The 2025 Broadway season is expected to be one for the ages, with several acclaimed, long-running productions continuing to excite audiences and many big-name Hollywood actors making their New York City theater debuts. There’s also more than a few young up-and-coming stars appearing on Broadway for the first time.
Here’s a look at some of the most notable Broadway debuts in 2025.
1. Sanaz Toossi
Already an accomplished playwright at 33 years old, Sanaz Toossi isn’t performing on a Broadway stage this year, but her play English was among the most anticipated this season. The Iranian-American playwright and graduate of Columbia University has developed plays that have been shown by major theater companies nationwide and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play in 2023 for Wish You Were Here. She earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for English, which tells the story of four adults in an Iranian classroom preparing for the Test of English as a Foreign Language.
English was shown off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater in 2022 and opened on Broadway at the Todd Haimes Theatre on January 3, 2025. The entire cast and director Knud Adams also made their Broadway debut and drew rave reviews from several critics, including Variety’s Christian Lewis, who called it “undeniably one of the best plays of the decade.”
2. George Clooney
George Clooney is one of the biggest film stars making their Broadway debut in 2025. The two-time Oscar and five-time Golden Globe winner, known for performances in films such as Michael Clayton, Up in the Air, and Gravity, will star as broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, a stage adaptation of the 2005 film he wrote with Grant Heslov. Tony winner David Cromer is directing the play, which begins previews in March at the Winter Garden Theatre.
This won’t be Clooney’s first time on the stage, however. The 2022 Kennedy Center honoree appeared alongside Brad Pitt and Martin Sheen in a 2012 performance of 8, a play about the federal trial that led to California overturning its ban on same-sex marriage, at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.
3. Jasmine Amy Rogers
Jasmine Amy Rogers is one of the brightest up-and-coming stars in theater and is set to make her Broadway debut as the sassy and sweet iconic cartoon character Betty Boop in Boop! The Musical, which begins previews on March 11 at the Broadhurst Theatre. The musical, which debuted in Chicago in 2023, imagines Betty outside of her black-and-white cartoon world and living in present day New York City.
Rogers, a 2017 Jimmy Awards finalist, played Betty during the production’s Chicago run and, more recently, garnered rave reviews for her scene-stealing performances as Gretchen Wieners in the Mean Girls national tour. She has also appeared in The Wanderer at Paper Mill Playhouse and Becoming Nancy at the Alliance Theatre.
4. Paul Mescal
Paul Mescal is no stranger to the stage, but he’s making his American theatrical debut in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire at the Harvey Theatre at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2025. The latest revival of the critically acclaimed play opened at London’s Almeida Theatre in 2022. Mescal played lead Stanley Kowalski opposite Anjana Vasan (Stella), Patsy Ferren (Blanche Du Bois), and Dwane Walcott (Harold Mitchell) in that production. He previously appeared in UK productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Great Gatsby.
Mescal is coming off a breakthrough year in 2024. He won the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ Vantage Award, given to emerging artists, and starred in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II. He also hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL).
5. Bob Odenkirk
Bob Odenkirk, best known for playing the sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman in AMC’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, is another notable film star making his Broadway debut in a revival of a popular play. Odenkirk is starring alongside Kieran Culkin and comedian Bill Burr in Glengarry Glen Ross, which begins previews March 10 at the Palace Theatre. Michael McKean, who played the brother of Odenkirk’s character in Better Call Saul, is also part of the cast.
Odenkirk is a versatile writer and actor who wrote for and appeared in sketch comedy shows before showcasing his dramatic acting chops in Breaking Bad and films like The Post and Little Women. He won Primetime Emmy Awards as a writer for SNL and The Ben Stiller Show and received six Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Emmy nominations for Better Call Saul. Before succeeding in TV and film, he appeared in several improv shows and plays in Chicago in the 1980s.
6. Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves is reuniting with Bill & Ted co-star Alex Winter in Jamie Lloyd’s Waiting for Godot, due to open on Broadway in the fall. Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece, which tells the story of two friends searching for the meaning of life, debuted on Broadway in 1953 and has spawned several revivals with well-known actors like Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and Patrick Stewart.