THEATER

‘Shear Madness’
Ongoing
Charles Playhouse
74 Warrenton St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$40, 617-426-5225
www.shearmadness.com
The audience participation play about a murder in a hair salon holds the Guinness record as the longest running play in American theatre history. It's been going on for so long that we can no longer think of anything fresh and entertaining to say about it.

‘Zinn Celebration’
Throughout the 2008-2009 school year
Suffolk University
41 Temple St., Boston
MBTA: Green/Red Line to Park
Free to $25, 617-573-8282
www.suffolk.edu/theatre
Everyone's favorite patron of the people's history, Howard Zinn, is the subject of a year-long huzzah to celebrate his visiting scholar status at Suffolk. The ongoing schedule includes a reading of "Emma," a production of "Daughter of Venus," and Wesley Savick's Zinn-based "Shouting Theatre in a Crowded Fire." A favorite of closet geniuses working as janitors everywhere.

‘We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay!’
Sept. 4 through Sept. 28
Central Square Theater
450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$22-$32, 866-811-4111
www.centralsquaretheater.org
Housewives revolt in Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo’s 1974 satire that, as the promoters promise, touches on "hypocrisy, injustice, and liberation with a healthy dose of hysterics thrown in for good measure." If there's one thing we remember from high school history class, it's that you can't have a revolution without getting hysterical.

‘How Shakespeare Won the West’
Sept. 5 through Oct. 5
The BU Theatre
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Symphony
$20-$82.50, 617 266-0800
www.huntingtontheatre.org
Wait, Shakespeare won the West? Does that mean the pen is, definitively, mightier than the sword? Or was Big Bad Bill that good in a dust-swept two-man duel? Perhaps we'll find out in Richard Nelson's play about a group of actors who, while moving westward during the Gold Rush, encounter the "teeming challenges and glories of the new American frontier."

Nothing stands up to building demolishers better than cleavage and ruffled pastel tux shirts from the 70s.

‘Follies’
Sept. 7 through Oct. 11
The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
140 Clarendon St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$29-$54, 617-585-5678
www.lyricstage.com
“Broadway Baby” and “I'm Still Here” are a few of the notable toe-tappers from this Stephen Sondheim musical. Set in 1971, it tells the story of a group of Follies performers who reunite for a little reminiscing before their old New York theater is demolished. Whether they're reminiscing about past performances or buildings being demolished is hard to tell.

‘A Chorus Line’
Tonight through Oct. 5
Boston Opera House
539 Washington St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$30-$91, 617-931-2787
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com/boston
Predicting our cultural obsession with audition-based reality shows, “A Chorus Line” turned the casting of a Broadway musical dance ensemble into a Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning sensation. In the theatrical adaptation, Michael Douglas played a choreographer, a fact that makes our jazz hands all tingly each time we think of it.

‘Falsettos’
Sept. 12 through Oct. 12
Turtle Lane Playhouse
283 Melrose St., Newton
MBTA: Green Line to Riverside
$20-$27, 617-244-0169
www.turtlelane.org
According to the organizers, this 1992 Tony Award winner for best book and musical score is “the jaunty tale of Marvin, who leaves his wife and young son to live with another man.” We'd hazard a guess that Marvin's wife and young son would not describe this as “jaunty,” but then neither of them writes press releases for a living.

‘Let Me Down Easy’
Sept. 12 through Oct. 11
American Repertory Theatre
64 Brattle St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$15-$79, 617-547-8300
www.amrep.org
Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman play, which she conceived and wrote, sees her taking on the roles of sports stars, philosophers, healthcare professionals and survivors of the Rwandan genocide in order to address the central question, “how do we pursue kindness in a competitive and sometimes distressing world?” Before you go stomping on her dreams and telling Smith that there is no way to do so, consider the title she gave her play.

 ‘Cutler Majestic Theatre Open House’
Sept. 14
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
Free, 617-824-8000
www.maj.org
Here's your chance to get behind the scenes of the Boston theater scene. The Cutler Majestic is offering a night where you can peep their upcoming season, schmooze with the artists, and win prizes. If you stand on their stage with a skull in your hand and start waxing existential about poor Yorick, they will kick you out.

