Jake Meyer, a Jew from Latvia, escapes conscription into the Russian Army by emigrating to America, landing first in New York, but winding up in Oklahoma,  where he and his bride Hattie are the only Jews. “We’re the only ones, but…these people don’t know what a Jew is, so they don’t have any prejudice against us.” “How can we keep a Kosher home and celebrate the holidays if there are no other Jews?” Hattie asks. It’s one of the intriguing questions left largely unanswered in “Oklahoma Samovar,” which spans a century in the lives of one Jewish family.

Watch the ten videos below that were the most viewed in 2025 of those that I’ve posted on my YouTube channel ,and/or this blog, arranged in order of popularity. The majority were created in 2025, but there's a catch: Four are shorts (one is 13 seconds long). Most are from Broadway shows, but one of the most popular was about a film adaptation of a Broadway show and another a wordless performance by a popular comedian at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I add to the most popular my personal favorite from 2025.

“Marjorie Prime,” has turned even more uncanny in the ten years since its Off-Broadway run, when the 85-year-old Lois Smith gave a lustrous performance as the 85-year-old Marjorie, a widow whose family had bought her an artificial companion who looks precisely like her dead husband. In the new production of Jordan Harrison’s play that is opening tonight on Broadway, the 96-year-old June Squibb gives her own lustrous performance as Marjorie in a play set in the near future that is eerily nearer now than it was a decade ago. Squibb’s Marjorie, like Smith’s, is alternately confused, indignant, embarrassed, clever, whimsical, flirtatious, wise, steely — a full-fledged human being, rare for a character who is elderly.

Over the weekend, “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Hamnet” opened in cinemas nationwide, each connected to live theater in very different ways – one, a recording of a live Broadway production, the other a movie about Shakespeare. Both are the latest in a banner year for theater on screen. Other recordings of live theatrical productions include “Waitress The Musical,” a capture of the 2016 Tony-nominated Broadway show, which is currently streaming on HBO Max, and “Frozen: The Hit Broadway Musical,” which (despite its title) captured a production on the West End, and is streaming on Disney+.

Kara Young and Nicholas Braun were so much fun to watch in this latest production of Rajiv Joseph’s peculiar play that it hurt. As Kayleen and Doug, they portray friends who are consistently ill or injured over a span of thirty years, from age eight to 38. “Gruesome Playground Injuries,” like several other Joseph plays, tries to make pain funny. When Doug enters a scene in a wheelchair, the audience is meant to laugh, and we did; a queasy accomplishment.

The annual production of “Peter & the Wolf” at the Guggenheim Museum, which launched again last night and is running this year through December 13, has evolved in largely wonderful but also occasionally baffling ways since fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi first began narrating it eighteen years ago.

The scenes from the play “Hamlet” will make you cry in this latest film from Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”), but there is a catch. The scenes don’t occur until more than 90 minutes into “Hamnet,” after a story that focuses on a free-spirited woman named Agnes. Her story becomes a romance, then a family drama, then a study of grief, all during which, somewhat coyly, the name “William Shakespeare” is never uttered. We only hear it after the movie moves from the fields and farmhouses of Stratford to the playhouse in London.

The “Merrily We Roll Along” movie is different from the Wicked films; it’s not a film adaptation, it’s a recording of the live 2024 Tony-winning Broadway production that turned the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical from a notorious 40-year-old flop to an acclaimed hit, the stuff of Broadway legend. There is something worthwhile in offering a chance at experiencing such a show to theater lovers who didn’t make it to New York or couldn’t afford Broadway prices. Still, the film offers a different experience from the stage musical, in part because of the inherent qualities and expectations of the medium, but also because of directorial choices – some for the better, some for the worse -- by Maria Friedman, director of both the Broadway production and the film.

Is “Dirty Books” itself obscene? Not at all,  if we go by the Supreme Court’s three-pronged test. The theater company Bated Breath does enlist the audience to write erotica, but 1. The show begins with a history exhibition about book banning in the U.S. that certainly doesn’t lack serious political and educational value, 2. The exhibition is followed by a plot that is so bland  one might wish for a little patent offensiveness, or even 3. prurience, but none exists.  Besides, the enlistment is half-hearted and the effect not all that erotic.

Scrooge is back on stage this holiday season, as always, but as we head towards the end of a trying year, the question off-stage is which Scrooge will win out – the one at the beginning or the at the end of the Dickens story? Today is #GivingTuesday: Before you donate, check out the charity. (as I point out here.) December 2025 NYC Theater Openings Holiday Shows in NYC 2025: A Spirited Guide Theater Quiz for November 2025

On this fourteenth annual #GivingTuesday (created in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y), consider donating to a theater company or theater organization in New York City. This is what Scrooge would do (by the end of the story), if he were a theater lover But, given his business acumen, he would first check Charity Navigator to make sure the theater gets high ratings for accountability, transparency, financial health, impact and results. Below, I've selected ten New York theaters and theater companies, listed alphabetically, with links to their home page or donate page.

Below is a calendar of New York theater opening* in December. There are two new shows on Broadway, both with starry casts, one a revival of a futuristic play that feels almost present-day now (see Dec 8); the other has no official opening date (it begins Dec. 12) and it's arguable whether it's even theater. Beyond Broadway, there is another starry cast, led by Michelle Williams (Dec 14), and some serious plays about queer life, protest, war, epidemics, human rights. But much of the month of December is taken up with holiday fare (which…

Tom Stoppard, 88, an acclaimed author of some three dozen plays, had an extraordinary body of work, and lived an unusual life: Although he was viewed as one of the greatest English-language playwri…

Any guide to holiday theatergoing in New York City must begin with the three annual staples: “The Radio City Christmas Spectacular” starring the Radio City Rockettes, “George Balanchine’s the Nutcracker” (and about a dozen sweet or sassy alternatives), and the many variations of “A Christmas Carol.” But there's more -- plays, ballets, operas, concerts, musicals, burlesques, and hybrid entertainments that have reappeared each December, some for decades. Some are bracingly expensive, most not; a few are surprisingly raunchy, most are family fare. There are always new holiday show; I include a few examples below that might be hoping to become future annual traditions.

Tom Stoppard, 88, an acclaimed author of some three dozen plays, had an extraordinary body of work, and lived an unusual life: Although he was viewed as one of the greatest English-language playwrights of his generation, his first language was not English. Although he was an erudite intellectual and the most cerebral of playwrights, he dropped out of school as a teenager, never attending college. Although he was deeply involved with human rights issues and incorporated them into his plays,he said in 1979 that he considered himself a conservative in politics, literature, education and theater.

How well were you paying attention to theater news and reviews in the month of November? Take this quiz to find out.

My fourteenth annual theater gift guide below features links and information on shopping for theater tickets,theater subscriptions/memberships,cast recordings,play scripts and books about the theater,and theater on screen I also suggest some souvenirs and knick-knacks intended as tangible reminders of an evanescent experience.Also: practical gifts for theater artists.And, just because it's Black Friday: Black Friday Deals on Amazon

Below are videos from the Broadway casts who performed at the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Buena Vista Social Club, Ragtime and Just in Time, as well as Broadway veteran and Wicked star Cynthia Erivo leading the parade.