PLAYWRIGHTS' PLATFORM ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS | Actor, director, and playwright Chris King produces this 37th annual festival of new plays. On the bill for week #1: Kelly Dumar, Hortense Gerardo, George Matry Masselam, Scott Welty, Judith Plummer, Lynne S. Brandon, Ludmilla Anselm, William Miller, Ron Radice, and Peter M. Floyd. For week #2: Robert Boulrice, Ron Pullins, Dan Bancroft, Michael Quint, Don Tongue, Bruno Alterescu, Holly L. Jensen, Ellen Davis Sullivan, Lydia Bruce, and Sandy Burns. | Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 949 Comm Ave, Boston | 866.811.4111 | June 11-20 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | 3 pm Sun | $17; $14 students, seniors
SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO AND THE DUCK VARIATIONS | The American Repertory Theatre's "Sex, Satire, Romance, and Ducks" tribute to David Mamet concludes with this double bill of early Mamet one-acts. In the first, Chicago couple Danny and Deborah are perverse enough to want to move in together, but that'll leave Danny's friend Bernard and Deborah's friend Joan feeling left out. In the second, old-timers George and Emil are on a bench watching a flock of ducks and telling stories about ducks, even though they don't know duckshit about ducks. | Zero Arrow Theatre, Mass Ave + Arrow St, Cambridge | 617.547.8300 | June 11-28 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7:30 pm Sun | $39; $25 stool
NOW PLAYING
THE ACTORS REHEARSE THE STORY OF CHARLOTTE SALOMON | Shakespeare and Company's "Diva Series" continues with Penny Kreitzer in the story of the German artist — best known for the epic Life? Or Theater? — who fled Nazi Germany in 1939 only to be apprehended in Vichy in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered, just 26 years old. Written by David Bridel, Kreitzer, and Jonathan Rest and directed by Rest, the work takes the form of a play within a play, as, back at the Jerusalem Festival in 1982, a group of actors (one of them Kreitzer) tries to present Salomon's story in the face of a differing version from her stepmother, Paula Lindberg. | Shakespeare & Company, Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St, Lenox | 413.637.3353 | Through June 14 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 3 pm Fri | 8:30 pm Sun | $16-$34; $11-$29 students, seniors
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR | Our Place Theatre Project's ninth annual African-American Theatre Festival continues with Lillian Hellman's 1934 play about a girl's boarding school and its two headmistresses. When one unhappy student runs away and is about to be sent back, she gets off the hook by declaring that the headmistresses are having a lesbian affair. Our Place artistic director Jacqui Parker is at the helm. | BCA Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | Through June 13 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Sat | $15-$35
DEAR MISS GARLAND | Local hero Kathy St. George channels her favorite movie star ("We are exactly the same height, 4'11" ") in the world premiere of a one-woman show that she wrote with Scott Edmiston. Musical director Jim Rice heads the seven-piece band. | Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main St, Stoneham | 781.279.2200 | Through June 28 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $40; $35 seniors; $20 students