 ‘Eurydice’
Sept. 14 through Oct. 5
Arsenal Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
$35-$55, 617-923-8487
www.newrep.org
A lady makes mistake on her wedding day and is sent to the Underworld where she is reunited with her father, while her husband attempts to find a way to contact her. If that sounds familiar, that's either because Sarah Ruhl's play is based on the myth of Orpheus, or you just rescued someone from the Underworld last weekend.

‘The Dog Enchanted by the Divine View’
Sept. 16
Plaza Theatre at the BCA
539 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$25-$45, 866-811-4111
www.twptown.org
Tennessee Williams' play about a hot Sicilian widow on a date with a truck driver gets its World Premiere in a production that also doubles as a benefit for the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. Co-starring Nancy Cassaro, the original Tina from “Tony n' Tina's Wedding,” she probably won't even notice if you eat a dinner roll and tossed salad while watching.

‘In the Continuum’
Sept.17 through Oct. 18
Plaza Black Box at the BCA
539 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$33, 617-933-8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
Two women in different parts of the world -- a teenager in Los Angeles and a middle-class newscaster in Zimbabwe -- find out they are pregnant and HIV positive. Danai Gurira's and Nikkole Salter's play follows both women as they make a big decision.

‘The Light in the Piazza’
Sept. 19 through Oct. 18
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St., Boston
MTBA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$30-$54, 617-933-8600
www.SpeakEasyStage.com
The Tuscan countryside circa 1953 is the setting for this Tony Award-winning musical. While traveling with her mother, Clara Johnson falls for a hot young Italian dude. Our mother doesn't allow us to go to the Tuscan countryside anymore, because we're always falling in love with Italian dudes.

‘24-Hour Play Festival’
Sept. 20
Studio Theatre
41 Temple St., Boston
MBTA: Green/Red Line to Park
Free, 617-573-8282
www.suffolk.edu/theatre
This collaboration between Suffolk students and alumni yields performances of newly written plays, all completed with 24 hours. Impressive, perhaps, but we raise this challenge to the participants: can you include a rabid squirrel in the dramatis personae for each play?

 ‘Kabuki’
Sept. 29
Brow Hall
30 Gainsborough St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Symphony
Free, 617-585-1122
www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts
Musicians and dancers from the Research Society for Japanese Traditional Music and Performance in Kyoto perform the traditional Japanese theater that dates back to the 17th century. Consider us psyched: we'll be wearing our “Kooky for Kabuki” T-shirts.

OCTOBER

Edward Albee’s ‘Seascape’
Oct.3 through Oct. 25
Zeitgeist Stage Company
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$35, 617-933-8600
www.zeitgeiststage.com
Edward Albee’s 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winning play is about an older couple on a beach ruminating about retired life and the empty nest syndrome. They are then joined by a younger couple, who happen to be lizards. Seriously! Sounds like an episode of beachcombing as told by William Burroughs.

‘Gutenberg! The Musical’
Oct. 4 through Oct. 26
Arsenal Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
MBTA: Rt. 70 or 70A bus to School Street
$30, 617-923-8487
www.newrep.org
Finally, someone wrote a musical about Steve Guttenberg! And they even put an exclamation point after his name! Wait, what's that? Oh, “Gutenberg.” Our bad. This one's about two guys named Bud and Doug, who apparently think they have written “the next great American musical.” Obviously that's not the case, or this would be about Steve Guttenberg.

Miss Margaret LaRue in 'Milwaukee'
Oct. 9 through October 26
Boston Playwrights' Theatre
949 Comm. Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Pleasant Street
$10-$25, 866-811-4111
www.bostonplaywrights.org
Wesley Savick's play about a former movie star, “Miss LaRue in 'Milwaukee'” is an “homage to all of our hometowns -- the ones we abandoned for the bright lights and the fascinating, exciting lives we saw ahead of us.” Apparently those “exciting lives” we glimpsed off in the distance were actually premonitions of soul-sucking day-job servitude. Cue existential crisis.

‘Boleros for the Disenchanted’
Oct. 10 through Nov. 15
Calderwood Pavilion
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$20-$60, 617 266-0800
www.huntingtontheatre.org
A tale of matrimonial ups and downs from Academy Award-nominated writer José Rivera (“The Motorcycle Diaries”). Flora and Eusebio's four decade-long love is the focus here, a love that spans time and place, from Puerto Rico to the U.S. So it's kinda like “The Motorcycle Diaries,” only minus the motorcycles and diaries?

