Staff Picks Does Lists, Too.
Another year ends, another list forms. And here at Staff Picks, you might call us last minute — didn’t everyone’s lists come out WEEKS ago? — or you might call us reverent. Because, the year has 365 days, and there are performances to revere on each of them, even in the waning days of December. What did the Pickers adore/cherish/get terrified by this year? See below for some categories of their own making.
Billy McEntee’s Favorite Moments
Favorite moments hardly come from favorite plays. I don’t enjoy making top ten lists, but I will cherish top ten-ish moments, in chronological order of my viewing them (more or less).
Best Use of Oxygen
Cristina Pitter’s monologue, in Nic Adams’s Neck Down at Life World, was a vibrating calculation about how a large sum of money could be used for artistic, communal, and personal growth. It gathered so much force, it could only end in one way: with a loud and shocking pop.
Yummiest Cacophony
This award is given to the actors of Abe Koogler’s Deep Blue Sound at The Public, who, at the top of the play, introduced us to their island, each other, and the other roles they simultaneously play.
Sweetest Smallest Gesture
At the end of Chad Kaydo’s I’m Repeating Myself, two ladders, conspicuously along The Brick’s walls, were raised to support two actors to share an elevated conversation that grounded the play. Were the actors in the air? A tree? A plane? Thank you for letting my mind imagine instead of being told.
Coolest Wine Flex
Jehan O. Young pulled sav blanc out of her purse while on a date in Zoë Geltman’s A(U)NTS at The Brick.
Best David Greenspanning (Complimentary)
David Greenspan for I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan by Mona Pirnot at the Atlantic.
Worst Driving
Lena Engelstein and Lisa Fagan jerked inch by inch in their car for Sugar Sugar, at Domino Park, in a way that reopened the trauma of crawling along the GSP trying to get DTS.
Sweatiest Performances
A trifecta receives this award: Wonderful Cringe at Box Machine on, appropriately, the summer solstice; the cast of nora chipaumire’s Dambudzo at BAM; and Jonathan Groff in Just in Time on Broadway, natch.
Most Delicious Question Marks
Did David Cale actually have sex with a Blue Cowboy? Was David just writing a story? Was David’s character writing a story for The Bushwick Starr?
Best Batting Average
The seven snaps to black in the opening of Nazareth Hassan’s Practice at Playwrights Horizons got seven laughs in a row.
Cheapest Fun
$30 for wine, performances, and a City Harvest donation at The Lazours and Mark Sonnenblick’s The Nativity, a deranged take on the crèche that took place, (in)appropriately, in a church.
And, a Slew of Honorable Tokens of Greatness
Best Box: one-pot soup in Two Sisters at HERE; Most Brilliant F Slur Use: The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse; Best Beauty and the Beast: Lobster; Funniest/Saddest/Realest: tie! the woman looking for her twin, lost in Times Square, in American Idle, plus Travis recounting how he’d prefer to rub one last one out in Das Rauschgift; Most Vulnerable: Emily Davis’s character in Well, I’ll Let You Go; Almost a Dominatrix: Colby Minnifie in The Wasp.
I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan: David Greenspan / photo: Ahron R. Foster
Reuven Glezer’s Whoas
I actually love lists. I love collation & collection. I love picking a spot in a show that makes me go “whoa.” Here’s some whoas from this year.
The gunshot devoted to Crackhead Barney at the end of Temporary Boyfriend
The stream of mongers in haircut play :€
Two Chads on two ladders across the stage in I’m Repeating Myself
The bear speaking in Deadclass, Ohio
The schvitzing in Bubble Schmeisis
The rocks falling out from the costume in Friday Night Rat Catchers
The televisions covered in foliage in The Republic: Socrates in the Meta-Verse
The puppet self in Becoming Eve
The ring of carnival lights in Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.
The guitar being played in the rain in Grief Camp
Cricket Brown & Annie Fang in the dark in Lobster
Lemon Pepper Wings in Bowl EP
Orpheus opening the doors to the underworld in Eurydice
The furniture on the back wall in Love You More
Hannah Kallenbach doing anything in Mikey Maus in Fantasmich!
Carl Holder vanishing at the end of Out of Order
The lights in the cemetery in Ghost Quartet
The shadows of the cast in Winning is Winning
“YOU CAN’T TRUST A MAGICIAN!” in Josh Sharp’s ta-da!
“LIBERACE!!!!” in Can I Be Frank?
