THE RAT PACK RETURNS IN THE TRIBUTE TO FRANK, SAMMY, JOEY, AND DEAN | Stoneham Theatre first staged this Las Vegas import in 2006; now it’s back, produced by Buddy Hackett’s son, Sandy Hackett, with some material by the late Joey Bishop. You get actors standing in for Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Bishop, and Dean Martin, a 12-piece band, and numbers including “Fly Me to the Moon,” “That’s Amore,” and, of course, “Volare.” | Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main St, Stoneham | 781.279.2200 | July 9-26 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 6 pm [evening July 12] Sun | $48; $44 seniors
SHH! | Naming itself after a theater built in Boston in 1792, when the stage was frowned upon, New Exhibition Room offers as its first project this “world premiere exploring the role of censorship in a free society in all its contradictory, offensive, cheeky, and constitutionally questionable gore . . . er, glory.” The production, we’re advised “will likely contain nudity, violence, and adult language and content.” | Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Comm Ave, Boston | www.brownpapertickets.com/event/69085 | July 9-25 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | Free
SIX | Cape Cod Theatre Project opens its season of four staged readings with Zohar Tirosh’s play about a couple whose “jet-lagged, sun-drenched, six-day journey to Israel collides with family, politics and the Six-Day War.” Ian Morgan directs; Ronald Guttman, Gil Bar-Sela, Kate Skinner, Shelly Sussler, Annie Purcell, and Darren Goldstein make up the cast. | Falmouth Academy, 7 Highfield Drive, Falmouth | 508.457.4242 | July 9-11 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | $20; $10 students
THE WEDDING ON THE EIFFEL TOWER AND JACK, OR THE SUBMISSION AND HUMULUS THE MUTE | Apollinaire Theatre Company delves into the surreal with this trio of plays by, respectively, Jean Cocteau, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Anouilh. The cast includes Margaret Ann Brady (SpeakEasy Stage Company, Gold Dust Orphans, Theatre Offensive). Performances on Friday and Sunday will be in Spanish; call the phone number below if rain is forecast. | Mary O’Malley Park, Commandant’s Way, on the Chelsea Waterfront [Admiral’s Hill] | 617.887.2336 | July 8-25 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Sun | Free
THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING | Gloucester Stage brings back this one-woman show that the Lyric Stage put on last January, with Eric C. Engel again directing Nancy E. Carroll in Joan Didion’s stage adaptation of her National Book Award–winning 2005 memoir of the disconnected year she spent grappling with husband John Gregory Dunne’s sudden death and their daughter’s tragic illness (in part by engaging in the “if” thinking of the title). The play is less discursive and more linear than the book, but it balances a scalpel-worthy dissection of grief with a cautionary tale about the illusoriness of control. And under Engel’s near-still baton, Carroll, armed with little more than a scarf and a chair, elegantly stirs Didion’s mixture of anguished disorientation and wry, journalistic concision. This is not an easy theater piece, but it is both steely and profound. | Gloucester Stage Company, 267 East Main St, Gloucester | 978.281.4433 | July 12-13 | Curtain 8 pm Sun-Mon | $30-$35