‘Wishful Drinking’
Oct. 10 through Oct. 26
BU Theatre
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Symphony
$20-$82.50, 617 266-0800
www.huntingtontheatre.org
Being the hound dogs that we are, we like to think that Carrie Fisher is frozen in time, clad oh-so-scantily in that gold bikini outfit while trapped as Jabba the Hut's prisoner. Alas, life does go on, a truism that's likely to pop up at least once in Fisher's one-woman performance of her own true Hollywood story.

‘12th Annual Boston University Fall Fringe Festival’
Oct. 10 through Nov. 2
Boston University Theatre
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Mass Ave
$7, 617-933-8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
BU's School of Music Opera Institute and School of Theatre team up for the Fall Fringe Festival, a collection of contemporary operas, plays, and recitals. Titles include “Trouble in Tahiti,” “Tobermory,” “Recital Meets Theatre,” and “Pope Joan,” the funkiest pope in the world.

Lady Windermere’s Fan
Oct. 16 through Oct. 19
Semel Theater
10 Boylston Place, Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$14, 617-824-8369
www.emerson.edu/emersonstage
Oscar Wilde's biting satire on the morals of Victorian England isn't too far removed from modern times. The action revolves around high-society gossip -- something we know far too much about in our TMZ-driven society -- and Lady Windermere's husband, in particular, who may be two-timing her.

‘Martha Mitchell Calling’
Oct. 16 through Nov. 8
Central Square Theater
450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$32-$22, 866-811-4111
www.centralsquaretheater.org
Martha Mitchell was, according to the CST, “a feisty southern belle, clamors to be heard during the tumultuous times of the Watergate scandal.” The Boston premiere of Jodi Rothe's play is perfect for election season escapism, especially since come mid-October, you'll want to stick a pencil in your eye instead of listen to Sarah Palin compare herself to a pitbull again.

‘Saturday Night’
Oct. 16 through Oct. 26
Laurie Theater at Brandeis University
415 South St., Waltham
$16 to $20, 781-736-3400
www.brandeis.edu/btc
You may have heard that Saturday night is alright for fighting, and that is correct. It is also true that “Saturday Night” is a musical comedy set in 1929 about “five Brooklyn buddies [who] spend each weekend on their front porch, dreaming of glamorous girls and the nightlife of Manhattan.”

Suffolk Fall Showcase
Oct. 16 through Oct. 19
Studio Theatre
41 Temple Street, Boston
MBTA: Green/Red Line to Park Street
Free, 617-573-8282
www.suffolk.edu/theatre
“Student directors explore complex social themes” in this assortment of original and existing short plays. Is fighting on Saturday night considered a “complex social theme”?

‘Der Freischütz’
Oct. 17 through Oct. 21
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$29-$119, 800-233-3123
www.telecharge.com
Based on German folk legend, Carl Maria von Weber's “Der Freischütz” is about magic bullets, deals with the devil, and the pursuit of true love via marksmanship. Reminds us of the time we consulted with the dark side in order to win our beloved wife's hand in marriage. Those were the days.

‘November’
Oct. 17 through Nov. 15
The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
140 Clarendon St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$25-$50, 617-585-5678
www.lyricstage.com
So maybe you're looking for a political play with slightly more satirical cojones, and more swear words. Look no further than this new comedy from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet that involves the President, turkeys, Indian casinos, a televised lesbian wedding, and, fingers crossed, righteous use of the F-word.

‘The Communist Dracula Pageant’
Oct. 18 through Nov. 9
American Repertory Theatre
64 Brattle St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$15 to $79, 617-547-8300
www.amrep.org
OK, so you've seen “Martha Mitchell Calling” and “November,” and you can't help thinking that something was missing from both of them. Something like...communist vampires. Booyah, son, this one was made for you.

‘Faith Healer’
Oct. 23 through Nov. 22
Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$20-$35, 617-933-8600
www.publicktheatre.com
The memories of an itinerant Irish healer, his wife, and business manager are at the center of Irish playwright Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer,” which, as promoters promise, “poses the searing questions about the power of art to simultaneously deceive and inspire, to ruin and to heal.” Art's gotta be careful about that deceit and ruin part, or else we may ask for our money back.

