Stage

Center Stage seems to have a thing for public accommodations these days. The company's last play was set in a nondescript motel room. The current one is set in a nondescript hotel room. The deja vu feeling is intensified since both productions have been presented in the intimate Head Theatre, with the stage in the exact same position, and by the fact that the first character to enter goes directly into the bathroom. The similarities are all coincidental, of course, but still intriguing, especially when it comes to the mix of humor and some pretty serious stuff that fills each piece.

Alternative rock group Chevelle, Nashville country duo Florida-Georgia Line and Philadelphia-based cover band Kristen and the Noise will perform on the Jagermeister Stage at this year's Preakness InfieldFest on May 18, the Maryland Jockey Club announced today. The addition of two rock bands and a country act makes sense after the Club announced last month Top 40 staple Pitbull and rising hip-hop star(s) Macklemore & Ryan Lewis would headline InfieldFest. Kristen and the Noise, who will kick-off the Jagermeister Stage, are scheduled to play Claddagh Pub's Meet in the Street in Canton on Saturday.

For his first full season as Center Stage artistic director, Kwame Kwei-Armah focused on works that could spark conversation about a variety of heady issues. Midway through that season, he has unveiled a very different theme for the next one. "If this season is cerebral, with the join-the-conversation message, [2013-2014] is one of spirit and joy and fun, I'm hoping," Kwei-Armah said. "I have been traveling a lot and looking at productions across the country. I have seen audiences react to several of these plays, which gives me the security to present them.

A plain set is the congenial setting for the home truths imparted by Samm-Art Williams' "Home" at Rep Stage. Like the several wood platforms on which most of the action occurs, this play gets down to basics. The three actors have very few props or costume changes with which to contend, so they have plenty of time for storytelling. The central story involves an ardently ordinary man, Cephus Miles (Robert Lee Hardy), who grows up on a North Carolina farm and then moves to an unnamed northern city in search of economic opportunity and upward mobility.

For some people, home means wherever they happen to be; one place is as good as another, so long as basic needs are met. It's a very different matter for Cephus Miles, the young farmer in North Carolina at the heart of “Home,” an unassuming play by Morgan State University alum Samm-Art Williams receiving a vibrant production from Rep Stage. Cephus is as firmly rooted to what he calls “the fertile, pungent earth” as his crops. Why that attachment is so strong, and how it haunts him even after he ends up far away from his birthplace, is the focus in what becomes a kind of fable, really, complete with a moral or two. Thanks to Williams' eloquent writing, Cephus' journey unfolds so earnestly and intriguingly that a couple of implausible plot-turns prove digestible enough.

For three weeks in June 2009, Tom Schreiber was in a bit of limbo about his status as Princeton's most prized men's lacrosse recruit. Bill Tierney had just resigned as coach after 22 seasons, and Schreiber, a midfielder, was growing worried. Then the university named Chris Bates from Drexel as Tierney's successor. Bates dispelled Schreiber's anxiety quickly, driving to the family home in East Meadow, N.Y., the day after he was hired to meet with Doug and Liz Schreiber, and then spend a few hours with their son. "I kind of had a unique recruiting experience," Tom Schreiber recalled.

About 2000 years ago, the Roman poet Ovid completed “Metamorphoses,” his chronicle of ancient gods and goddesses, the mortals who worshiped or dared them, and the transformations they experienced. In this epic work, Ovid delivered a simple, comforting message: “All things change, but nothing dies.” In the late 1990s, playwright and director Mary Zimmerman unveiled a compelling treatment of Ovid's magnum opus, also titled “Metamorphoses,” which went on to become one of her most admired and performed creations.

In its nearly two dozen years, Signature Theatre has presented a rich variety of works, but none by the Bard -- not that there's anything wrong with that. The Tony Award-winning company has now taken the plunge in a terrific way. "Shakespeare's R&J" examines the star-crossed lovers of Verona through the unexpected prism of a repressive, all-male Catholic boarding school. This brilliant and provocative work, created by Joe Calarco, first appeared in the late 1990s and has been widely performed since.Calarco recently revised the piece, and that new version is receiving its North American premiere in a bracing, in-the-round production that he has directed with considerable flair.

It looks like a full-fledged trend -- Baltimore theater companies adding performances of productions thanks to popular demand this winter. First to announce was Everyman Theatre, which  extended the run of "August: Osage County. "  Two more companies have likewise found themselves with hits. Katori Hall's "The Mountaintop" isn't for everybody, but this serious/humorous/surreal look at Rev. Martin Luther King's last night, April 3, 1968, has turned out to be "one of the highest grossing plays" in the 50-year history of Center Stage, the company reports.

The Parkville High School Knight Players, under the co-direction of Steve Devorah and Lisa Moose, will host its final performance of this year's dramatic production, "A Midsummer Night's Jersey. " on Saturday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m., at the school, 2600 Putty Hill Avenue in Parkville. Written by Ken Ludwig for high school actors, the play blends Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream” with reality TV's “Jersey Shore.” Tickets are available at the door of the school.