The final dance in the first episode of metamorphosis III
The big fight at the end of Oh, Honey!
Connecting pinkies during Dimension Zero
The massive monologue at the end of Jewish Plot
The perfect opening walk from Aaron Monaghan in Druid’s Endgame
The swings in Initiative
The deer in Blue Cowboy
The Berlin performance in Practice
Bobby as Maggie Thatcher in One Man Ferryman
Rawya telling us she’s died before in Crossing the Water
Temporary Boyfriend: Nile Harris + Malcolm-X Betts / photo: Maria Baranova
Noa Rui-Piin Weiss’s 10 picks:
If you know me, you’ve probably heard me talk about all these shows already.
Less of a “best of” list, more of a “I can’t stop thinking about it” list.
Briefly, and in no particular order:
My Town by Jack Ferver at NYU Skirball
This is what it’s like to watch someone perfect their craft. Jack performed an entire chapbook of poetry that cut to the heart of dreaming and dance theater. A haunting blend of magical realism and autobiography that left me wondering “how does someone make something like this?”
OO-GA-LA at Danspace Project
Hottest show I’ve seen at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. These performers had the audience on the edges of their seats begging to give them a standing ovation. If you missed it, go see the revival January 8-10 in 2026!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA by Julia Masli at The Public
I said I wasn’t doing favorites but this was maybe my favorite. This show is about how deep down, we all want to help each other. Lots of artists say they make art about “the human experience.” Julia did not make this claim, but she encompassed all of humanity in this work. She deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
The Essence & The Choice by Matty Davis at Pageant
Learned some things about masculinity from this one: namely, that men are often sexy because they are dangerous. Matty loves risk, and so does an audience.
Deletus Teetus: Night of 1000 Maxx Loves by Maxx Love and friends at C’mon Everybody
Excuse the nepotism but my drag dad’s top surgery fundraiser show is on my list. Doing a 2hr+ drag extravaganza/fundraiser is a win/win: each of your attention whore performer friends gets to do a number, and together we raise a month of rent for someone we love. It’s never perfect, but it’s always a miracle.
Generator by Neva Guido at Pageant
So charmed by everything that happened in this show. Athletic, earnest, a little cheeky. There’s a fantastic joke about The Laughing Cow cheese brand–you just had to be there.
Independence Gay: Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo get abducted by SOCIALIST Aliens and DJ Evangeline by Bertha Vanayshun and Anne J. Tifah at All Night Skate
Please watch this entire 7:34 video so you can understand why I think our taxes should pay for Bertha Vanayshun to be a historian of local politics through the medium of drag numbers.
Figaro/Faggots at Baryshnikov Arts Center
I got to see the dress rehearsal of this show and left crying! Eat your heart out RENT, Figaro/Faggots is the blueprint for reinventing an opera to talk about the beautiful complexities of queer sex and love as you stare down the barrel of death.
T-Boy Wrestling NYC
T-Boy Wrestling is in complicated legal/financial trouble right now, but if you ignore how the sausage got made it was a beautiful dream. If you’re reading this, now is the time to make yourself more trans. You can do it, I believe in you.
For All Your Life by Leslie Cuyjet at BAM
One of my top shows of all time. Talk about investing everything into your art. I want a venue to commit to putting this show on once a year every year for the rest of Leslie’s long and beautiful life.
Friday Night Rat Catchers: Lisa Fagan + Lena Engelstein / photo: Maria Baranova
Theresa Buchheister’s Special Citations:
I did not get to see nearly as many shows this year, but I still got to experience a fair amount of magic. These aren’t lists so much as special citations?
