There is nothing “bah humbug” about this news! A Christmas Carol is returning to New York for a limited run this winter. The production, adapted by Jack Thorne and conceived and directed by Matthew Warchus, will run at PAC NYC from Nov. 23 — with an official opening on Dec. 4 — through Dec. 28. 

“Matthew and Jack’s production of A Christmas Carol is stunning and incredibly entertaining. We are thrilled that multiple generations of families will be able to enjoy this story together and our theaters can offer the uniquely immersive staging that the artists originally dreamt up,” Bill Rauch, Artistic Director of PAC NYC, said in a statement. “The holidays will be a special time at PAC NYC this fall.”

Warchus is known for his work directing Matilda The Musical, Follies, and the 1998 production of Art — which will be revived on Broadway this fall. Thorne is best known for writing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — for which he won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Play and Tony Award for Best Play — and the television show His Dark Materials.  

A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a grumpy elderly man who is visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve night. On his journey, he journeys through worlds past, present, and future, and is forced to reconcile what his lifetime of fear and selfishness has led to. 

This production first premiered at the Old Vic Theatre in London in 2017, and will play its ninth consecutive year there due to popular demand. It transferred to Broadway for a limited run in 2019 and went on to win five Tony Awards including Best Original Score and every design category. 

Casting for the production will be announced shortly. Its creative team includes sets and costumes by Rob Howell, lighting design by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Simon Baker, and wigs, hair, and makeup design by Campbell Young. Christopher Nightingale serves as the Composer and Arranger, with Lizzi Gee providing movement. 

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Sept. 9.

James is back, alright! Tony Award winner James Monroe Iglehart will step into & Juliet on Broadway as Lance for a limited 13-week engagement starting Aug. 5. He takes over from pop icon Joey Fatone, who will play his final performance on July 31. 

Iglehart is best known for originating the role of the Genie in Aladdin on Broadway, for which he won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. Most recently, he was nominated for the 2025 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for playing the titular role in A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical. He has also been seen in Hamilton, Spamalot, Chicago, and many more. 

He will join the company alongside TikTok sensation Cheryl Porter, who makes her Broadway debut as Angélique beginning this August. The company also includes Gianna Harris as Juliet, Alison Luff as Anne, Drew Gehling as Shakespeare, Michael Ivàn Carrier as May, Liam Pearce as Romeo, and Nathan Levy as François. TikTok sensation Charli D’Amelio is part of the company’s ensemble. 

& Juliet turns Shakespeare’s greatest love story on its head, imagining what would happen if Juliet hadn’t ended it all over Romeo. In the show, she gets a second chance at life, all on her own terms. Through an epic playlist of pop anthems — from Katy Perry to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears — Juliet gets to write her own story.

The show was nominated for nine Tony Awards in 2023, including Best Musical, and has remained a fan-favorite since.

& Juliet plays at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on West 43rd Street in New York City.  For tickets and more information, visit here.

A few months after Sleep No More ended its landmark run, Punchdrunk returns to New York with Viola’s Room, a smaller but even more all-consuming immersion that isolates, envelops and thrills. If that walkthrough theatrical experience emphasized the capabilities of physical storytelling, encouraging side quests and bewildered ogling at performers and fellow audience members, this one is all about the pensive powers of solitude and the inner mindscapes it can create. 

The company’s artistic director Felix Barrett, who conceived, directed (with Hector Harkness) and designed (with Casey Jay Andrews) the hourlong piece, has outfitted The Shed’s main theater space into a maze of dark passageways. Once you enter in groups of six, headphones are distributed, instructions to follow a series of sequentially activated lights are given, silence is mandated and feet must be bared. If this last bit at first seems an outrageous ask, they require you apply sanitizer. And as soon as you begin to wonder the point of it, you start to feel it.

Through Gareth Fry’s note-perfect sound design, we get the inimitable voice of Helena Bonham Carter, narrating the story of a young girl with a primeval call to dance who escapes nightly into a mystical dream of castles and lacy ballet slippers. The initial hallways of a quaint English cottage give way to her bedroom, fixed up with coquettish drapes (it’s a Bonham Carter joint, after all) and Tori Amos posters. Once the dream begins in earnest, all five senses are activated, most impressively through the walkway’s changing textures.

Darkness is a key element – sometimes cave darkness that excites, scares, and lands you exactly where Punchdrunk wants you. But Simon Wilkinson’s lighting, used sparingly and masterfully, draws attention to shadow puppetry, scene-setting installations and wonderfully evocative props, all exquisitely realized with an inventiveness that never lets up. Aside from the narration, the ears are treated to a soundscape that includes grungy acts like Soundgarden and Massive Attack, as well as orchestral pieces reminiscent of the hypnotism of the Vertigo score and the enchantment of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête, with its alluring dream logic, also seems a guiding inspiration.

Bonham Carter’s voice work is pitch perfect, reading Daisy Johnson’s adaptation of a 1901 short story by Barry Pain, “The Moon-Slave,” which follows a girl’s dreamy choreomania. Johnson grounds it in a story that hints at the loss of innocence, the troubles of girlhood and the inherent trauma of growing up.

My one quibble – and how significant it is depends on how much you seek sturdy narrative drama from this kind of thing – is with the difficulty of processing each turn of the story as you focus on the dazzling visuals, or just keeping one foot in front of the other in the dim, windy environs. Viola’s troubles take a snappy backseat the few times Bonham Carter whispers “Move quickly” and the light queues beckon a speedy canter through paths I can only describe as harrowing. (There are no jump scares or secret doors, though, as a debriefer explains at the top.)

But with this level of consummate immersion, I’ll easily throw my arms up, chalk it up to, “Well it’s supposed to be surreal and overwhelming – it’s a dream!” and enjoy the artistry. It didn’t take my date and I more than a few steps, out in the waking world, to begin planning our next trip.

Viola’s Room is scheduled through October 19, 2025 at The Shed on West 30th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.