This post was updated Jan. 20 at 10:34 p.m.

From timeless, chilling classics to fresh premieres, this winter’s theater season invites audiences to rediscover the magic of live performance.

Ranging from reimagined fairytales and comedy tours to Pulitzer Prize-winning revivals, these seasonal shows offer something for every theatergoer to enjoy.

Read on for the Daily Bruin’s bundle of theater picks for the new year.

Triple Threat Comedy (The Pack Theater)

This dynamic, beloved comedy show is returning for the winter season.

Triple Threat Comedy shows incorporate stand-up, improv and sketch – the first of its kind to include all three in an hourlong show. Tickets start at around $7 for Triple Threat Comedy’s set of shows in Los Angeles from Jan. 23 to July 17. At 10 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month, The Pack Theater will feature acclaimed comedians, screenwriters and actors Jessica Alaniz, Matt Coffern, Darius Marquis Johnson and The Simpsons’ storyboard artist, revisionist and comedian Matt Mantel.

Packed with fast-paced jokes, skits and interactive crowd work, Triple Threat Comedy also brings in special guests for each show. For the first show, special guest Ivan Salas is confirmed to perform. Salas performs at comedy events across LA such as Hype Mic and the Hollywood Improv Lab. Perks Improv will also make an appearance at these upcoming shows. The former Upright Citizens Brigade team performs longform improv shows across LA, and is set to perform with Triple Threat Comedy this winter.

These quick-witted performers and their triple-pronged comedy approach have a surely hilarious show prepared.

– Izzy De Leon

Noises Off (Geffen Playhouse)

Westwood’s Geffen Playhouse is in for a whirlwind of catastrophe.

“Noises Off” arrives at the theater’s ivy-adorned doorstep, bringing uproarious laughter to LA from Jan. 29 to March 2. Winning the Olivier Award for Comedy of the Year in 1982, the satirical comedy has taken on many renditions on its journey across the globe. Acclaimed playwright Michael Frayn said the story came to him as he was watching a performance of his farce “The Two of Us” from backstage. The hilarity of the show was double-fold from the wings, leading Frayn to pen “Noises Off” as an ode to the theatrical world and the nerves, antics and drama that simmer behind the scenes.

The three-act play follows a quirky theater troupe of floundering actors touring a rendition of the fictional play “Nothing On.” Each act narrates a new facet of the production, from dress rehearsal to the opening performance to closing night, and the obnoxiously humorous challenges that come with it. Weaving forgotten lines into mounting friction with a sprinkle of messy affairs, “Noises Off” is a hilarious glimpse backstage into theater and its egoistic, volatile folk. Cloaked in slapstick humor and side stitch-inducing disasters, the play’s success lies in its very illustration of everything going wrong.

Though the claws come out when the costumes are cast off, “Noises Off” is sure to live up to its name – giving voice to the sounds often lost offstage.

– Puja Anand

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” (Hollywood Pantages Theatre)

A magical return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is coming to LA in a few short weeks.

The North American tour for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” will open at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Feb. 15, with more than 100 shows scheduled before the LA leg’s final curtain June 22. Tickets start around $60 to experience the nearly three-hour spectacle, which won six Tony Awards – including Best Play – for its original Broadway production in 2018. The play features the talents of industry creatives such as Imogen Heap, who earned a Grammy nomination for her work on the play’s music.

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” was written by Jack Thorne, who published the script with “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling in 2016. The stage adaptation’s story picks up where the epilogue of Rowling’s 2007 novel “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” left off, as the titular character prepares to send his second child, Albus Potter, to begin his education at Hogwarts. As Albus Potter befriends Scorpius Malfoy – the son of his father’s former nemesis, Draco Malfoy – and explores life at Hogwarts, he must call upon his father to help vanquish a new enemy.

With a Pantages Theatre ticket, audiences do not need a wand to be catapulted back into the wonders of the wizarding world.

– Reid Sperisen

Topdog/Underdog (Pasadena Playhouse)

Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning parable “Topdog/Underdog” is coming to the Pasadena Playhouse.

“Topdog/Underdog” will be gracing the iconic LA stage starting Feb. 26 and running until March 23, after a Tony win for Best Revival in 2023, with ticket prices starting at $40. The story follows the lives of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers searching for a brighter future while a dark past looms over them. The brothers’ preoccupation with street conning and card playing underscores a poignant conversation about brotherhood, race, poverty and fate.

After opening off-Broadway in 2001, the dark comedy soon found a home on Broadway the very next year, with a revival run in 2022. “Topdog/Underdog” winning a 2002 Pulitzer made history as it was the first play written by a Black woman to receive the prize in drama. This play is a highlight of Parks’ oeuvre and is considered to be a tour de force among the modern American theater canon. Undoubtedly, “Topdog/Underdog” will be a standout in Pasadena Playhouse’s 2025 season.

Angelenos will soon discover the ace up this playwright’s sleeve.

– Warren Riley