Patrick Ryan

While lesser actors might veer into overwrought hysterics, Coon – with her piercing gaze and tousled mess of hair – creates a character that is fully lived-in and believable. Like the very best art, or a pesky insect, it's the kind of performance that burrows deep into your soul.

But for all its shortcomings, it’s impossible not to fall under the spell of this powerhouse cast. After swooping in to save the ill-conceived 2022 revival of “Funny Girl,” Michele earned enough critical goodwill and box-office pedigree to pick any show that she wanted to do next. That she chose a property as dicey as “Chess” is admirable in itself, but it also makes complete sense, given how perfectly the score is suited to her stunning vocal abilities.

"Waiting for Godot" is the feel-bad play of the fall, with transfixing performances from Winter and Reeves that help you look past the production's shortcomings. There are few actors whom we'd rather see philosophize about mortality. As Ted once said so eloquently, "All we are is dust in the wind, dude."

As for Smart, she elevates the show in every sense imaginable. Returning to Broadway for the first time in 25 years, the soft-spoken actress delivers a richly textured performance that brings Isabelle to vivid life, in all her strength, humor and resourcefulness. No matter how often Ferd strikes and belittles her, Isabelle always manages to brush herself off and turn her pain into art. But eventually, his decades of mistreatment come spilling out of her, and Smart’s palpable grief for a life and family lost is devastating to witness.

In the staggering “Dead Outlaw,” death is both commodified and desensitized; a cruel fact of life that we are pummeled with repeatedly throughout the musical. (“Your friends are dead / your dog is dead / and so are you,” Brown growls in the cheeky, name-dropping finale.) But in facing our bleak mortal coil with a laugh and a song, McCurdy’s hair-raising, pulse-racing resuscitation helps us all feel a little more alive.

There’s something smugly satisfied about the whole exercise, which ultimately talks down to its audience and assumes we can’t connect the dots. Good Night, and Good Luck aims to be a hard-hitting story about accountability and checks on power, but all that ever comes through is dead air.

Still, you can't deny the sheer delight of watching the stars that Marber has aligned. With a dynamite cast firing on all cylinders, these 'Glengarry' leads are ultimately worth the investment.

Despite the show’s overreliance on whiz-bang technology, Snook is never anything less than jaw-dropping. The Australian actress tackles the prodigious task at hand with breathtaking precision, believably engaging in verbose conversations with her digitalized selves, and never missing a beat as she plays to each and every camera that’s ceaselessly roving and whirring around her.

With an ensemble as mighty as this, it’s a shame that director Kenny Leon’s prosaic staging feels like such an afterthought, given his artful recent work on "Our Town" and "Purlie Victorious." An opening title card announces that the story is set in a vague “near future,” where the men dress like Murray Hill bros, while the women look as if they stepped out of a Talbots catalog. (And please, dear God, it’s time for a moratorium on army fatigues in modern Shakespeare productions.) Derek McLane’s scenic design is frustratingly rote – mostly consisting of moving columns – although lighting designer Natasha Katz manages to create some stunning silhouettes as the violence ramps up in the second act.

"Redwood" certainly means well, and with the renewed bout of "Wicked" hysteria, audiences will likely flock to see Menzel's much-ballyhooed return to her theatrical roots. But for a musical that should soar, it most often feels dreadfully earthbound.

McDonald is surrounded by an aces supporting cast: the searing Tyson and precocious Marley Lianne Gomes, who sparkle as older and younger June; and Lesli Margherita, who makes a meal out of her limited stage time as wisecracking stripper Tessie Tura. Woods, too, brings the necessary innocence to Louise, with added moments of depth for the naïve character. You see the seeds of her sensuality blossom in “All I Need is the Girl,” and she imbues “If Momma Was Married” with palpable longing for a life away from the spotlight.

But the draw of this production is, of course, Goldberg, who reminds us of her prodigious talent as the scheming orphanage head Hannigan, who's been memorably embodied by Carol Burnett and Dorothy Loudon. Her take on the character is less resentful than she is just flat-out exhausted by the snot-nosed kiddies in her orbit. "You must be very sick," one little girl tells Hannigan. "You don't know the half of it," Goldberg deadpans, swilling another gulp of liquor before shuffling back up stage.

“Maybe Happy Ending” is undoubtedly the most original musical to grace Broadway since 2022’s “Kimberly Akimbo,” another small story with big ideas and even bigger emotions. With gentle humor and pathos, Park and Aronson manage to tap into the most human of questions: Is it still worthwhile to love, knowing that pain and loss are inevitable?

