If you’re looking for a play that’s new and outside the realm of traditional narrative theatre, Blue to Blue might be just what you need. Annex’s current show is an experimental, emotional journey featuring an ensemble of talented actors and phenomenal production elements on par with theatres operating on larger budgets.

A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play about a family living in the South Side of Chicago and looking forward to an insurance check to help get them out of poverty, is not just a play for and of its time, but is one that is painfully relevant today. At the same time, it’s a piece that shows not only what we’ll do in times of desperation, but also what we’re capable of doing when we come together in love and forgiveness. The mainstage opener of the 2025 season at Taproot Theatre isn’t just another version of this classic play, it’s one that will be hard to match, setting the bar high for the rest of their season. Directed by Bretteney Beverly, this production of A Raisin in the Sun has everything that makes a successful Taproot production, superior acting, excellent design, and an intimate setting that is unique to this venue. With a newly remodeled Jewell Mainstage, including new seats and a new sound system, opening with A Raisin in the Sun just feels like the right decision.

The Edmonds Driftwood Players production of Clue: The Musical, based on the classic board game, manages to spin some straw into gold, and while the limitations of the script hold it back in some places, the musical, like the board game, though perhaps not the most sophisticated affair, is good fun all around. And given that the remainder of its run is nearly sold-out, audiences seem to agree.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a great example of mid-20th century corporate satire. The story of J. Pierrepont Finch and his unlikely but meteoric rise to the top of the World Wide Wicket organization and the woman who dreams of a life with him, together in New Rochelle, is a fun musical that never takes itself seriously, one that has maintained its popularity through revivals, regional, and community theatre performances. The Auburn Community Theatre production has some very good individual performances, and while it has the potential to be something superb, it falls victim to its length, its surroundings, and a venue that just isn’t made for a show and a cast of this size.

The How and the Why, Sarah Treem’s 2011 play about the meeting of two evolutionary biologists with a history and conflicting viewpoints of human adaptations in the field of women’s health, is a piece that is about so much more than that. Delving into themes of identity, personal biases and how they inform behavior, and building relationships, The How and the Why touches on all of this while teaching the audience about things they never would have thought they’d learn about from a play, and it does so in an extremely engaging fashion. Directed by Diana Trotter, and featuring a small, but mighty, cast consisting of Nikki Visel and Rebecca Gelzer, this first fully produced play from the Artemis Theatre Project is the absolute best possible debut that this group could have hoped for.

For fans of the film or stage musical Waitress, the 5th Avenue Theatre production of the latter is everything anyone could hope for, and perhaps a little more. The cast, led by Kerstin Anderson as Jenna, hits every note with all of the emotion Sara Bareilles wrote into her songs and their acting is top notch, funny and heartfelt, tender and strong, while the creative team has put together a solid design that complements the storytelling. As a tale of female independence and empowerment, Waitress is the perfect show for Women’s History Month, and this version is fun, emotional, entertaining, and just about perfect.

Is This a Room is unlike any play you’re going to see this season in the area. A presentation of the FBI transcript of the arrest and interrogation of Reality Lee Winner, accused of mishandling confidential documents in her role as a government contractor, it’s surprising not just in how interesting it is, but it’s even more surprising in how thrilling and exciting it is. This comes down to Aaron Lamb, the director of the Harlequin Productions version of Is This a Room, and the cast and creative team that he has put together, taking the words from the transcript and bringing them to life on the stage and bringing a humanity to a story that seems eerily timely and relatable in a time of political and social division in our country. I didn’t know what to expect when I sat down for Is This a Room, but I came away from it appreciating the skilled display of craftwork that Aaron and this group has put together and presented.

While other theaters may be leveraging more well-known plays and musicals as part of their post-Covid recovery strategy, the Seattle Rep and Dámaso Rodríguez continue their strategy of putting art first with their latest World Premiere, Lauren Yee’s Mother Russia. A wonderfully layered piece, it’s a comedy and a spy thriller, and yet it’s also a study in class distinction and social disparity, one of contrasting governmental and economic systems, and an interrogation of the impact of political change on a society set in post-Communist Russia. The Rep’s production is wonderfully presented, and the cast is fantastic at delivering the humor along with its underlying messaging, but more than anything, the choice of this play and the level of quality of the production solidifies my confidence in the future of the Rep as Seattle’s home for new and innovative theatre.

