Spring Arts Preview - Theater

 M A R C H

‘42nd Street’
Now through March 8
The Boston Conservatory Theater
31 Hemenway St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Hynes
$7-$22, 617-912-9222
www.bostonconservatory.edu/tickets
This Broadway classic, in which a musical is staged in the middle of the Great Depression, seems especially apt for these recession-dominated times. The Boston Conservatory’s production serves as a tribute to the late Sue Ronson, creator of the school’s tap dance program.

‘Two Men of Florence’
March 6 through April 5
Boston University Theatre
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Mass. Ave.
$20-$83, 617 266-0800
www.huntingtontheater.org
Former JFK speechwriter and advisor Richard N. Goodwin wrote this play about Galileo and Pope Urban VIII and their “epic power struggle for the soul of the world.” So it’s pretty subtle, yeah? It’s the American premiere.

‘Defending the Caveman’
March 11 through March 15
Wilbur Theatre
246 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$41-$50, 617-931-2000
www.thewilburtheatre.com
Sure, men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but as Broadway’s longest running one-man show proves, it’s even less complicated than that: men also have primeval rocks for brains.

‘Coriolanus’
March 12 through April 5
Arts at the Armory
191 Highland Ave., Somerville
MBTA: Red Line to Davis
$25-$47, 866-811-4111
www.actorsshakespeareproject.org
The newly renovated Armory building in Somerville gets the lesser-known-Shakespeare-play treatment for its inaugural show. The subject of the tragedy, Roman general Gaius Martius Coriolanus, “must choose between his pride and his loyalty to Rome.” He must also come to terms with a surname that sounds dirty when said real fast.

‘Fool for Love’
March 14 through April 5
New Repertory Theatre
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
$25, 617-923-84-87
www.newrep.org
Stacy Fischer and Timothy John Smith star as not-so-lovey lovers engaged in a psychological tete-a-tete in the Mojave desert. It’s a Sam Shepard play, so expect some post-Faulkner, post-rock ‘n’ roll, lost-in-American goodness.

‘Movin’ Out’
March 20 through March 22
The Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$43-$80, 800-982-2787
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com/boston
The only thing better than bangin’ Billy Joel tunes (yo: “you can cry in your coffee, but don’t come bitchin’ to me!”) is combining bangin’ Billy Joel tunes with Twyla Tharp’s choreography for a musical extravaganza. Goodnight Saigon, and good morning Broadway!

‘Speech & Debate’
March 27 through April 25
The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
140 Clarendon St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Copley Square
$25-$50, 617-585-5678
www.lyricstage.com
A trio of high school misfits form a speech and debate club after one of their teachers is embroiled in scandal. We would usually now say something like, “Hilarity ensues,” but it appears the more accurate conclusion is “adolescent trials of identity, sexuality, and belonging” ensue.

‘The Wrestling Patient’
March 27 through April 11
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$14-$40, 617-933-8600
www.SpeakEasyStage.com
The true story of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish writer, and the World War II experience in Amsterdam gets its world premiere here in Boston. The title had us convinced that this was a cross between “The Wrestler” and “The English Patient,” but we’ve been told that is a false assumption. Damn.

‘Trojan Barbie’
March 28 through April 22
Zero Arrow Theatre
Arrow Street, Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$39-$52, 617 - 547-8300
www.AmRep.org
War is breaking out in modern-day Troy, the only person who can stop the last fragments of this mighty civilization is Lotte Jones, a doll repair expert.

‘A Bronx Tale’
March 31 through April 11
The Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston St.
$35-$81, 800-982-2787
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com/boston
Academy Award-nominated actor Chazz Palminteri stars in his own play, which he based on his Scorsese-esque 1993 movie that featured Robert DeNiro. It’s about growing up in the Bronx in the 1960s -- duh. Like we needed to tell you that.

A P R I L

‘The Miracle at Naples’
April 3 through May 9
Calderwood Pavilion
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$20-$60, 617-266-0800
www.huntingtontheater.org
This “outrageously smart and bawdy farce about food, sex, morality, and love” is probably the only play in town this spring to get a “V” rating -- that’s “V” for “Very Adult Comedy.” You’ve been enticed, uh, warned.

‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’
April 10 through April 12
Strand Theatre
543 Columbia Road, Boston
$28-$58, 866-348-9738
www.citicenter.org
Ruben Studdard, winner of the second season of “American Idol,” stars in the 30th Anniversary National Tour of the Tony Award-winning musical. Full of crazy-good Fats Waller music, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance and, as its title would indicate, not rated “V.”

