NEVERMORE | This effort from F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company is, yes, based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem, though looking at the cast of characters — Edgar, Mother, Virginia, Elmira, Muddy, and Whore — we’d be hard-pressed to say exactly how. (Where’s Lenore? Or does that rhyme with Whore?) We do know it’s a musical, with book by Grace Barnes and music by Matt Conner; Joe DeMita directs. | Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 781.245.0500 | November 5-7 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | $20
THE ODYSSEY | Charlestown Working Theater reprises last February’s production, for which the company’s directors, Jennifer Johnson and John Peitso, adapted Homer’s epic poem as a performance piece “for two people traveling together in a small boat, sailing across a half-real, half-imaginary landscape.” Johnson and Peitso perform the piece in a 15-foot rowboat, telling the poem’s “tale of exile and return in fragments, using original and adapted music, text, image, and physicality.” | Charlestown Working Theater, 442 Bunker Hill St, Charlestown | 866.811.4111 | November 6-21 | Curtain 8 pm Fri-Sat | $20; $15 students, seniors
RECKLESS | Craig Lucas’s 1983 holiday heartwarmer gets a seasonal outing from SpeakEasy Stage Company. Wondering what Rachel’s husband is going to get her for Christmas? How about a hit man! Hubby does have the decency to warn her on Christmas Eve, whereupon she scrambles out the kitchen window and into the not so silent night, where both her resolve and her sanity are tested. Local favorites Marianna Bassham, Larry Coen, and Paula Plum head the cast (so much for John Kuntz as Rachel); Scott Edmiston directs. | Boston Center for the Arts Roberts Studio Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | November 13–December 12 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues [November 24; December 8] + Wed + Thurs [no Thanksgiving Day] | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $30-$47; students, seniors $30-$42
THE SALT GIRL | The latest from local hero John Kuntz is being described as “a valentine to all of us who have lost a loved one.” Kuntz performs in what we gather is a one-man show; David R. Gammons directs. | Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Comm Ave, Boston | 866.811.4111 | November 5-22 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $30; $25 seniors; $10 students
THERE, I’VE BROKEN MY NECK (AN EVENING OF THEATRICAL DISASTERS) | Royal Shakespeare Company vet John Kane, whose credits include Puck in Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (he’s been around for a while), recounts, well, theatrical disasters in this “hilarious one-man show” that’s a benefit for North Cambridge Family Opera and Central Square Theater. | Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge |www.familyopera.org| November 6-7 | Curtain 8 pm Fri-Sat | $35
YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN | The Longwood Players take up the popular Charles Schulz–inspired musical, complete with the Red Baron, the little red-haired girl, and Charlie’s futile attempts to make contact with that football. The cast includes Matthew Finn as Charlie, April Pressel as Sally, Jason Luciana as Snoopy, Ian Flynn as Linus, Michael Chateauneuf as Schroeder, and Rachel Savage as Lucy; Kaitlyn Chantry directs. | Cambridge YMCA Theatre, 820 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 800.595.4TIX | November 13-21 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Fri | 2 pm [November 21] + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $19-25; $16-$22 students, seniors
