The best Broadway shows you need to see

If theater is your religion, and the Broadway musical your particular sect, it’s time to rejoice. This gleefully obscene and subversive satire is one of the funniest shows to grace the Great White Way since The Producers and Urinetown. Writers Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park, along with composer Robert Lopez (Avenue Q), find the perfect blend of sweet and nasty for this tale of mismatched Mormon proselytizers in Uganda.—David Cote

Composer-lyricist-star Lin-Manuel Miranda forges a groundbreaking bridge between hip-hop and musical storytelling with this sublime collision of radio-ready beats and an inspiring, immigrant slant on Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. A brilliant, diverse cast takes back American history and makes it new.—David Cote 

The world of Harry Potter has arrived on Broadway, Hogwarts and all, and it is a triumph of theatrical magic. Set two decades after the final chapters of J.K. Rowling’s world-shaking kid-lit heptalogy, Jack Thorne's epic (richly elaborated by director John Tiffany) combines grand storytelling with stagecraft on a scale heretofore unimagined. It leaves its audience awestruck, spellbound and deeply satisfied.—Adam Feldman

Sixteen is not sweet for the heroine of this bruisingly joyful new musical by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori: Played by the wonderful Victoria Clark, she has a disease that makes her age at a superfast rate. But two agents of disruption shake up her perspective: her aunt Debra (the unstoppable Bonnie Milligan), a hilarious gale force of chaos, and Seth (a winsome Justin Cooley), an anagram-loving classmate. Clever, touching and idiosyncratic, Kimberly Akimbo was the best new musical of 2021, and it works even better on Broadway.—Adam Feldman

Go to hell—and by hell we mean Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell’s fizzy, moody, thrilling new musical. Ostensibly, at least, the show is a modern retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. But the newness of Mitchell’s score and Rachel Chavkin’s gracefully dynamic staging bring this old story to quivering life.—Adam Feldman

David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s groundbreaking, floor-shaking concept musical, about the rise and fall of former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos, is a party that hides a mordant critique of civilization and its discotheques. Director Alex Timbers and designer David Korins have remade a proscenium theater into a gleaming dance club, where we get swept into the story of ambitious country girl (the radiant Arielle Jacobs), her strongman husband (Jose Llana) and their critic and foil (a charismatic Conrad Ricamora).—Adam Feldman

Director-designer Julie Taymor surrounds the Disney movie’s mythic plot and Elton John–Tim Rice score with African rhythm and music. Through elegant puppetry, Taymor populates the stage with a menagerie of African beasts; her staging has expanded a simple cub into the pride of Broadway.—Adam Feldman

Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez do exceptional work as three old friends whose paths diverge in Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's rueful and tuneful cult-fave 1981 musical flop, whose brilliant score is melded to a tricky back-to-front narrative about lost ideals. Director Maria Friedman’s first-class revival was a sold-out smash at New York Theatre Workshop last season, and now the production moves to Broadway for a limited run; the very fine supporting cast includes Reg Rogers, Katie Rose Clarke and Krystal Joy Brown. Cross your fingers: It might finally be Merrily’s time.—Adam Feldman

Casey Cott and Courtney Reed play lovers caught in a bad romance in this gorgeous, gaudy, spectacularly overstuffed  adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie. Directed with opulent showmanship by Alex Timbers and drawing music from more than 75 pop hits, this jukebox megamix may be costume jewelry, but its shine is dazzling.—Adam Feldman

Ossie Davis’s 1961 comedy about an itinerant preacher who returns to his racist hometown in the Deep South may not seem a likely candidate for revival. But Kenny Leon's new Broadway production is a joyous affair, broad in comedy and in spirit. Davis populates his play with deceptively familiar types who have more dimensions than expected; the actors who inhabit them—including Leslie Odom Jr., Jay O. Sanders and the terrific Kara Young—take manifest delight in subverting stock figures from the inside out. Purlie Victorious is uncompromising in its defiance, but its medicine goes down with a heap of dark brown sugar.—Adam Feldman 

The jokes pop like corn on a cast-iron stove in this tasty bag of puff, a “farm to fable” tale that pits the slickness of the city against the hickery of the sticks. The country-fried score, by Nashville songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, includes rollicking comedic numbers alongside sincere character songs; the cast is game and endearing, and Alex Newell soars to stratospheric vocal heights in a barn-burner solo. Robert Horn's script is stuffed with laugh-out-loud puns and one-liners, and the sheer volume of old-fashioned silliness wins you over. It’s a cornucopia.—Adam Feldman

Who doesn’t enjoy a royal wedding? Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss's zingy musical Six celebrates, in boisterous fashion, the union of English dynastic history and modern pop music. On a mock concert stage, the six wives of the 16th-century monarch Henry VIII air their grievances in song, and most of them have plenty to complain about. In this self-described “histo-remix,” members of the long-suffering sextet spin their pain into bops; the queens sing their heads off and the audience loses its mind.—Adam Feldman 

Some Like It Hot is a well-aimed throwback: a jubilant, crowd-pleasing musical comedy, adapted from Billy Wilder's beloved 1959 film. Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee star as Prohibition-era musicians, on the run from the mob, who pose as women in an all-girl band fronted by Adrianna Hicks. Staged with zest by Casey Nicholaw, the musical reheats its story with abundant production values and canny attention to modern sensibilities. If it wobbles a little in its borrowed heels at first, it finishes in the confident stride of a hit.—Adam Feldman

Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served. Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 1979 killer-cannibal tale may well be the greatest of all Broadway musicals: an epic combination of horror and humor, cynicism and sentiment, Victorian melodrama and sophisticated wit. Its thrilling new revival, directed by Hamilton’s Thomas Kail, stars Josh Groban as the titular throat-slitting barber and Annaleigh Ashford, in a priceless comic turn, as his pie-making accomplice. Sondheim’s meaty Grand Guignol score sounds as grand here as it deserves to.—Adam Feldman

This musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz addresses surprisingly complex themes, such as standards of beauty, morality and, believe it or not, fighting fascism. Thanks to Winnie Holzman’s witty book and Stephen Schwartz’s pop-inflected score, Wicked soars.—David Cote