A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL CELEBRATION | Paula Vogel's new play is set on Christmas Eve 1864, as "stories of President and Mrs. Lincoln, a rebel soldier, and an escaped slave intertwine into a tapestry of collective American experience. . . . Promising to be an instant family classic, this production includes beloved holiday music and will be enhanced by local choirs caroling before each performance." Does that mean this is the American Christmas Carol? Lincoln hardly qualifies as Scrooge. Anyway, Jessica Thebus directs a cast that includes Ken Cheeseman as President Lincoln, Karen MacDonald as Mrs. Lincoln, and Jacqui Parker as Elizabeth Keckley. | Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston | November 13–December 13 | Curtain 7:30 pm Mon [November 23] + Tues | 2 pm [December 9] + 7:30 pm [7 pm November 18; no November 25] Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs [no Thanksgiving Day] | 2 pm [November 27] + 8 pm Fri | 2 pm [no November 14] + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm [no November 15] + 7 pm [November 15, 22] Sun | $30-$82.50
ENGLAND | The Institute of Contemporary Art brings us News from Nowhere, the British theater troupe that stages the works of Tim Crouch. This his third play is described as "the story of one thing placed inside another: a heart inside another person's body, a culture inside another country's culture, theater inside a gallery, a character inside an actor, a play inside its audience." Crouch and Hannah Ringham share the single role of a naive tour guide who'll be commenting on the art around you — the first half of the drama even takes place in one of the ICA's galleries (which means you'll be standing). See also My Arm, below. | Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave, Boston | 617.478.3103 | November 13-15 | Curtain 7:30 pm Fri | 2 pm Sat-Sun | $20
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH | Blue Spruce Theatre mounts the John Cameron Mitchell & Stephen Trask musical about an East Berlin twentysomething who gets picked up by an American GI and agrees to a sex-change operation so they can get married and go to the States. The operation is botched, leaving Hansel — now Hedwig — with an "angry inch"; the American GI cuts out, and so, when confronted with her anatomy, does 17-year-old protégé and bandmate Tommy Gnosis. With Danny Bryck as Hedwig and the Hot Protestants as the Angry Inch; Kevin Mark Kline directs. | Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box Theater, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 617.923.8487 | November 12-22 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 7:30 + 10 pm Fri | 2 + 7:30 + 10 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $25; $18 students, seniors
HEROES | Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents the New England premiere of this Tom Stoppard adaptation of the Olivier Award–winning drama by French playwright Gérald Sibleyras in which three combat survivors of World War I find themselves stranded, 40 years later, in a veterans' home, alone with their injuries, their memories, a 200-pound stone dog, and a masochistic nun. Carl Forsman directs; Ken Tigar, Jonathan Hogan, and Tony winner Ron Holgate make up the cast. The approximately 90-minute performance will run without intermission. | Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack St, Lowell | 978.654.4MRT | November 19–December 13 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues [November 24] | 2 + 7:30 pm Wed [November 25] | 7:30 pm Thurs [no Thanksgiving Day] | 8 pm Fri | 4 pm [no November 21] + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7 pm [no evening December 13] Sun | $26-$56; $23-$51 seniors; $15 students [balcony]
