1) Ground Floor Theatre’s Falsettos
Technically a 2024 show, but it happened right after last year’s Top 10s issue, and it sure deserves a spot at the top. This show earned the unique honor of making me fall in love with musicals again. I thought I’d moved on, but this score, this talent, this sheer showmanship from the performers – why yes, I’m still thinking about Megan DeYoung’s roller skating number, and I probably will be for the rest of my life – the entire show coalesced to make magic.
2) Walking Shadow Shakespeare’s Hamlet
I just raved about WSS’s Shakespearean mash-up, but this January 2025 production is what vaulted them onto my radar. What an introduction to their entire ethos. I’m prone to love Hamlet anyway, as any red-blooded Shakespeare fan would, but it was a privilege to see how the company broke down barriers between text and audience. Often that was literally: There was an audience participation option, and I was lucky enough to ad lib a line or two as one of the castle guards during an early scene. But the company also worked to eliminate any blockage in understanding. Along with an immersive space, they integrated technology, like an endearing TikTok commentary on the royal family, demonstrating how the story could be happening today. Making the past immediately present and applicable? My catnip.
3) ISHIDA Dance’s “soul-writer”
ISHIDA Dance is working to create not just national, but international buzz for Austin’s dance scene, under the keen eye of Artistic Director Brett Ishida. And while I respect the artists she brought to town, it was her own piece, “soul-writer,” that left a lasting impression. A section where sons mourn the loss of their mother, who herself appears as a ghostly form, stood out for the physical beauty of the dance and the emotional roundhouse kick of witnessing the tenderness and insecurity of lost relationships. The open-ended nature of dance let it resonate differently than other mediums. It gave space for pondering, and I’ve kept pondering my own losses ever since.
4) MASS Gallery’s Toxic Masculinity
If you told me this time last year that a show spotlighting a hardcore gay pornographer would be one of the most touching, empathetic exhibits of 2025, I probably wouldn’t believe you. But that’s exactly what Beth Schindler of MASS Gallery curated. Her David Hurles retrospective, created alongside his friends Dian Hanson and Christopher Trout, was thoughtful, respectful, and created a thoroughly fascinating portrait of a sensitive man. I left MASS in awe of the sheer amount of paraphernalia they had, the excellent organization, and the way it presented a heartening glimpse at someone who could have been forgotten at the fringes.
5) Filigree Theatre’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Gothic sensibilities will always have a leg up in my book, so Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was ahead of the curve already. But adding a clever script with multiple Hydes, plus some truly remarkable acting? I’m sold. I’m seated. I’m a fan. Filigree Theatre filled the venue, the Factory on 5th, with perfectly macabre Victorian trappings. They added broken windows to the high ceilings to create a nightmarish atmosphere, decorated with minimalist doors and surgical tables, and washed everything in red light with heavy shadows. It was Hyde’s hell, and I was just happy to be there.
6) One Ounce Opera’s Ray Bradbury, Age 12, at the Carnival in Waukegan, Illinois
All the short operas at One Ounce’s Fresh Squeezed Ounce of Opera showcase were incredible, but one knocked my socks off. Ray Bradbury is a huge personal creative inspiration – the man was the perfect blend of talent and insanity – but I had somehow never heard “his favorite childhood story” about a carnival encounter with Mr. Electrico. Composer Tyler Mabry was beyond inspired when he used it as the basis for his one-act. Opera became the perfect medium, the high drama of the music completely at home with Bradbury’s fantastical words. It’s a story that does exactly what Mr. Electrico teaches Bradbury: “live forever.”
7) Friends Fair
The heart yearned for examples of community and collaboration this year. All those dreams came true with the artistic alliance behind Friends Fair. Even before the fair happened, the sheer hype coming from the originating five galleries was exhilarating. The participants were truly future-facing, considering how to be as inclusive as possible while growing in national recognition. But the experience of the fair itself: magical. Loren Hotel became a wonderland, each room transformed to spotlight art or artists. My favorites integrated bathrooms, tubs, and mirrors to create verdant forests or neon dreams.
8) Dirty Gold’s Venus in Fur
Oooo, this play was hot. A two-hander like this has to be tight to keep attention. Actors Dylan Hoeffler and Julia Bennett definitely kept it so. They prowled and played their way through the script’s maze of gendered power dynamics. Sure, you could call it a psychosexual encounter. You could also just call it fun, watching Hoeffler’s self-important director character picked apart piece by piece by Bennett’s mythically powerful woman. Is she a goddess, a witch, a succubus? Why not all three? In the end, Venus was a master class in staging dangerous intimacy.
9) Doctuh Mistuh Productions’ Pretty Filthy
In the sticky summer heat, Doctuh Mistuh kept it sultry with Pretty Filthy, a docu-musical exploration into San Fernando Valley’s porn scene. Based on real interviews, it was less a linear story and more a recollection from workers both seasoned and fresh on the scene. The stellar cast shared pride and fragility through their numbers. The pride was maybe the most memorable, as I doubt I’ll ever forget Sebastián Vitale’s number as Jimmy Wood, a performer with a certain set of skills onscreen. Remembering his joyful singing against well-timed projections of waterfalls (I’ll leave you to make the connection on your own) never fails to leave me chuckling.
10) The Spark’s Pillar of Fire
The Spark proved that the kids are absolutely alright. The teen company’s inaugural work tackled another Ray Bradbury, so I was perhaps a bit in the pocket already. But that also means they could have slaughtered a beloved sacred cow. They didn’t. They lived up to Bradbury’s work, brilliantly balancing the sunny sincerity of fresh-faced youth with the wise warnings nestled in the dystopian hellscape onstage. There’s some hope for the future. It’s nice to remember that not all is lost. There’s an upcoming generation poised to create and explore, and that reminder will keep me warm in the long winters to come.
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This article appears in December 19 • 2025.