Jonathan Abarbanel

The New York theater season is bustling with new shows, especially Off-Broadway. November has been particularly busy, as shows open in time for the large holiday season audience. Indeed, Rockefeller Center's annual Radio City Music Hall holiday spectacular has been up-and-running since Nov. 6, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the world-famous Rockettes this year. Broadway itself is crowded with long run hits, but still waits for the first socko new musical of the season.

The 2025-2026 theater season has been the biggest one since the COVID shutdown, with well over 50 shows opening by the end of October. And yet . . . it still is not as many as before, when the new season meant 50 openings every month. Theater companies without permanent homes have fewer places at which to produce plays, with the loss of such multi-stage venues as Victory Gardens Theater, Theatre Building and Pride Arts, among others.

Pride Arts kicks off its 2025-2026 season in its new home, the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at the Center on Halsted, with a lively staging of A New Brain, the 1998 musical by composer/lyricist William Finn, with a book by Finn and James Lapine. At a lickety-split 100 minutes, the production delivers Finn's bouncing jazz-inflected score with charm as directed by Jay Espano and choreographed by Britta Schlicht.