Blair Underwood, Lesli Margherita, and More Star in Our Top Faves This Week

With so much great theater in New York City, you might need a little help deciding what to see this week. We've got you covered!

Here you'll find a list of standout shows that our TheaterMania critics consider especially worth your time. They're all top productions that you definitely won't want to miss.

Click on the title of a show to learn more and purchase tickets.

Emojiland: The Musical

"…[P]erformance-wise, this production is an embarrassment of riches (I mean, who doesn't want to see Ann Harada perform a musical number as a Pile of Poo?). …[T]here aren't many other off-Broadway musicals with a whole host of performances that can be described by the 'Shocked Face With Exploding Head' emoji." Read Hayley Levitt's full review here.

How to Load a Musket

"[Playwright Talene] Monahon takes a quirky topic and makes it seem not only relatable, but quietly indispensable to the current American moment. She does this through an honest portrayal of her subjects, in all of their glorious contradictions. …[S]hows like Musket give me hope that American lives are so much more complicated than the algorithm smiths at Facebook and Google would have us believe — that we're not ready to be filed away into the Matrix just yet." Read Zachary Stewart's full review here.

Paris

"In just six scenes, [playwright Eboni] Booth depicts the trickle-down cruelty of American employment, in which poor people are promoted to management to keep their boots on the necks of even poorer people, absorbing all of the subsequent resentment… Director Knud Adams deftly stages this social dynamic while leaving room for the mystery inherent in Booth's script, which is not strictly social realism…. The roots of working-class discontent extend far deeper than the Internet age. In Paris, Booth removes a level of topsoil and allows us to see the rot for ourselves." Read Zachary Stewart's full review here.

A Soldier's Play

"…[Director Kenny] Leon and his cast lean into [playwright Charles] Fuller's text with such conviction that it feels surprisingly truthful…and, even more surprisingly, new. …Though the season is still relatively young, I think we'll be hard-pressed to find a revival as satisfying as A Soldier's Play, which wears its heart on its sleeve to expose some complicated feelings about American identity that people are too afraid to talk about." Read David Gordon's full review here.

Timon of Athens

"…[T]his is a very entertaining production, brought to life by eye-catching design and a committed, energetic cast. At the center of it all is [Kathryn] Hunter, who binds both halves of this messy play together by sheer force of personality, her diminutive frame and velvety voice masking depths of fury and despair that come to the fore in the second half." Read Kenji Fujishima's full review here.

For more suggestions, visit our Broadway listings page here and our off-Broadway listings page here.