onstage, Broadway prepares for star-studded fundraising at Red Bucket Follies, and regional companies navigate both exciting transitions and unexpected setbacks. Internationally, major UK institutions confront financial challenges and ambitious renovations, reflecting a moment of both reckoning and renewal across the global arts community.

Rise and shine, BroadwayWorld! It is December 4, 2025 and it's time to catch up on all of the theatrical happenings you may have missed in the last 24 hours.

Helen Shaw has joined The New York Times' Culture desk as chief theater critic. She will begin the position in mid-January. Helen was previously the theater critic and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Tarrell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size is now playing at The Shed in a production co-directed by Bijan Sheibani and McCraney and starring André Holland, Alani iLongwe and Malcolm Mays. Read the reviews here!

Scenic designer John Lee Beatty will be honored with the Ming Cho Lee Award for Lifetime Achievement in Design bestowed by the Henry Hewes Design Awards .

The Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee has revealed the 2025 Henry Hewes Design Awards Honorees who will be recognized at the 61st annual ceremony on October 20 in New York.

Under the Radar will return for its 21st edition. Since its reemergence in 2024, Under the Radar has gathered artists, audiences, and theater industry experts around a thrilling array of contemporary performances shaped by fearless experimentation.  

You can now check out photos from the 14th Annual Off-Broadway Alliance Awards. Learn more about the awards, hosted by an organization of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals.

The Off Broadway Alliance has revealed the winners of the 14th Annual Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, honoring commercial and not-for-profit productions that opened Off Broadway during the 2024-2025 season.

The Off Broadway Alliance, an organization of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, has announced the nominees for the 14th Annual Off-Broadway Alliance Awards. We have the full list here!

The New York Drama Critics' Circle has named Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Purpose Best Play of the 2024-25 season. The award for Best Musical went to Maybe Happy Ending, book by Will Aronson and Hue Park, music by Will Aronson, lyrics by Hue Park.

The winners of the 2025 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards will be announced next week. The awards include a cash prize of $2,500 for Best Play, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

The great Phylicia Rashad makes her Broadway directorial debut, with PURPOSE by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, opening tonight at the Helen Hayes Theater. Find out how the critics felt about their visit with the influential and dysfunctional Jasper family on Broadway. Read the reviews!

The New York Drama Critics' Circle has unearthed the plaque that originally accompanied its annual award for Best American Play, and will return to awarding the plaque this year.

New York Live Arts' will present the World Premiere of Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein's Friday Night Rat Catchers, the latest creation from an experimental duo whose unconventional performative frameworks are rooted in dance-adjacent physicality.