Michael Hollinger’s Ghost Writer tells the story of Myra Babbage, who vows to finish Franklin Woolsey’s novel after he passes away, after all, who knows more about him and his writing than his secretary/typist when it comes down to it? More than that, Ghost Writer is a story that contemplates the nature of an artists’ identity, a thought that is extremely valid and timely in a world where artificial intelligence is being used to create more and more art. The Jewel Box production is also a study in stage direction and casting, how Kristi Ann Jacobson and Ruth Ann Saunders have built two casts that tell the same story in two completely different ways, each providing the audience with different questions, different reactions, and surely different conclusions. It’s not possible for everyone to see plays with multiple casts twice, but if there ever was one for which the effort should be made, this is it.

If the best advertisement for any acting school is how well their students perform on stage, then Actorcraft P2S can ask for nothing better than what they put up on stage at the Penninsula High School theatre this past weekend. Theresa Rebeck’s debut play Mauritius, the story of two sisters bequeathed a stamp collection from their recently deceased mother and who have different intentions with what to do with said collection, is a play that requires a lot out of its actors from an emotional perspective and the cast that director Adrianne Alvarez-Jackson put up and consisting of Actorcraft founder Jeremy Kent Jackson and four of the studio’s students excelled in delivering this play and proved that there is a viable theatre option in Gig Harbor that deserves our attention.

Fools was written by Neil Simon to be specifically something that wouldn’t be successful on Broadway, as a way of sticking it to his wife in their divorce proceedings. And while he was successful there, the play has found a life of its own in the regional and community theatre circuit. It’s a show that’s funny, enjoyable, and fun time for the audience. The Olympic Theatre Arts production of Fools, under the direction of Steve Fisher, proves why it has been so successful at this level, it is well paced, hilariously performed, and overall a genuinely amusing and entertaining play, enjoyable for all.

Eurydice, playwright Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice and currently on stage at Bainbridge Performing Arts’ Buxton Center, is a three dimensional work of art. From a creative team, led by director Christen Muir, that has taken full advantage of the latitude given it within Ruhl’s script to construct a stunningly ethereal scenic design with unique set pieces, complemented with an original score composed by Andrew Joslyn, and a cast that gorgeously brings this story to life, Eurydice is a must-see, and is the best thing the theatre has put up on their main stage this season.

Lorca in a Green Dress, Nilo Cruz’s 2003 play that explores the poet Federico García Lorca coming to terms with his death at the hands of Nationalist militia at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, as well as his life, before his ascension to another plane of existence in the afterlife. Faced with other Lorcas, components of his consciousness, he relives moments of his life in order to make sense of where he is and how he got there. The play itself is a surreal exercise in self-reconciliation set in an ethereal reality, both a tribute to the artistry of Lorca as a poet and an artist as well as a warning to us all about the potential rise of facism and its impact on the artistic community. The Tacoma Little Theatre production, part of its ongoing partnership with the University of Washington Tacoma Theatre Program, is beautifully designed, diaphanous and delightful, and as much a part of the storytelling as the poetic delivery of the cast is. This poetically written, stunningly crafted, and beautifully performed play is exactly the right kind of bellwether we need right now.

Anne of Green Gables is one of those stories that we’ve all come across along the way in our lives, whether through the original novel or on TV or film. The version on stage in Marysville, presented by Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts, hits all of the story’s marks, is transportive in how it presents the setting, and fun in how it’s told by a cast of actors led by Hazel Weber as Anne Shirley. It’s a show that’s entertaining for the entire family, and one that is enjoyable both for those familiar with the story as well as newcomers to it.

