THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL | SpeakEasy Stage pits itself against the 2004 Off Broadway comedy that’s set in a North Florida trailer-park community and promises “agoraphobia, adultery, spray cheese, road kill, hysterical pregnancy, kleptomania, flan, and disco” — oh, if only we could be sure. But with popular Boson actresses Leigh Barrett, Mary Callanan, and Kerry A. Dowling and Fall River native David Benoit (Trekkie Monster in Avenue Q) in the cast, this Boston-premiere production has a good chance of delivering. With music and lyrics by David Nehls and book by Betsy Kelso; SpeakEasy producing artistic director Paul Daigneault is at the helm. | Boston Center for the Arts, Roberts Studio Theatre, 527 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | April 30–May 30 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $30-$54
NOW PLAYING
ACT A LADY | Theater on Fire closes its season with this farce by Seattle playwright and Brown University grad Jordan Harrison. “When the men of a small Prohibition-era town decide to put on a play dressed in ‘fancy-type, women-type clothes,’ the whole community is affected: gender lines blur, eyebrows raise, identities explode, and life and art are forever entangled.” Who’d have guessed! The cast includes Lisa Caron Driscoll, Craig Houk, Crystal Lisbon, Greg Maraio, Chelsea Schmidt, and Chris Wagner; Darren Evans directs. | Charlestown Working Theater, 442 Bunker Hill St, Boston | 866.811.4111 | Through May 1 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | $15 Thurs; $20 Fri-Sat | $10 students, seniors
LE CABARET GRIMM | The Performance LAB launches its inaugural season with this world-premiere experimental musical by former Boston Theatre Works honcho Jason Slavick that’s based on the tales of the Brothers Grimm and promises “a live band on stage, masks, large puppets, dance, and a punk sensibility.” Cassandra Marsh composed the original score and Boston Conservatory faculty member Michelle Chasse did the choreography; the cast includes Austin Auh, Rachel Bertone, Becki Dennis, Jamie Lee, Nick Peciaro, Haley Selmon, Lee Skunes, and Ally Tully. There’ll also be an opening act called “The Hubbub” that on this final weekend will comprise Mighty Tiny (“six masked lunatics playing tunes dating back to the golden days of Tin Pan Alley”) and fire-eating hula-hoop artist Dominique Immora. | Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 or BostonTheatreScene.com | Through April 24 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri-Sat | $35; $20 students
EDWARD II | The Provincetown Theater Company gives us Christopher Marlowe’s underperformed study of the 14th-century English king whose predilection for male favorites proved his undoing. Look for a more sympathetic portrait of this ruler — who was, like Marlowe, probably gay — than the one Mel Gibson created for Braveheart. Anthony Jackman directs. | Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford St, Provincetown | 508.487.7487 or provincetowntheater.com | Through May 2 | Curtain 7:30 pm Fri-Sun | $22; $18 students, seniors
