BETS BETS: JANUARY 5th – JANUARY 11th

Happy New Year! Best Bets January 5th – January 11th features four different festivals: two in New York, one in Boston and one in Los Angeles. Plus we have the first Broadway opening of 2026.

UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL – Multiple Venues – New York, NY – January 7^th – January 25^th

Thirty one different productions make up this year’s Under the Radar Festival in New York. This festival allows a variety of artists of multiple disciplines to explore new works in front of audiences seeking adventurous theater.

Amongst this year’s highlights are:

12 Last Songs in which workers do what they usually do, only this time on a stage during a 12 hour performance that features no script, no actors, just men and women doing their regular jobs on stage. This is part of a 12-performance cycle worldwide with this performance on January 17^th at La MaMa being the ninth.

Bellow, by Brokentalkers at the Irish Arts Center, centers on Danny O’Mahony, a fierce advocate of traditional Irish music and one of the emerald isle’s best-known accordionists.

Data Room, from Kaneza Schaal, is a conversation led by Schaal about what artists do. She’s an utterly original director and thinker and the three opportunities to see this show at The Performing Garage should be enlightening.

Friday Night Rat Catchers by Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein, takes place during a 1976 disco dance contest, but the rules are quite what the participants expect. Four performances take place at Live Artery/New York Live Arts.

Mami from Mario Banushi, has four performances at NYU Skirball. His work takes its name from Mami as in mother and Mam as in food and explores the relationship between mother and child through dance and wordless expression. 

The Rest of Our Lives by Jo Fong and George Orange also takes place at La MaMa. The two artists explore what it is to get older and what their lives as artists have amounted to. They employ dance, theater and other disciplines to tell their story. There are 10 performances.

Testo by Wet Mess, is performed at Dixon Place. Wet Mess is a drag artist and this show explores all that’s good, bad and ugly about life through the perspective of an artist who knows how messy life can truly be. There are five performances.

The Visitors from Moogahlin Performing Arts and Sydney Theatre Company has thirteen performances at Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC). Jane Harrison’s play is based on the true story of how Aboriginal leaders respond to an unknown number of ships spotted in the bay of Sydney Harbor in January 1788. 

For tickets and more information, click on the individual titles above or you can go HERE for full details and information on this year’s Under the Radar Festival.

PROTOTYPE FESTIVAL 2026 – Multiple Venues – New York, NY – January 7^th – January 18^th

Beth Morrison Projects celebrates 20 years with this year’s festival which opens with BMP: Songbook Concert & Celebration. This two-night concert will feature live performances from many of the opera projects BMP has produced including works by Ricky Ian Gordon, Emma O’Halloran, David Lang, David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Du Yun and more.

The festival includes the world premiere of Precipice by Rima Fand and Karen Fisher; the New York City premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hildegard; Richard Foreman and Michael Gordon’s What To Wear, Andrew Ousley’s Tiergarten with Kim David Smith and more.

For tickets and more information, please go HERE.

WINTER JAZZFEST – Multiple Venues – New York, NY – January 8^th – January 13^th

This festival celebrates all that’s going on in jazz with a selection of well-known and lesser-known artists playing their hearts out. This year’s line-up includes Lakecia Benjamin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Lady Blackbird, Nels Cline, Amy Gadiaga, William Hill Trio, Mádé Kuti, Adam O’Farrill’s Elephant (they have an outstanding album out later this year), William Parker Pocket Watch Orchestra, Immanuel Wilkins, Brandon Woody and dozens more.

For tickets and more information, please go HERE.

BUG – Samuel J. Friedman Theatre – New York, NY – Now – February 22nd OPENING NIGHT: January 8^th

This Tracy Letts play had its world premiere in London in 1996. The US premiere took place in 2000 in Washington, D.C. followed by an off-Broadway premiere in 2004. Two years later William Friedkin made a film of it. But this is the first-ever Broadway production.

Carrie Coon (The Gilded Age, White Lotus) plays Agnes, a waitress in Oklahoma, who strikes up a relationship with the enigmatic Peter (Namir Smallwood). What starts out simply enough becomes more dangerous as reality seemingly slips away from the couple.

David Cromer directs. The cast also includes Randall Arney, Jennifer Engstrom and Steve Key. This production originated at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and is presented here by Manhattan Theatre Club. 

For tickets and more information, please go HERE.

E PLURIBUS UNUM: FROM MANY, ONE – Boston Symphony Orchestra – Multiple Venues – January 8^th – February 7^th (Part One); March 15^th – May 3^rd (Part Two)

In celebration of America’s 250^th Birthday, BSO launches a multi-concert series that celebrates American music. 

The series opens with two performances of Samuel Barber’s opera Vanessa. That is followed by a concert featuring and celebrating the music of Allison Loggins-Hull. Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms receives two performances. Carlos Simon’s Gardner Suite has its world premiere on January 18^th. His Serenade has its world premiere on February 1^st. Johnny Gandeslman performs his This is America program in three free concerts. The music of John Williams is performed by Emanuel Ax and Gil Shaham with the BSO in four concerts.

The second part includes performances by Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming and more.

For tickets and more information, please go HERE.

BODY AND SOUND: MUSIC IN FIVE SENSES – Los Angeles Philharmonic – Multiple Venues – Los Angeles – January 9^th – April 19^th

Lest  you think all the compelling festivals are on the East Coast, the LA Phil explores how music shapes how we experience the world and how the world shapes the music itself.

The series opens on January 9^th with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting Scriabin’s Prometheus, Poem of Fire, Op. 60 with a multimedia installation by Grimanesa Amorós. Also on the program are Sibelius’s The Oceanides, Gabriella Smith’s Rewilding and Debussy’s La demoiselle élue. Soprano Liv Redpath, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and mezzo-soprano Jingjing Xu along with the Los Angeles Master Chorale join these concerts.

On January 17^th and 24^th the LA Phil’s Symphonies for Youth presents Sensory Symphony. The program features the music if John Luther Adams, Edvard Grieg, Steve Reich, Camille Saint-Saëns and Jean Sibelius. This is a 45-minute concert aimed at children ages 5 to 11. Aleksandra Melaniuk conducts the LA Phil.

On March 19^th and 20^th, artist Mary Prescott and chef Jazz Singsanong present Prescott’s Ancestral Table. Food and performance come together in this LA Phil commission in which Prescott looks at her life and world through the food of her mother. 

Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie, a monster symphony running nearly 80-minutes, gets three performances by the LA Phil under the direction of Simone Young. Zack Winokur is credited as director with ondes Martenot artist Cynthia Millar and pianist Thibaudet joining the performance. These performances take place April 10^th – April 12^th.

Elysian Park is the location for two performances of John Luther Adams’ Crossing Open Ground on April 18^th and 19^th. Christopher Rountree conducts musicians from the USC Thornton School of Music. Dimitri Chamblas directs.

For tickets and more information about this series and individual concerts, please go HERE.

Enjoy your week and go see a show!

Main Photo: Beth Morrison Project’s production of Hildegard (Photo by Angel Origgi/Courtesy BMP)