Fall Arts Guide | Theater: cornucopia of premieres, Broadway hits

A three-hour evening of cirque, comedy and cabaret with a five-course dinner designed by celebrated Northwest chef Tom Douglas. The latest edition brings back the inimitable clowns Christine Deaver and Kevin Kent, portraying a bawdy vaudeville couple (who like to mess with the audience).

Improvisational comedy and music.

Improv comedy.

The return of the delightful, very accessible interactive show for very young kids based on the color and shape learning book for preschoolers, "Where is the Green Sheep?"

SecondStory Repertory opens its 2010-11 season with Donald Margulies' Pulitzer prize-winning Off-Broadway play which tracks the tensions and ties between two troubled modern couples.

An Olympia staging of Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of the bone-chilling Robert Louis Stevenson story about a proper Victorian physician, Dr. Jekyll, whose rampaging alter ego is the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

An evening of improvisation where characters from different theatrical genres interact.

Artattack tackles Elizabeth Egloff's drama about a Nebraska woman's emotional-erotic journey, after a swan crashes into her living room window.

Anthony Shaffer's mystery play about the cat-and-mouse rivalry of two whodunit writers. Staged by Tacoma Little Theatre.

An Edmonds staging of the Kaufman and Hart comedy about three vaudeville performers who try their luck in 1930s Hollywood.

A classic Molière comedy, timed to mirror our national health-care debate. Christopher Bayes directs and Broadway actor Daniel Breaker ("Passing Strange") in a new version of the romp.

ArtsWest opens its 2010-11 season with the Seattle premiere of Neil LaBute's Broadway play about male machismo, female insecurity over their looks and other conflicts and concerns among factory co-workers and their significant others.

Balagan Theatre stages a "surreal play-with-music" based on playwright Eric Lane Barnes' experiences growing up in the shadow of his dead Uncle Jimmy.

"Life is pandemonium." Renton Civic Theatre stages William Finn's ebullient and snarky Broadway musical riff on a real-life spelling bee.

In John Bishop's murder mystery, a group of Broadway types assembles to give a backer's reading. Staged by the Driftwood Players.

"Camelot! Camelot! I know it sounds a bit bizarre…" The Broadway musical hit, based on T.H. White's "The Once and Future King," imagines the realm of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table.

A collection of six short plays and two monologues about the state of modern relationships by John Logenbaugh, inspired by the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

"Come on babe, why don't we paint the town..." A community staging of Bob Fosse's jazzy flapper show.

An Olympia staging of a comedy about the annual reunion of five female college friends.

A community staging of Christopher Sergel's comedy about a tiny nation that whimsically declares war on the United States.

SIS Productions presents another installment in the nation's longest running theater serial, exploring the loves of lives of Seattle's own Asian-American gal pals.

Before there was Dr. Phil or Judge Judy, there was trusted advice columnist Ann Landers, who imparts her wit and wisdom in this one-woman play by David Rambo, a writer and producer on TV's "C.S.I: Crime Scene Investigation" series.

A student version of the Broadway musical based on the famed Victor Hugo novel.

International dance tour show features 20 champion dancers presenting theatrical ballroom dancing.

The ever-enthralling Cirque du Soleil stops in Tacoma for a week with a "baroque ode to the energy, grace and power of youth."

"Let it go..." The Village Theatre opens its 2010/11 season with this clever, boisterous Broadway musical that borrows the plot of the same-titled hit film but successfully moves the action from industrial England to economically depressed Buffalo, N.Y., where a group of discouraged, unemployed men join forces to produce a male strip-tease show.

"Somewhere, over the rainbow..." Local performer Judy Ann Moulton, backed by a 12-piece orchestra, sings the songs of Judy Garland.

The North American premiere of a family drama about love and emptiness by Joanna Laurens.

Theater Schmeater stages Tennessee Williams' breakthrough work, a visceral and poetic "memory" play about a restless young man and his family, struggling through the Depression in a shabby St. Louis apartment. Directed by J.D. Lloyd.

Maria Glanz encores her graceful, well-praised portrayal of Emily Dickinson in a return engagement of Sound Theatre Company's production of William Luce's one-woman bio-drama about the famed poet.

An improvised play based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.