African American Repertory Theatre has begun its residence at Richmond CenterStage’s Gottwald Playhouse with “Mahalia,“ Tom Stolz’s 1993 musical biography of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. As in previous local productions of the play at Swift Creek Mill Theatre, “Mahalia” features the powerful singing of Cora Harvey Armstrong in the title role.

THIS IS HOW IT GOES
Through: Nov. 21
Tickets: $10-$25
Info: (804) 355-2001 or http://www.firehousetheatre.org

Playwright Neil LaBute is known for exposing the bad behavior and bad motives that people like to hide. In plays such as “In the Company of Men” and “Fat Pig,“ his characters display the secret thoughts and cruelties that we suspect are lurking in the worst of us—if not in all of us. In “This Is How It Goes,“ the 2005 LaBute play now at Firehouse Theatre Project, there are breathtaking moments when the three main characters—who are in an interracial love triangle—reveal their racist, sexist, classist truths. Not breathtakingly beautiful, but breathtakingly ugly. And startlingly courageous in their way.

Richmond Triangle Players may still be wandering in the desert as they wait for their new theater to be completed, but they’re right in home territory with Paul Rudnick’s “The New Century.“ The season opener, directed by John Knapp at HATTheatre in western Henrico County, is a laugh-a-minute bill of four short plays first presented together in New York last year, and it is hilarious.

Richmond Shakespeare has inaugurated its long-awaited residency at CenterStage with a sparkling production of “Much Ado About Nothing.“ The beloved comedy, which features a nasty character trying to foil a pair of young lovers and the witty sparring of Beatrice and Benedick, is spun into hilarity by director Grant Mudge and his attractive, energetic cast of 18.

The pain of faulty connections permeates “Shining City,“ the 2004 Conor McPherson drama that opens Henley Street Theatre Company’s third season. McPherson is the 30-something Irish phenom whose skill has been stunning New York and London audiences for a decade. Richmond A-list actors Larry Cook and Joe Inscoe inhabit the core of the play. Cook is Ian, who’s left the priesthood and set up a psychotherapy practice in Dublin. Among his first patients is John (Inscoe), who’s grieving the recent death of his wife in a car wreck.

Well-timed for Halloween merrymaking, Swift Creek Mill opens its season with “The Mystery of Irma Vep,“ Charles Ludlam’s 1984 sendup of the Hollywood horror genre. It’s a mashup of werewolf, mummy and vampire films, with a little “Rebecca” and “Jane Eyre” mixed in, seasoned with Shakespeare and Poe. Ludlam, famous for his cross-dressing roles, engineered the comedy for two actors, each of whom plays four roles, some male, some female. To make this work, you have to have a stalwart and speedy backstage crew to facilitate many quick changes of costume, along with sound effects and sight gags.

Love abounds in Barksdale Theatre’s season opener, “Boleros for the Disenchanted.“ José Rivera’s 2008 play, a tribute to his parents’ marriage, details the dizzying trajectory of a relationship from its inception in 1950s Puerto Rico to its waning days in 1990s Alabama. And with a spectacular cast recruited in New York, it is a delicious, funny, heartbreaking journey.

Howard Korder’s 1988 “Boys’ Life” is a mostly comic play about three 20-something guys wallowing in their immaturity. But there’s more to this Firehouse Theatre Project season opener than bad behavior. The play was nominated for a Pulitzer (it lost to “Driving Miss Daisy”). It’s an acid-tongued, gimlet-eyed look at three young men who lack direction and morality, but they’re not the guys Vince Vaughn plays in movies—they actually reveal rudimentary consciences and hints of depth.

One-line review: I laughed so hard at Richmond Shakespeare’s new production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that I got a headache. The perennial favorite of Richmond Shakespeare and the Shakespeare canon itself is back for a short run at gorgeous Agecroft Hall. Andrew Hamm directs this time, pushing the comedy and mayhem way past any previous boundaries of taste, propriety, reverence for the Bard and other annoyances.

A beautiful play, beautifully played. Alfred Uhry’s 1987 “Driving Miss Daisy” won the Pulitzer Prize, and it’s easy to see why. Uhry uses a narrow focus on three characters to tell a story that is nevertheless broad and deep—life in the South between 1948 and 1973, touching on race, class, aging and companionship. Present this gem with an ideal cast and a simple production and you have a winner. That’s what Barksdale Theatre did last summer at Hanover Tavern. This summer, it’s reprising the show at Barksdale’s Willow Lawn location, with all the quality intact.

What favorite American comedy takes as its themes mental illness, elder abuse and serial murder? Why, “Arsenic and Old Lace,“ the 1941 Joseph Kesselring chestnut about two old ladies with a body in the window seat. This is the reliable farce about elderly sisters living in their family’s longtime Brooklyn home who like to dispatch lonely old men by serving them poisoned elderberry wine. They have three nephews: Mortimer, the drama critic for a New York newspaper; Teddy, who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt; and Jonathan, who has been away for a few decades but is back after a stint in an institution for the criminally insane.

The peak theatrical pleasure to be had in Richmond is back: summer Shakespeare at Agecroft Hall. It’s a happy mystery how hot, humid days can switch to cool evenings just as the Elizabethan verse gets going, but it seems to happen every time. This season’s opener is “Henry V,“ the culmination of three years pursuing the Henry cycle. James Alexander Bond has directed all three plays, and Phillip James Brown has played the younger Henry throughout, granting audiences a marvelous artistic continuity.

If you can remember when a paperback spy novel cost $4.95 and when telephones had dials and long cords, you are the right vintage for Neil Simon’s 1977 play “Chapter Two.“ But you don’t have to be that well-seasoned to appreciate the reliable humor and stinging pain with which Simon infused this semi-autobiographical comedy. Standing in for the playwright is George Schneider, a successful New York-based writer who pens the aforementioned spy novels for money and the occasional serious novel for artistic satisfaction. In his mid-40s, he has just lost his perfect, beloved wife of 12 years and is bereft.