David Eldridge’s Beginning, the first in a trilogy of plays that focus on the stages of human relationships, presents the story of Laura and Danny, who meet at the close of Laura’s housewarming party. This intimate story of two strangers navigating the hurdles of a budding friendship while carrying the baggage of their respective pasts and dealing with ulterior motives is about taking risks, and the courage to lay yourself bare to someone new in order to establish trust. Performed beautifully by Lucy Pearce and Gerald Germajesty Price, the Burien Actors Theatre production of Beginning will draw you into this pair’s story, and make you fall in love with them, as much as you hope they fall in love with each other.

Letters From Max, the story of playwright Sarah Ruhl, her former student Max Ritvo, and the friendship they cultivated as told through the many letters they exchanged from the time they met as teacher and student through his illness and cancer treatments, is a play about love and the power of language and how it reaches into our soul to provide a deeper level of communication. Featuring strong performances by Marianna de Fazio and Alexander Kilian, under the direction of Amy Poisson, and presented with a beautifully intimate design, Letters From Max, despite its heavy leaning subject matter, will leave you feeling hopeful, hopeful that as individuals and as humans we can strive to be as vulnerable and open as Sarah and Max, and as such we too can build a relationship that is lasting, despite the seriousness of any challenges that may befall us.

It seems like everywhere you turn this season, there’s a version of Blithe Spirit in the offing. The latest is a co-production from Circle of Fire Theatre and SecondStory Rep, and is currently running on stage in Redmond, a production that is unique in its design, dark, mysterious, and looming, and superb in its presentation, which includes a cast that understands the energy and pace that is needed to make a devilish farce like Blithe Spirit work. The result is a fun show, hauntingly good, and magnificently delivered, one that continues SecondStory’s trend of excellence and also one that is starting to cement Circle of Fire as a solid up and coming troupe in the region.

The Laramie Project is a difficult play that presents some pretty heavy subject matter, the story of Matthew Shepard’s robbery and subsequent murder at the hands of two young men in Laramie, Wyoming, a crime committed in a most gruesome way against a person ostensibly just for being gay. It’s a play that is uniquely constructed, and one that is timely in a social climate that seems to be skewing toward a viewpoint where crimes like this aren’t out of the realm of possibility. What differentiates the Lakewood Playhouse production of The Laramie Project, under the direction of Joseph C. Walsh, is the amount of love that the cast and creative team has put into it, enough love to present a show that is memorable and impactful, one that has the potential to change minds and hearts. It’s important to know what you’re getting into when you go to see this play, and you most definitely should go and see it, but when you do, you’ll see a production that reaches into its collective soul to draw you into this young man’s heartbreaking and tragic story, and provides a sense of empathy to those who society views and degrades as others.

Out of all the plays in Lauren Gunderson’s catalog, Silent Sky may be the most representative of what makes her work so good and so popular. With themes of female empowerment, strength, and independence, the story of Henrietta Leavitt’s scientific impact achieved in a world where women were often kept in the shadow of men, presents those themes in the context of math and science in a way that only Gunderson can. Sonja Usher leads a wonderful group of actors, under the direction of Jay Stratton, in an breakout performance that is filled with energy and light, an alluring turn that hits every emotional note and presents Henrietta Leavitt as a strong, independent, intelligent, and unforgettable woman, the kind that made Lauren Gunderson want to write about this sisterhood of astronomers.

The Winter’s Tale has been called many things, a romance, a comedy, and a psychological drama to name a few, and it’s also been considered a difficult, or problem play. At Key City Public Theatre, what others see as a risky play worth avoiding, Executive Artistic Director Denise Winter views as a challenge. By taking this classic play and combining all of the romance, comedy, and dramatic aspects of the original, then modernizing and simplifying it, what Denise has done has seemingly made the difficult look simple. This is an expertly constructed adaptation, it’s emotional, dramatic, funny, and fun, and features an outstanding cast led by an absolutely stellar performance from Geoffery Simmons. If you think you know The Winter’s Tale and feel that it is chaotic and without a clear identity, or have stayed away from it for any reason, this is an adaptation that you’ll want to see, it’ll most definitely change your mind, a clear example of making the difficult look easy, an adaptation from a genuine sprezzatura.