Manhattan Theatre Club names initial productions in 2025-26 season

The nonprofit theatre company has named a Broadway production from an award-winning playwright and an Off-Broadway world premiere, with more to be announced.

Manhattan Theatre Club has named the first two productions in its 2025-26 season, including a critically acclaimed play coming to Broadway from London and a new play making its world premiere off Broadway.

In fall 2025, MTC will present Punch at its Broadway venue, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Written by Olivier Award winner James Graham (Ink, Dear England) and directed by Adam Penford, the play follows a teenager named Jacob, whose life of drugs, girls, and bar fights gets upended when he ends up killing a young boy. He seeks redemption from the boys' parents and starts on a course to turn his life around.

Punch is based on the book Right from Wrong by Jacob Dunne and had two critically acclaimed runs in England.

Off Broadway in winter 2026 is the world premiere of The Monsters, written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu. The play follows a girl named LIL, who is obsessed with her older brother BIG's career as a mixed martial arts fighter. One day, she shows up at his door after only watching him from afar, and the two grapple with reconnection and resentment.

The Monsters is a co-production with Two River Theater. Performances will take place at MTC's Off-Broadway performance space in New York City Center.

Additional cast and creative team members for the two productions, as well as additional production in MTC's 2025-26 season, have yet to be announced.

Photo credit: Punch in London. (Photo by Marc Brenner)