A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim
Oct. 24
Northeastern University Center for the Arts
360 Huntington Ave, Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Northeastern
$20 to $30, 617-373-4700
www.centerforthearts.neu.edu
Stephen Sondheim most likely has an entire wing in one of his houses dedicated to all the awards he's won throughout his storied Broadway career, all of his Pulitzers and Grammys, Tonys and Oscars and Drama Desks. But he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. And then he polishes his awards. Sean Patrick Flahaven, associate editor of the Sondheim Review and Vice President at Warner Chapel Music, interviews Sondheim for this rare local appearance.

‘Tartuffe’
Oct. 25
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$45, 800-233-3123
www.maj.org
The physical comedy of the Dell’Arte ensemble meets the social comedy of Molière in this satire of religious zeal and hypocrisy. “Tartuffe” was quickly censored upon its original performance in 1660s Versailles, an event we like to pretend is now known as the “Tartuffe Kerfuffle.”

‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’
Oct. 28 through Nov. 9
Boston Opera House
539 Washington St, Boston
MBTA: Green/Red Line to Park
$30-$91, 617-931-2787
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com/boston
Turning movies into Broadway musicals is all the rage these days; just ask Mel Brooks and John Waters. Or whoever made “Legally Blonde,” the Reese Witherspoon vehicle about a materialistic sorority girl who takes her Chihuahua to Harvard Law. But look at that Chihuahua now! Laughing all the way to the bank (if you define that annoying yip-yip sound as “laughing”).

‘Saint Joan’
Oct. 31 through Nov. 30
Wheelock Family Theatre
200 The Riverway, Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Fenway  
$25 to $10, 617-879-2300
www.wheelock.edu/wft
George Bernard Shaw’s challenging play stars Andrea Ross as Joan of Arc, “the world's first feminist teen rebel [who] didn’t hesitate to speak her mind, wear men’s clothes, lead a fight, talk to angels,” and was burned at the sake while still in her teens. She was also the first person in 15th century France to wear a CBGB T-shirt.

‘Voyeurs de Venus’
Oct. 31 through Nov. 22
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Copley
$18 to $38, 617-933-8600
www.CompanyOne.org
Lydia Diamond's new play tells the story of Sara, who is trying to write a book about Saartjie Baartman while balancing relationships with her husband, lover, and “her own issues of racial identity.” It's being called “sexy, bold and dangerous,” which incidentally is the descriptive phrase written across the boxer shorts we're wearing right now.

NOVEMBER

'The Merchant of Venice’
Nov. 6 through Dec. 7
Midway Studios
15 Channel Center St., Boston
MBTA: Silver Line to Dudley Station
$15-$47, 617-776-2200
www.actorsshakespeareproject.org
The lesson to be learned from this Shakespeare play, quite frankly, is that when you borrow money, try not to put your own flesh up as collateral.

‘The Seafarer’
Nov. 14 through Dec. 13
Calderwood Pavilion
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$30-$50, 617-933-8600
www.SpeakEasyStage.com
A 2008 Tony Nominee for Best Play, “The Seafarer” gets its New England premiere. It's set at Christmas Eve in North Dublin, and a guy named Sharky Harkin apparently has some soul-searching to do amid "a lot of booze and card playing." Universal themes abound -- who doesn't spend their Christmas Eve playing cards and boozin' it up with a guy named Sharky?

‘Alice’s Adventures Underground’
Nov. 26 through Dec. 28
Central Square Theater
450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$22-$32, 866-811-4111
www.centralsquaretheater.org
Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" are mashed up in the Underground Railway Theater's "fantastical" production. The play's set and puppet designs won an Independent Reviewers of New England award upon its debut in 1998, and Lewis Carroll stories can make you feel like a kid (or a hallucinogen-happy teen) again.

Dr. Seuss’ ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas!’ The Musical
Nov. 26 through Dec. 28
Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre
270 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Bolyston
$28-$78, 800-447-7400
www.citicenter.org
Dr. Seuss' classic holiday tale has finally cemented its status as a modern-day seasonal commodity, moving from book to animated short to Jim Carrey movie to Broadway musical. Check out one of the Doc's most beloved stories of a cruel heart gone soft on the big stage, decked out in lavish sets and Who-licious costumes.