Michael Sommers

★★★☆☆ A 15-member ensemble spins through the musical rise and fall of a patriarchal society

★★★☆☆ Nazareth Hassan’s new backstage dramedy studies process and power

★★★★☆ Andrea Martin sparks David Cromer’s Second Stage premiere of a meaningful comedy of racial identity

★★☆☆☆ Ruthie Ann Miles shines amid Ethan Lipton’s respectful musical version of a mad Thornton Wilder classic

★★★☆☆ Patrick Page blazes as a Balkans terrorist in Rajiv Joseph’s what-if World War I history play

★★★☆☆ Anne Washburn’s absorbing study of collective existence melts into something else at the finish line

★★★☆☆ Stephen Kunken is good as a bad guy in a new Royal Shakespeare drama about special interests and global warming

★★☆☆☆ Expect trashy doings, nonstop name drops, insults, and murder done for fun

★★★☆☆ Jeb Brown and Matt Rodin head a sweet show done in honky-tonk environs