Boston Metro Spotlight: November 2009

Merrimack Rep (re)mounts Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning adaptation of Gerald Sibleyras’ comedy Heroes (November 19 – December 13), which finds three World War I soldiers confined to a nursing home in 1959, plotting one final sortie. Tony Award-winner Ron Holgate and Drama Desk Award-winner Jonathan Hogan reprise their roles from last spring’s well-received Keen Company production in New York, with film and TV vet Ken Tigar taking over for John Cullum.

John Kuntz has written himself a new solo show — The Salt Girl, about a disaffected black sheep reconsidering the family fold — to premiere at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (November 5-22). Ken Cheeseman, Karen MacDonald, and Jacqui Parker lead the cast of Paula Vogel’s holiday musicale, A Civil War Christmas, at the Huntington (November 13 – December 13). The Lyric Stage has assembled a swell cast — Allyn Burrows, Angie Jepson, and Daniel Berger-Jones — for its New England premiere of Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as told by himself) (November 27 – December 20).

Marianna Bassham, Larry Coen, Will McGarrahan, and Paula Plum appear in Speakeasy Stage’s revival of Craig Lucas’ absurdist Christmas Eve romp Reckless at the Roberts Theatre in the Boston Center for the Arts (November 13 – December 12). Also at the BCA, the Theatre Offensive’s Out on the Edge festival spills over into November with Tim Miller’s solo show Lay of the Land (November 4-8); Slanty Eyed Mama in Birth of a nAsian (November 6-8); Kate Bornstein in On Men, Women and the Rest of Us (November 10-11); and Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens in Dirty Sex-Ecology or How to Make Love with the Earth (November 12-14).

The potty-mouthed puppets of Avenue Q will be raising Bostonian eyebrows when the Broadway Across America tour touches down at the Colonial (November 17-22). For more age-appropriate but no less provocative fare geared to midde-schoolers, consider Esperanza Rising at the Cutler Majestic (November 12-21), Lynne Alvarez’s adaptation of Pam Munoz Ryan’s YA novel about a young Mexicana who immigrates to California during the Depression, under extreme duress.

Cambridge’s Underground Railway Theater has put together an interesting holiday-related double bill. Ken Baltin, Michael Forden Walker, and Debra Wise star in Tru Grace at the Central Square Theatre (November 19 – December 27), comprising director Wesley Savick’s adaptations of Grace Paley’s story “The Loudest Voice” and Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” The American Repertory Theatre completes its para-Shakespearean trifecta with Best of Both Worlds (November 21 – January 3), Randy Weiner’s Gospel-powered reimagining of The Winter’s Tale, starring Mary Bond Davis, Cleavant Derricks, and Darius de Haas.

Can it really be Tiny Tim time already? Providence’s Trinity Rep starts the onslaught with their 33rd annual production of A Christmas Carol (November 20 – December 27); the show is so popular, they need to get a head start. Stoneham Theatre next picks up the crutch (November 27 – December 27), with Shakespeare & Company’s Nigel Gore as Scrooge, and the mellifluous Leigh Barrett as the Ghost of Christmas Past in its production of A Christmas Carol.

For the next two months, the Mayors Holiday Special will be offering more than 8,000 half-priced tickets to dozens of family-friendly shows, including two Opera House extravaganzas: Chaim Topol’s farewell tour as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof (November 3-15) and Boston Ballet’s annual The Nutcracker (November 27 – December 27).