Gold tries his damnedest to bring something new to William Shakespeare’s 1597 play, which has been performed in just about every space imaginable for the last four centuries, including three dozen times on Broadway. He occasionally achieves something gorgeous and intimate, thanks in large part to the white-hot chemistry of his two leads. But for slightly older audiences, now nursing heartburn more often than heartbreak, you’ll likely just feel exhausted.

But despite its very best intentions, the play is frustratingly surface level, rarely delving beyond Hallmark card sentiments about taking the good with the bad. At 100 minutes, the show hastily whips through a life’s worth of milestones and minutiae, told mostly through verbose exposition delivered directly to the audience.

That Scherzinger’s performance is so affecting is a credit to her formidable stage presence, given that Lloyd’s muddled concept for the revival is occasionally at odds with the source material. The modern production often seems to take a condescending stance toward Norma, imagining her as a sort of washed-up reality star: Pouting her lips for the cameras, busting out viral dance moves, and slathering on a Valley Girl vocal fry as she yammers about zodiac signs. (With her neutral palette and wet-hair look, she could easily be a sixth Kardashian sister.)

“McNeal” commits the cardinal sin of wasting Broadway treasures Andrea Martin and Ruthie Ann Miles, who pop in briefly as Jacob’s frenzied agent and concerned doctor, respectively. More ironically, it’s exactly the type of play that Downey’s smug title character would claim to deplore: all empty provocations and not an ounce of soul.

“The Roommate” is serviceably directed by Jack O’Brien, although Bob Crowley’s static set design doesn’t make ample use of the vast onstage space. Incidental music by David Yazbek is an unexpected highlight, bringing some mischief and verve to the otherwise staid production. Ultimately, it's a privilege just to spend a spell with icons like Farrow and LuPone, even if like their characters, they seem somewhat mismatched. When you've got two certified greats, it's hard not to wish for something more than just fine.

The result is at times hilarious and poignant, but rarely rises above the level of being just fine. Newly translated by Heidi Schreck (2019’s superb “What the Constitution Means to Me”), the classic Russian play is set in an unspecified time and place, although the presence of vinyl records and Tupperware suggest a not-so-distant past.

When Alex has a seizure midway through the play, the mounting dread and panicked 911 call are distressingly familiar. So, too, is the purgatory-like state of the hospital waiting room, which is brilliantly conveyed through Ben Stanton’s stark lighting and Lael Jellinek’s deceptively simple scenic design. (We won’t spoil the set reveal, but it’s breathtaking.) Herzog thoughtfully poses big questions about faith and uncertainty and leaves the audience with much to chew on after the spiritual, ambiguous final moments. The play is beautifully directed by Anne Kauffman ('The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window'), with an outstanding ensemble all playing dual roles.

A life raft in this troubled “Water” is the production's elastic ensemble, which jolts you awake with their spring-loaded flips and death-defying stunts, ranging from aerial hoops to tightrope walks to trapeze swings. A sequence of the cast pitching a big top is wondrous to behold, as is the effortless athleticism they bring to numbers like 'Zostan.' In these moments, the show feels like a divine celebration of those restless spirits who run off to join the circus. But the magic is fleeting, and by the final curtain, those in the audience may wish they'd just stayed at home.

Strong is astounding as Thomas, resisting easy histrionics even as tensions reach their boiling point. Soft-spoken and even-keeled, he imbues the character with a deep well of sadness, not only for his late wife Katherine, but for the willful ignorance that’s afflicted his community.

But “Merrily” is the most top-to-bottom perfect production of them all, from its muscular orchestrations to its vibrant ensemble to its sneakily devastating book by the late George Furth. Part of what makes the show so overwhelmingly emotional is that it transports us back to a more idealistic age: when possibilities seemed endless, friends were forever, and hopes weren’t yet dashed by life’s realities.

“Back to the Future” is a technical marvel that hits all the right nostalgia buttons, and in the immortal words of Marty McFly, your kids are gonna love it. But with soulless songs that are more obligatory than earned, you can’t escape the feeling that they’re just running down the clock.

But this 'Sweeney' belongs to the spellbinding Ashford, a Broadway veteran known more recently for her TV work in CBS sitcom 'B Positive' and Hulu's 'Welcome to Chippendales.' From the moment she springs up from behind the counter, her Lovett is instantly endearing and almost pitiable in her delusion. Desperate for Sweeney's affection, she constantly hangs on his arm and flirtatiously pretzels herself around him, refusing to believe she's just a means to an end. Ashford is bloody brilliant in her elastic expressiveness and slapstick comedy, throwing and spinning herself across the stage in showstoppers 'A Little Priest' and 'The Worst Pies in London.'