‘Charlotte’s Web’
April 10 through May 10
Wheelock Family Theatre
200 The Riverway, Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Fenway
$10-$25, 617-879-2300
www.wheelock.edu/wft
If memory serves us, there’s a spider and a pig in this one, and it takes place on a farm. Not a farm like “Animal Farm,” mind you, though that doesn’t mean that the pig in this one doesn’t harbor feelings of tyrannical superiority. Just sayin’.

‘The Life of Galileo’
April 10 through May 17
Central Square Theater
450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$12-$32, 866-811-4111
www.centralsquaretheater.org
Bertolt Brecht’s play about the multi-tasking Italian renaissance man hits town just in time for the 400th anniversary of the year Galileo got his telescope mojo workin’. Translation by David Hare and directed by David Wheeler.

‘Lucia di Lammermoor’
April 16 through April 19
Boston University Theatre
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Symphony
$15-$20, 617-933-8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
Springtime is bury-the-hatchet time, a time when BU’s School of Music Opera Institute and School of Theatre can put aside their differences and collaborate on some great theater. This year they’re staging Donizetti’s 17th-century tragedy, featuring conductor William Lumpkin and stage director Sharon Daniels.

‘Spring Awakening’
April 17 through May 9
The Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$5-$35, 617-933-8600
www.ZeitgeistStage.com

April 28 through May 24
The Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston St.
$27.50-$92, 800-982-2787
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com/boston
This Tony Award-winning musical is based on Frank Wedekind’s 1890s play about adolescent sexuality -- the most censored play in history, no less! If that ain’t reason to go, we don’t know what is. Incidentally, two productions at two separate venues will be running simultaneously.

‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile’
April 19 through May 10
New Repertory Theatre
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
$35-$55, 617-923-8487
www.newrep.org
When Steve Martin isn’t putting an arrow through his head or going all “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on the banjo, he’s writing plays like this one, about a fictional encounter between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein at the Lapin Agile in Paris, 1904.

‘I Am My Own Wife’
April 22 through May 10
CFA TheatreLab@855
855 Comm. Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boston University West
$10-$20, 617-933-8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
David Gram is, err, his own wife in Dough Wright’s one-man play about an East German transvestite who “endured, survived, and perhaps abetted the Nazi and Communist regimes.”

‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’
April 23 through April 25
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$14-$21, 800-233-3123
www.emerson.edu/emersonstage
The jury’s still out on whether it’s actually the best little whorehouse in Texas (before we weigh in, exactly how diminutive an establishment is “little,” after all?), but the Chicken Ranch is all the controversial rage in this country music-heavy musical directed by Stephen Terrell. It’s got the Burt Reynolds Mustache Seal of Approval.

‘Show Boat’
April 24 through April 26
The Boston Conservatory Theater
31 Hemenway St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Hynes
$7-$22, 617-912-9222
www.bostonconservatory.edu/tickets
This Oscar Hammerstein/Jerome Kern musical, based on Edna Ferber’s novel, has been wowin’ ‘em since 1927, back when musical audiences were much harder to wow. It’s got a story set on the Mississippi River around the turn of the 20th century, and a repertoire of songs that includes “Ol’ Man River.”

‘Trumpery’
April 29 through May 3
Boston University Theatre
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Symphony
$10-$12, 617-933-8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
As part of the Boston University Darwin Bicentennial Celebration, this play finds Charles Darwin racing to complete his bestseller “The Origin of the Species” before some other dude steals his idea. This is how the “survival of the fittest” concept came to be.

M A Y

‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’
May 1 through May 30
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$14-$54, 617-933-8600
www.SpeakEasyStage.com
It was only a matter of time before “The Jerry Springer Show” became an opera. We’re guessing this is the only opera where the climactic aria is sung by a woman wielding her chair as a weapon.

‘The Bartered Bride’
May 1 through May 5
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$29-$119, 800-233-3123
www.operaboston.org
When two lovers don’t get support from their village, they hatch a plot that nearly backfires. They’re calling this production of Smetana’s 19th-century opera a “buoyant comic masterpiece,” and seeing as a troupe of traveling circus performers are part of the song-and-dance cast, we can see why.

‘Romance’
May 9 through June 7
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$39-$79, 617 - 547-8300
www.AmRep.org
A courthouse is the setting for this vicious David Mamet comedy in which a judge has horrible allergies and the defendant, who may or may not be a chiropractor figures out how to bring peace to the Middle East.