Public Theater adds two new musicals to 2025 Off-Broadway season

One New York-premiere spring show and one world-premiere fall show will join previously announced programming at the award-winning downtown venue next year.

The Public Theater has named two new musicals joining its Off-Broadway season of programming, both premiering at the nonprofit theatre company's downtown venue in 2025.

The first, rounding out the 2024-25 season, is the New York premiere of Goddess. The show is inspired by the myth of the goddess Marimba, telling the story of a mysterious singer who arrives at a Kenyan Afro-jazz club and upends the life of a young man who has returned home after studying in America.

Goddess is conceived and directed by Saheem Ali, with a book by Jocelyn Bioh, music and lyrics by Michael Thurber, and choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie.

“When I was in my late teens growing up in Kenya, I dreamt of one day creating an original musical inspired by a myth about the Goddess of music,” Ali said in a statement. “Years later, after immigrating to the United States, I gained the courage to pursue this vision. It’s been quite a journey! At the core of the story — about the intersection of the creative and the divine — is a reminder that one can only step into one’s power by accepting one’s truth."

Goddess will run from April 29 to June 1, opening on May 20.

The show joins the previously announced 2024-25 season programming, including the currently running play Good Bones and the upcoming Deep History, Gatz, Sumo, and Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. Learn more about the full 2024-25 Public Theater season.

Making its world premiere in fall 2025, to kick off the 2025-26 season, is The Seat of Our Pants, a musical by Ethan Lipton adapted from the Thornton Wilder play The Skin of Our Teeth. Like the play, the show follows the Antrobus family, who survive multiple millennia and face all kinds of catastrophes in that time, constantly starting over and reevaluating what it means to live.

“The Skin of Our Teeth is a beautiful play,” Lipton said in a statement. “A comedy about a family in a world of never-ending existential crises, Wilder’s script is prescient and heartbreaking and totally bonkers [...] I can’t wait to share it with our own totally screwed-up world."

The show joins one previously announced play in the 2025-26 season: Initiative by Else Went, about the intertwined lives of seven teenagers in California. Emma Rosa Went directs.

Additional 2025-26 Public Theater programming has yet to be announced.

In 2025, the Public will also return with its annual Shakespeare in the Park series, reopening the newly renovated Delacorte Theater with Twelfth Night starring Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Lupita Nyong’o, and Sandra Oh. Learn more.

Photo credit: Jocelyn Bioh, Saheem Ali, and Ethan Lipton. (Photos courtesy of The Public Theater)