‘Blackout Songs’
Joe White, who wrote this British two-hander, has noted that it’s structured like a romantic comedy. But in its impeccable U.S. premiere, directed by Rory McGregor and starring Abbey Lee and Owen Teague as ruinously unconstrained drinkers in love, it feels like an art house film in three dimensions: gritty, jagged, harrowing. (Through Feb. 28, Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space)
‘The Monsters’
Okieriete Onaodowan (“Hamilton”) and Aigner Mizzelle play estranged siblings reunited in this mixed martial arts drama by Ngozi Anyanwu (“Good Grief”), who also directs this production for Manhattan Theater Club. (Through March 15, New York City Center Stage II)
‘The Other Place’
Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone” is the template for this contemporary family psychodrama written and directed by Alexander Zeldin (“Love”). Co-produced with the National Theater in London, where it ran in 2024, it stars Emma D’Arcy (“House of the Dragon”) as Annie, mired in grief over the death of her father; Ruby Stokes as her sister, Issy; and Tobias Menzies as their uncle Chris. (Through March 1, the Shed)
‘The Unknown’
Sean Hayes, a Tony Award winner for “Good Night, Oscar,” plays a blocked writer in this one-man thriller by David Cale (“Harry Clarke”). Leigh Silverman directs. (Through April 12, Studio Seaview)
‘The Tragedy of Coriolanus’
An arrogant Roman military hero, beloved by the aristocracy and despised by regular people, is banished from the city and turns furiously against it in this Shakespeare play. With McKinley Belcher III in the title role and Roslyn Ruff as Coriolanus’s mother, Volumnia, Ash K. Tata directs for Theater for a New Audience. (Feb. 1-March 1, Polonsky Shakespeare Center)
‘Mother Russia’
Trying to find their capitalist footing in freshly post-Soviet Russia, two underachievers (Steven Boyer and Adam Chanler-Berat) bumble their way into surveilling a former expat pop star (Rebecca Naomi Jones) in this new comedy by Lauren Yee (“Cambodian Rock Band”). Teddy Bergman directs. (Feb. 3-March 15, Signature Theater)
‘The Dinosaurs’
A meeting for recovering alcoholics gathers week after week, its core members returning for years, in this world-premiere play by Jacob Perkins. Directed by Les Waters, the cast includes Kathleen Chalfant, Elizabeth Marvel, April Matthis, Keilly McQuail, Mallory Portnoy and Maria Elena Ramirez. Press materials make much of the production’s intentionally austere design budget. For visual spectacle, then, look elsewhere. (Feb. 4-March 1, Playwrights Horizons)
‘Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure’
This new puppet musical by La Daniella and Ben Langhorst fixes a skeptical eye and a dreamy mind on gentrifying Brooklyn, where Newtown Creek is apparently not the ideal habitat for a mermaid. La Daniella stars; Sammy Zeisel directs. (Feb. 4-21, Bushwick Starr)
‘High Spirits’
Phillipa Soo and Steven Pasquale lead the Encores! revival of Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray’s musical adaptation of Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit,” also starring Andrea Martin, Katrina Lenk and Rachel Dratch. Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo”) directs. (Feb. 4-15, New York City Center)
‘What We Did Before Our Moth Days’
Wallace Shawn debuts a new play — about a son, his parents and the father’s longtime extramarital partner — directed by André Gregory and featuring Hope Davis, Maria Dizzia, John Early and Josh Hamilton. In tandem, Shawn revisits an old play, his Obie Award-winning monologue “The Fever,” performing it on Sundays and Mondays. (Feb. 4-April 26, Greenwich House Theater)
‘Chinese Republicans’
An ambitious 20-something newbie shakes up an established group of female corporate veterans in this finance-world satire written by Alex Lin. Chay Yew directs for Roundabout Theater Company. (Feb. 5-April 5, Laura Pels Theater)
‘Marcel on the Train’
Ethan Slater slips quietly into the title role of this world-premiere play about Marcel Marceau as a young man working with the French Resistance, helping Jewish children during the Nazi occupation. Written by Slater and Marshall Pailet, and directed by Pailet. (Feb. 5-March 14, Classic Stage Company)
‘The Reservoir’
Caroline Aaron and Chip Zien play one set of grandparents, Mary Beth Peil and Peter Maloney the other, in Jake Brasch’s new comedy about memory, family and an alcoholic college student (Noah Galvin) who goes home to Denver to try to heal. Shelley Butler directs the co-production for Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theater and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. (Feb. 5-March 15, Linda Gross Theater)
‘Kramer/Fauci’
The Tony Award winner Will Brill (“Stereophonic”) portrays the playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer opposite Thomas Jay Ryan as the immunologist Anthony Fauci in this verbatim re-enactment of their 1993 debate, which was televised on C-SPAN as the AIDS epidemic raged. Daniel Fish (“Oklahoma!”) directs the world premiere. (Feb. 11-21, NYU Skirball)
‘Meat Suit’
The playwright-director Aya Ogawa, an Obie winner for “The Nosebleed,” roots through the chaos, mess and absurdity of motherhood, and considers what that role can cost a person, in this Second Stage production. Expect satire. And songs. (Feb. 11-March 15, Pershing Square Signature Center)
‘Hate Radio’
Making the global rounds since 2011, this play by the writer-director Milo Rau at last has its U.S. premiere. Set in a radio station in 1994 Rwanda, as the government conducts a genocide, it’s about dehumanization through language — propaganda smoothing the path for slaughter. (Feb. 12-28, St. Ann’s Warehouse)
‘Without Mirrors’
The speaker of this hourlong experimental monologue, written and directed by Jerry Lieblich (“The Barbarians”), is alone in the dark in what may or may not be a cave. What you really need to know, though, is that the character is played by David Greenspan, a riveting master of the unconventional solo. (Feb. 12-28, the Brick)
‘You Got Older’
Alia Shawkat stars in this revival of Clare Barron’s dark comedy about a woman who returns to her hometown to care for her father (Peter Friedman). Directed by Anne Kauffman, the cast also includes Misha Brooks, Caleb Eberhardt, Spenser Granese, Nadine Malouf and Nina White. (Feb. 12-March 29, Cherry Lane Theater)
Puppetopia
The annual festival from Basil Twist’s Dream Music Puppetry program returns with a three-show lineup: “Parched,” a meditation on water scarcity by Official Puppet Business; “Ruby & Charlie,” a swing-dance love story by Jessica Simon & Co.; and “The Magnificent Ms. Pham,” Tommy Nguyen and Doug Fitch’s Saigon-to-Houston tale about becoming American. (Feb. 17-March 1, Here Arts Center)
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