Food Is Fun:
TIE:
-Me and Peter Mills Weiss and my brother at SalOn! At Brick Aux (January)
-The full spread at The Matriarchs by Liba Vaynberg at TheaterLab (September)
Nudity Is Fun:
TIE:
-Nina Lucia Rodriguez in Das Raushgift, being supported by the wonderful ensemble of Besties (December)
-Mikey Maus really gave a lotta butt to the front row at The Brick (November)
Dignified Cigarette Work:
-Meghan Robichaud in MEOW! at Loading Dock (January)
Impactful Surprises:
TIE:
-Each blank fired at the end of Temporary Boyfriend by Nile Harris and Malcom-X Betts at Chocolate Factory (January)
-Lena Engelstein delivering a real-estate-vocal-fry-exuberance standing atop a moving vehicle at sunset next to the Williamsburg Bridge (June)
Greatest Reverberations:
TIE:
-The delicate culmination of Braiding Water by Xiaoyue Zhang at JACK (January)
-The 9 hours (I could not stay for the full 12, sadly) of KATORGA by OZET in a chapel on 121st Street where we sang together, carved soap, shared treats, recorded messages to the universe and more (January)
Brilliance In Props:
TIE:
-Every single thing in NOTHING DOING by Alex Tatarsky at Chemistry Creative (January)
-Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods by Bailey Williams and Emma Horwitz at HERE… all the erotica. All the boxes. The wine. The shoes. (April)
Dance Breaks:
TIE:
-Jim Fletcher’s rat dance in Symphony of Rats by Richard Foreman and The Wooster Group at The Performing Garage (January)
-The tipsy ensemble of Stories Will Not Mend This Broken World at Brick Aux (November)
Good for the Soul:
TIE:
-The epic yet tender relationship at the center of U Are the Dream by Allyson Dwyer at The Brick
-The ladders moment at the end of I’m Repeating Myself by Chad Kaydo at The Brick (March)
Most Simultaneous Dialogue:
-Catrin Lloyd Bollard and Michael Stevens in Emphasis Mine by Spencer Thomas Campbell at We Are Here
Monologue But Way More:
TIE:
-Nile Harris in Domino Park, post City Bike, in the crowd, under the tarp, everywhere (June)
-David Greenspan in I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan at The Atlantic … giving us prime David Greenspan and folding in on himself as only he can do (April)
Environment is Everything:
-BOWL EP takes the cake here. It reminded me of my public pool AND the skateparks I would skip class to go to with my buddies in high school. Plus the secret entrance. (June)
Performances That I Think About Without Trying:
-Matthew Antoci in MEOW! (January)
-Hannah Kallenbach in Mikey Maus (November)
-Rawya El Chab in Crossing the Water (December)
-Jordan Baum in Cemetery Soup (August)
-Countess Luann at Liberty Hall (December)
Big Reveal:
-Adam Kassim’s FAGGOT/TERRORIST - the first Adam project I’ve experienced and it was a real, textured, impactful piece of theater. (September)
Extra Special Event Vibes:
-Nathan Repasz playing drums for the national tour of Dirty Dancing Live, which I got to attend in KC with some dear friends and family.
BOWL EP: Essence Lotus + Oghenero Gbaje / photo: Carol Rosegg
Matthew Antoci’s Split + Shared Bill Highlights:
I’d like to archive some performances I saw on split & shared bills this year that I can’t get out of me ‘ead. I love split bills a lot – just enough stakes to get the juices flowing, but enough freedom for something new to crop up for the artist. Bring me the fleeting - the bitesize - the new - the NOW!!
Steph Marc, SalOn! Double Groove at Brick Aux (1/30/25) & SHEAUXgasm at Ars Nova (11/18/25)
Steph’s comedy has the perfect combination of What the Fuck, Wait What is This, and, frankly, life-affirming Awe. In Steph’s sets, he enters as a walking Greek comedy mask, crouched ready to pounce, and asks a series of increasingly absurd questions to the audience. As his performances go on, I feel a compounding sense of HIGH ECSTASY. What if instead of a comedy set being setup-punchline-next joke, it's a racing escalation toward the top of a hill? No stops to break, just GO. Over again, Steph’s comedy builds towards heights rarely tapped in comedy settings, and feels to me like an antidote for our tepid times.
Ryan Daniel Pater, Idiot’s Hour at Baker Falls (8/13/25, though he’s there each week!)
Clown thrives from a common enemy. The night I went to Idiot’s Hour (wall-to-wall crowds and bonkers shenanigans galore), it was announced that a leading voice in the clown community was quoted in a recent article, and I’m paraphrasing, as saying New York’s independent clown scene had a lot of *** (I’m guessing “passion”) but lacked POETRY. At the end of that night, Ryan Pater’s solo performance couldn’t have presented a stronger rebuttal. Entirely improvised or meticulously scripted, I am delighted to not know, Pater performed as a lost trio of friends sending letters back and forth. Equal parts goofball and quietly moving, it was poetic clown at it’s most luminous, in a night always at peak volume. (SHOUT OUT DUBSTEP GUY!)
JoyBoy da Clown, ?! New Works at The Brick (4/18/25)
Often my favorite playwrights are dancers.
