Feature: The 2025 Theatre I Kept Thinking About, Long After the Applause

This was a big year for San Diego theatre, with ambitious world premieres and bold revivals. Stories onstage varied widely in tone and genre, perhaps unsurprising in a world that often feels unsteady. The shows that stayed with me most, however, were the ones that balanced that darkness with hope, humor, and human connection. These shows aren’t ranked or in any particular order. Think of it not as a “Best of” but as a Yearbook of some of the shows that lingered with me long beyond closing.

A Streetcar Named Desire — Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company

Most Likely to Haunt You Long After Intermission
I’ve seen this many times, but Rob Lutfy’s dreamlike production felt genuinely new. With ghostly imagery, poetic visuals, and aching musical underscoring, the show transformed Blanche DuBois’ descent into madness into something mythic. Jessica John put a deeply personal stamp on an iconic role, making Blanche’s unraveling feel intimate, terrifying, and strangely timeless. This wasn’t just a revival, it was a haunting.

Regency Girls — The Old Globe

Most Likely to Burn the Patriarchy While Wearing a Corset
This world premiere musical was a joyful, unruly, and unapologetically modern romp about women’s rights and reproductive freedom in 1810 England. Packed with biting wit, anachronistic humor, and laugh-out-loud lyrics, it knew exactly what it wanted to say and wasn’t shy about saying it. It could use a little trimming, but its heart, humor, and feminist fire were already fully lit.

The Heart — La Jolla Playhouse

Most Likely to Make You Cry About Modern Medicine
A musical about a heart transplant shouldn’t work, and then it absolutely does. Told in a breathless 80 minutes, The Heart follows the ripple effects of one organ’s journey from donor to recipient. With an electronic-inflected score and constant motion, the production captures the urgency of a hospital that never stops moving, even as lives are permanently altered.

The Mountaintop — New Village Arts

Most Likely to Remind the Audience to Continue to Fight
This was the strongest production of Katori Hall’s play I’ve seen. DeAndre Simmons and Taylor Renee Henderson brought humor, warmth, and emotional depth to Martin Luther King Jr. and Camae, grounding the fantasy in humanity. Funny, intimate, and quietly galvanizing, it reminded us that history is made by people, and carried forward by the rest of us.

Follies — Cygnet Theatre

Most Likely to Christen a New Theatre With Old Ghosts
To open its stunning new home, Cygnet staged a lavish Follies filled with memory, regret, and shimmering former selves. Sean Murray’s elegant staging made brilliant use of the Joan Theatre, filling the space with echoes of glamour and loss. It was a fitting way to remind us that theatre is always in conversation with its past.

We Lovers — Loud Fridge Theatre Group

Most Likely to Turn Found Objects into Magic

Set in a lantern-lit clearing where friends tell spooky stories, We Lovers unfolded with patience and poetry. Christian St. Croix’s evocative writing and Kate Rose Reynolds’ imaginative direction created a world built from play, ritual, and trust. It was cozy, eerie, and quietly profound, a reminder of how much magic can be made with imagination and care.

What the Constitution Means to Me — North Coast Repertory Theatre

Most Likely to Make Civics Feel Personal (and Urgent)
Heidi Schreck’s dense, idea-rich play never felt like a lecture in this thoughtful production. Jacque Wilke’s charismatic performance balanced humor with righteous anger, inviting the audience into difficult conversations about power, protection, and equality. It challenged without alienating, and that’s no small feat.

Fragment/o/s of Air/e — OnStage Playhouse

Most Likely to Refuse Silence
Carla Navarro’s world premiere was harrowing, poetic, and unflinching. Through fractured memory and bilingual storytelling, the play explored exile, trauma, and the violence history leaves behind. Directed by James P. Darvas and anchored by Valeria Vega’s powerful performance, this show was not easy, but it was essential.

Beauty’s Daughter — OnWord Theatre

Most Likely to Prove Less Is More
With six characters and one actor, this simply staged production packed an emotional punch. Marti Gobel’s performance was precise, compassionate, and deeply human, making pain and resilience feel immediate—an intimate, powerful close to OnWord’s first season.

