From the team at The Orchard Project, we’d like to wish you and your loved ones a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.

Once again, as our annual holiday gift to you, we asked Orchard Project artists to share #somethingnew — the theatre, TV, film, podcasts, and performances released in 2025 that most inspired them. Who better to highlight the best of the new than those making it?

This list leans toward discoveries: bold swings, formally adventurous work, new voices, and under-the-radar hits — the ones artists were texting each other about from rehearsal rooms, festival lobbies, and late-night subway rides. Each pick includes a short blurb and a quote or two capturing how it landed on the list.

Thank you for being part of something new.
If you want to support our many programs, please consider making an end-of-year gift to The Orchard Project.

We send you our warmest holiday wishes… and hope your new year is full of (good) drama. We look forward to catching up with you in 2026.

Warmly,

Ari Edelson
Artistic Director

WHAT INSPIRED OP ARTISTS IN 2025

THE NEW TV OUR ARTISTS LOVED (2025)

PLURIBUS (Apple TV+)
A strange, addictive sci-fi mystery with a human pulse — eerie, funny, and unexpectedly tender about loneliness and belonging. It’s prestige TV that’s not afraid to be odd. “It felt like a new form sneaking into the mainstream.”

THE STUDIO (Apple TV+)
A scathingly affectionate comedy about creativity inside the Hollywood machine — ego, notes, power, panic — staged with surgical timing. It’s funny because it’s SO true, and then it’s funny because it’s worse. “I simultaneously felt both attacked and seen. Five stars.”

ADOLESCENCE (Netflix)
This show was one of the rare pieces that showed how TV could be not only a talking point, but an inflection point... Bracing and unsentimental about growing up in the algorithm’s shadow... “It captured the terror of being watched while you’re still becoming.”

THE PITT (Max)
This pressure-cooker hospital drama understood pace like theatre can... “How great that it felt staged in real time.”

UNTAMED (Netflix)
A slow-burn thriller that treats landscape as character and silence as subtext... “A show that trusts the audience to lean in.”

A THOUSAND BLOWS (Hulu)
Period storytelling with kinetic grit... “Every scene felt punched into place — brutal, precise, alive.”

ANDOR — SEASON 2 (Disney+)
Honorable mention... The rare franchise that plays like political thriller, war diary, and love story at once... “Epic for a TV show, and it was grand yet intimate.”

THE NEW THEATRE & PERFORMANCE OUR ARTISTS LOVED (2025)

LIBERATION (Off-Broadway and Broadway)
Directed by OP alum Whitney White... a big-idea play that stays playable... “The rare ‘important’ show that never forgot to be thrilling.”

PURPOSE (Broadway)
OP alum Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins’ family drama... Funny, messy, painful, unmistakably human. “A Great Play feeling — like the room got smarter together.”

MEXODUS (Off-Broadway)
Part concert, part ritual, part history lesson... “Some of the most inventive music onstage of the year...”

BECOMING EVE (Off-Broadway)
Created by OP Greenhouse alum Emil Weinstein... “I left feeling braver.”

I’M ASSUMING YOU KNOW DAVID GREENSPAN (Off-Broadway, 2025)
An ode to downtown NYC theatre... “Brainy without being chilly...”

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (DC, NYC, and Edinburgh)
Existential clown show... “With so few words spoken, it was so craftily created...”

INITIATIVE (Off-Broadway)
A durational, world-building theatre experience... “Expansive, intimate… a magical theatrical experience...”

NOTHING CAN TAKE YOU FROM THE HAND OF GOD (Off-Broadway)
A virtuosic solo show... “Astonishingly skillful… generous, compassionate storytelling.”

THE NEW PODCASTS & AUDIO OUR ARTISTS LOVED (2025)

THE AUDIO FLUX PODCAST
A “zine for your ears”... “It felt like listening to a new form being invented in real time.”

SIGNAL HILL
Smart reporting with a cinematic ear... “This podcast is proof that nonfiction can still feel staged...”

SEA OF LIES (CBC/Uncover)
A Canadian investigative podcast... “A thriller made of facts — and it hits harder because it’s real.”

ARTICLES OF INTEREST: GEAR (2025 season)
Design thinking as narrative... “It made ‘objects’ feel like characters with backstories.”

THE NEW FILMS OUR ARTISTS LOVED (2025)

SINNERS (2025)
A genre movie powered by character... “Horror that knows exactly what it’s afraid of.”

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (2025)
A big-swing film... “It made the country feel like a character you can’t stop loving and fearing.”

THE SECRET AGENT (2025)
Most awarded film at Cannes... a masterpiece... (In cinemas now)

BLUE MOON (2025)
Talk-forward, actor-driven... (Purchase on most streaming services)

TRAIN DREAMS (2025)
Lyrical epic in miniature... (Stream on Netflix)

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (2025)
A quiet film... a “moral trapdoor”... (Purchase on most streaming services)

The Orchard Project
PO Box 237091 • NY, NY 10023
https://orchardproject.com