Never this year was a set-up more worth it for me than in Joy-Marie Thompson’s “Farewell My Fool,” when the piece had told you it was about one thing, and in a flick of the wrist, it pivoted to something else entirely. (I’m being vague to avoid spoilers.) Joy-Marie is a rare artist, deeply talented across multiple forms, who has equally new things to say about both. Go see their show in January!!
Derek Smith, ?! New Works at The Brick (4/24/25)
A revelatory duo-turned-solo revenge dream ballet of epic and petty proportions. Like all great queer performance, Derek invoked the ennui of queer life, our shared humiliations and obsessions, while being rigorously, gorgeously stupid. Robust, rare faggotry that must be protected at all costs. You can see the newest version of the piece, “Letters from Tyra,” in a split bill with Isa Spector in Exponential this Jan!
Duchess Carpathia Bouffray, ?! New Works at The Brick (4/24/25)
Sometimes a divine entity takes you by the hand, your soft femininities meet, and forcefully She leads you to a new world of indulgent conviction that’s so intoxicating you never want to leave. Watching the Duchess was one of those experiences, and all I can say is my dying wish is to return to Kaftanada expediently. In fact, trade my US passport for Kaftanadian, I am ready to die there.
Nile Harris and Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein, Sugar Sugar at Domino Park (6/4/25)
What's there to say that hasn't been said? I was so moved by a car in a performance that I had to use one myself (spoiler alert, I broke my knee). On that one summer night though, amidst Nile’s climbing ladders of neo-verse and balletic bike-riding, and Lisa & Lena’s gazelle-leaping clothes-throwing realtor-tyranny, both acts tore the skyline down into our laps and I was reminded that claims of theatre dying are oblivious - it’s right here.
Rebecca Brooks, CATCH at PS21 Chatham (7/26/25)
Rebecca’s concept was simple: to compile a one-minute dance from an array of choreographers and stitch them together. What delicately filled the room during Rebecca’s solo presentation were the friends not there. The piece implied a soft web of conspiring artists all sharing a similar … yesness. In one portion, Rebecca ran out to the luscious summer grass to stage right, and the roof’d amphitheater audience cocked their heads and admired the periphery - a simultaneous image of a blank stage and the visible world beyond it
Finally: not a split bill in the traditional sense, but MTHR TRSA’s High & Scared at PSNY (11/16/25) was absolutely a shared theatrical event. She gathered a troupe of what felt like 15+ performance artists, and conducted a hypercollage of original vignettes, scoring, lipsync, and gags surrounding trans life. The show, equal parts hilarious and harrowing, ends with a running sequence that can only be experienced. On its surface, it's a raw display of perseverance, but also evocative of queer existence. What is drag today? In this room we’re safe, we can celebrate & ki. But once this is over, in the outside world, we’ll be running & running.
All split bills attended & recommended:
- SalOn!
- CATCH
- ?! New Works @ The Brick
- Idiot’s Hour
- Sugar Sugar
- Quick & Dirty
- Showgasm
- A few other shared evenings at Life World & MITU
-Whatever I’m forgetting!
Cheers to another great year <3
PS: if you’re an artist and you’re reading this or any list - reminder not to put too much stock in your peers’ opinions of you. It’ll fuck you up.
MEOW!: Meaghan Robichaud / photo: Graham Dickie
Leah Plante-Wiener’s Categories:
I saw 125 performances this year. Here are some categories.