Merry Me — Diversionary Theatre

Most Likely to Be Smart, Sexy, and a Little Bit Sacrilegious
If you like your theatre genre-bending and gleefully irreverent, Merry Me delivered. Hansol Jung’s fast-paced farce mashed together Greek tragedy, queer rom-com, divine intervention, and pop culture chaos with unapologetic joy. Led by Michael Amira Temple’s mischievous and magnetic Angel—equal parts DJ, narrator, and celestial instigator—the show was overstuffed, oversexed, and over-the-top in the best possible way. 

Oklahoma! — Cygnet Theatre

Most Likely to Reveal the Darkness Beneath the Sunshine
Cygnet’s final Old Town production leaned into the musical’s darker undercurrents of land, labor, and longing with a fresh twist to this Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. It was a spirited, skillful blend of the classic and the contemporary. The love triangle felt genuinely dangerous, reframing a familiar classic as something raw and unsettling. 

Once On This Island — Oceanside Theatre Company

Most Likely to Make You Believe in Fate, Gods, and Love Again
This island fairytale musical shimmered with heart and energy. With strong performances, vibrant choreography, and a clear emotional throughline, the production explored love, sacrifice, and class with warmth and sincerity. Well worth the trip north.

Poe & More Poe — Write Out Loud

Most Likely to Make a Victorian House Feel Alive
Write Out Loud’s annual immersive tradition once again transformed a historic mansion into a Gothic playground. Moving from room to room by flickering light, audiences encountered Poe’s tales staged with atmosphere and care. Spooky, intimate, and lovingly crafted.

Blues for an Alabama Sky — Moxie Theatre

Most Likely to Break Your Heart Gently, Then All at Once
Pearl Cleage’s Harlem-set drama landed with emotional force in this beautifully cast production. Dreams collided with harsh realities as friends faced addiction, racism, homophobia, and survival. Hope here was fragile—but fiercely protected.

Jekyll & Hyde — San Diego Musical Theatre

Most Likely to Embrace the Drama and Crank It to Eleven
This production was fully committed to the show’s gothic excess, and that was its greatest strength. Swirling capes, powerhouse vocals, and unapologetic melodrama turned the musical into a gloriously pulpy spectacle, with an incredibly talented cast. 

Suffs — Broadway San Diego

Most Likely to Make History Feel Immediate
I went in blissfully unspoiled, having seen or heard none of this show before I entered, and left deeply moved. This Tony-winning musical was political theatre in the best sense: urgent, human, and electrifying. It reminded us that progress is possible—but never guaranteed—and that each generation must keep marching.

Matilda — San Diego Musical Theatre

Most Likely to Remind You It’s Okay to Be a Little Bit Naughty
This tricky musical struck the right balance of sweetness and darkness. With spot-on casting with Iris Manter in the title role, and direction by Geno Carr, the production captured the show’s mischief, optimism, and rebellion. A crowd-pleaser that was sharp and sweet.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder — North Coast Repertory Theatre

Most Likely to Make Murder Look Charming
A musical about a social-climbing serial killer has no right to be this delightful, and yet Andrew Polec was irresistibly watchable as Monty Navarro. Noelle Marion’s direction translated the show’s kinetic wit beautifully to a smaller stage while staying clever and consistently funny.

La Llorona on the Blue Line — TuYo Theatre

Most Likely to Turn Public Transit into Sacred Space
A spooky, museum-immersive, site-specific show? Sign me up! Set inside vintage trolley cars, this haunting production blended folklore, history, and righteous rage into the most engrossing site-specific theatre I saw all year. La Llorona never spoke, but she bore witness, reminding us that the past rides alongside us, whether we acknowledge it or not. La Llorona didn’t just haunt, she demanded we listen.

Taken together, these shows reflect a year when theatre met a chaotic world with clarity, courage, and imagination. Many confronted trauma, injustice, and loss, but what stayed with me was how often artists paired that darkness with humor, beauty, and human connection.

Theatre matters every year because it asks us to gather, to listen, and to feel—together. As we look ahead to a new season of premieres, risks, and revelations, I’m grateful for the artists who keep telling stories that challenge, comfort, provoke, and delight. Here’s to the shows still to come, and to the communities that make them possible.

San Diego Awards - Live Stats

Best Musical - Top 3

1. THE WULFEATER (Tenth Avenue Arts Center)

14.4% of votes

2. SHREK (Carlsbad Community theater)

9.9% of votes

3. FOOTLOOSE (A-List Theatre)

7.6% of votes

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