THE LARAMIE PROJECT: ArtsEmerson brings Moisés Kaufman’s Tectonic Theater Project to the Cutler Majestic. |
SHIRLEY, VERMONT PLAYS | October 15–November 20 | The Huntington Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, and Company One collude to turn Tremont Street, between Berkeley and Clarendon, into the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont, geographical center of the elliptical œuvre of multiple-Obie-winning, 29-year-old dramatist Annie Baker, whose Circle Mirror Transformations, Body Awareness, and The Aliens will be produced by HTC, SESC, and CO respectively. The plays, which flit from a creative drama class to “Body Awareness Week” to the dumpster behind a coffee shop, debuted Off Broadway between 2008 and 2010, prompting the New York Times to dub Baker “a young playwright with a probing, understated voice.” On five “marathon” days, it will be possible to experience Shirley all at once. | Boston Center for the Arts Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont St, and Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | $25-$65; $15 student rush | Circle Mirror Transformations | $30-$55; $25 under 25; $14 student rush | Body Awareness | $18-$38; $15 students | The Aliens | $120 | three-play marathon | 617.933.8600 or shirleyvtplays.com or bostontheatrescene.com
ONE SMALL STEP | October 20-24 | ArtsEmerson presents the US premiere of this Oxford Playhouse theater piece celebrating the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and taking its title from the lips of astronaut Neil Armstrong. Two actors, armed with minimal props and playing 41 parts, reconstruct the space race. | Paramount Center Black Box, 560 Washington St, Boston | $39 | 617.824.8000 or artsemerson.org
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, PARTS 1 & 2 | October 21–December 19 | The Lyric Stage Company takes on the largest project in its 37-year history: David Edgar’s recently whittled-down version of his Tony- and Olivier-winning two-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’s third novel, an epic compendium of Victorian cruelty over which the title hero triumphs. Spiro Veloudos directs a who’s who of local luminaries that includes Elliot Norton Award winners Leigh Barrett, Larry Coen, Nigel Gore, and Will Lyman. On five occasions, the two parts can be taken in on a single day. | 140 Clarendon St, Boston | $25-$56 | 617.585.5678 or lyricstage.com
AFTERMATH | October 27-31 | Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen, authors of The Exonerated, traveled to Jordan in 2008 to interview Iraqi refugees, who talked about fleeing chaos and lives interrupted. This New York Theater Workshop performance, in its Boston premiere courtesy of ArtsEmerson, is the result. | Paramount Theatre, 560 Washington St, Boston | $25-$79 | 800.824.8000 or artsemerson.org
VENGEANCE IS THE LORD’S | November 12–December 12 | The last time Huntington Theatre Company honcho Peter DuBois directed the world premiere of a Bob Glaudini play, it starred Philip Seymour Hoffman. There’s no word yet on who’s in this “darkly comic domestic drama” revolving around a Sopranos-like New England family. But DuBois is at the helm of the latest from the author of Jack Goes Boating. | Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston | $25-$89; $15 student rush | 617.266.0800 or huntingtontheatre.org
THE FEVER CHART: THREE VISIONS OF THE MIDDLE EAST | November 18–December 19 | Playwright Naomi Wallace “seems to believe the world can change,” opines Tony Kushner, adding, “She certainly writes as if she intends to set it on fire.” In this triptych tinged with magic realism and humor, to be presented by Underground Railway Theater, the world to which Wallace applies her match comprises Israel, Palestine, and Iraq. | Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge | $40; $30 seniors; $25 students | 866.811.4111 or centralsquaretheater.org