Performances that, uh oh, made me think about my relationship to being an artist:
See/Unsee (Lila Blue, Jillian Jetton), The Seventh Planet (William Sydney), Out of Order (Carl Holder, Skylar Fox), Lobster (Kallan Dana, Hannah Yurfest), Practice (Nazareth Hassan, Keenan Tyler Oliphant), Can It Be I'm Not Meant To Play This Part? (Li-Ming Hu)
Performances that made me think about mommy and daddy yaaaayy!!!:
Family (Celine Song, Alec Duffy), Who's Your Daddy (Gagarin, Reuven Glezer), Mikey Maus in Fantasmich (Hannah Kallenbach, Dan Hasse)
Performances that made me think about my patterns of substance use, and you know what, I wasn't even mad:
The Apologetics (Eka Savajol, Jack Ventimilia), Hannah Kallenbach at CATCH 80, Das Rauschgift (Travis Amiel & Cosimo Pori), Road Kills (Sophie McIntosh, Nina Goodheart)
Performances I saw in languages I don't speak:
Blind Runner (Amir Reza Koohestani), Duke Bluebeard's Castle (Project NYX), The Threepenny Opera (Berliner Ensemble)
Performance so powerful it one-punched through my birth control to deliver me the worst period cramps I've had in years:
Friday Night Ratcatchers (Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein)
Performance I keep on getting told I should've seen, and I know that, but it was only three nights, so shut the fuck up:
The Bride and The Goodnight Cinderella (Carolina Bianchi)
The Isabelle Huppert Reading Maupassant Award for Isabelle Huppert Reading Maupassant:
Isabelle Huppert Lit Maupassant
Play readings that reminded me that sometimes I love a damn play reading:
Emphasis Mine (Spencer Thomas Campbell, Theresa Buchheister), Dreams of Gin and Honey (Jason Driver), East Grand Memory Buffet (Hillary Gao, Lisa Fagan)
All-star ensemble I would like to cook five to seven frozen pizzas for (I don't cook):
is this a theatre of love? (or just a hellscape of masks?) (Nicholas Sanchez, Jacob Smith, Isa Nicdao, Hannah Kallenbach, Zarina Nares, Justin D'Acci, Grace Lees, Dana Wendel, Andy Thussy on Facetime, Dana Dawud and Poorspigga online, James Wyrwicz)
Theatre company I became a groupie of:
The Goat Exchange (Deadclass, Ohio, Escaped Alone (Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen))
The Bedbug Award for Most Consistently Recurring Performance Series:
The Idiot's Hour
Personal downtown darlings of the year:
Chloe Claudel (Deadclass, Ohio, Escaped Alone (Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen), The Barbarians) & Pete Simpson (Deadclass, Ohio, Berlindia!, Bad Stars)
Performers who freaked me the hell out:
Lucifire (TANZ, Florentina Holzinger), Hannah Franzen (Metamorphosis iii episodes 1-3, Stacy Grossfield), Wonderful Cringe
Performers I didn't get to see in 2025 who are at the top of my 2026 list:
Star & Stan, Buffy, Kyle b. co.
Designers who made me go wooooow:
Kate McGee (Family), Karen Boyer (Practice), Jacqueline Scaletta (Lobster), Forest Entsminger (Escaped Alone (Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen))
Moon headpieces that made me gasp:
Moon Play (Sophia Halimah Parker), Berlindia! (Daniel Holzman, Noah Latty)
Puppets of old people that made me cry:
Anywhere (Théâtre de l'Entrouvert & Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival), CAT (Sammy Zeisel & Gaby FeBland)
Additionally, Performances I'm using to affirm my prediction that puppets will be to 2026 what clowns were to 2025:
Anywhere, CAT, Cool Zone: The Lost Episode (Vape Kid Jr.), is this a theatre of love? (or just a hellscape of masks?) (puppeteering by Justin D'Acci), Dead As a Dodo (Wakka Wakka), Ronnie's World (Sophie Becker)
The Bluesky Dot Com Award for Most Discourse:
Marie Antoinette (Ann Liv Young)
Best use of an index finger:
MEOW! (Matthew Antoci & Meaghan Robichaud via Gabriella Gonzalez)
Best use of a citrus:
New Life Hamlet Construction (Alina Jacobs, Blake Robbins)
Best use of A GUN!!!!!!:
Temporary Boyfriend (Nile Harris & Malcom X-Betts)
Best deployment of a toddler:
600 Highwaymen at CATCH Takes the Hudson
Best children on the scene:
The CATCH kids
Best line delivery:
Alex Tatarsky, "sesame chicken" (East Grand Memory Buffet)
The Zohran Mamdani Award for Princess of New York:
Crackhead Barney
Member of the community we kind of owe everything to:
Kyla Gordon of Performance Daily NYC
Genres of performance I spent the most time claiming would "save us":
Dance theatre, noise music
Best performance on film:
His Head Was a Sledgehammer: Richard Foreman in Retrospect at Anthology Film Archive
Venues I spent too much time at:
The Brick, The Tank, Lifeworld, The Collapsable Hole, box machine because I live there
Baddie of the year:
Helen Shaw
Play I had to watch from the theatre lobby monitor because I arrived at 7:07 p.m. and there was no late seating:
Oedipus (Sophocles, Robert Icke)
Most expensive ticket on this list:
Oedipus (Sophocles, Robert Icke)