Big-time Broadway musicals, world premieres set in gay and transgender communities, and that play where a ghost and a prince meet and everyone ends in mincemeat are queuing up for fall bows. Here is a look at some highlights of how the new theater season will unfold during the next few months.
September
The prince and the ghost referenced above (and in the song "That's Entertainment") are Hamlet and his father, whose death the prince seeks to avenge. Most of us know how it turns out (spoiler alert: Mincemeat). In its first staging of any Shakespearean play in more than 20 years, ACT opens its season with "Hamlet," with John Douglas Thompson, seen at ACT as Louis Armstrong in "Satchmo at the Waldorf," as the to-be-or-not-to-be prince. Performances Sept. 20-Oct. 15. Tickets at act-sf.org
It's the Temptations' time for a spin on the theatrical musical turntable. The world premiere of "Ain't Too Proud - The Life and Times of the Temptations" opens Berkeley Rep's season with a bio musical about the Detroit R&B group's ascension to stardom, and the rivalries fueled by ego, drugs, and alcohol that led to a steady stream of crises, even as the songs that comprise the musical's score were climbing the charts. At the new musical's helm are "Jersey Boys" director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo, with a book by Dominque Morriseau, who has frequently written about her native Detroit. Performances Aug. 31-Oct. 8. Tickets at berkeleyrep.org
It's also a world premiere that opens New Conservatory Theatre Center's season. Harrison David Rivers' "This Bitter Earth," commissioned by the theater, focuses on a bi-racial gay couple in which the white lover's involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement is at odds with his black partner's political apathy. Performances Sept. 22-Oct. 22. Tickets at nctcsf.org
Yet another world premiere will launch Theatre Rhino's season at the Gateway Theatre, the new name for the Eureka Theatre. "The Legend in Pink," by Oakland author Kheven LaGrone, is set in West Oakland as the 20th century is coming to an end. The mission of a transgender woman named Pink is to spread beauty through the harsh environment, but her interest in an attractive young man leads to disapproval and violence. Performances Sept. 13-30. Tickets at therhino.org
Would you prefer indica or sativa in your macaroon? Once upon a time, pot was pot, and if you partook, terrible consequences were sure to follow. That was the premise of the 1930s instructional film "Reefer Madness," which became a camp classic in recent decades. That it should become a musical was a no-brainer, and it fits snugly into the quirky ethos of Ray of Light Theatre, which is producing the 1998 musical at the Victoria Theatre. Performances Sept. 15-Oct. 7. Tickets at rayoflightheatre.com
"Taylor Mac: A 24-Hour Decade History of Popular Music" returns the gender-fluid performance artist to the Curran Theatre where he performed a three-hour segment of the show last year. Now he's offering the whole shebang, broken up into four standalone chronological chapters as Mac shows how different eras' songs reflect their times and also provide commentary on them. He does this with a changing phantasmagoria of costumes, unexpected props, an orchestra and chorus, and unpredictable audience involvement. Performances Sept. 15-24. Tickets at sfcurran.com
The 1951 movie "An American in Paris" brought a touch of class to the waning days of the big Hollywood musicals, and a 2015 Broadway adaptation was accorded similar respect. The musical featuring an all-Gershwin score is now on tour, with the Orpheum Theatre an upcoming destination. Internationally renowned ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon directed the musical, and won a Tony Award for his choreography. Performances Sept. 12-Oct. 8. Tickets at shnsf.com
A touch of class of a different sort brings Varla Jean Merman to Oasis in her latest show. "Bad Heroine" pays tribute to real and fictional female trailblazers, with Varla Jean (aka Jeffery Roberson) costumed throughout the show as Wonder Woman. Performances Sept. 13-16. Tickets at sfoasis.com
October
42nd Street Moon starts its new season with "Ain't Misbehavin'," the Fats Waller musical revue that won the 1978 Tony Award as best musical, at the Gateway Theatre. Performances Oct. 11-29. Tickets at 42ndstmoon.org
In Philip Dawkins' "Le Switch," NCTC's second production of the season, a 30something librarian has a harder time with the notion of same-sex marriage than the older and younger gay men around him. He fears the pressures of commitment - pressures that increase when he meets a charming young Quebecois without those issues. Performances Oct. 27-Dec. 3
A contretemps over the racial makeup of a New York presentation of "The Prince of Egypt" led to its cancellation, and the opportunity for TheatreWorks to present its world premiere. It's the story of Moses, based on the 1998 animated feature with songs by Stephen Schwartz ("Wicked"). Scott Schwartz, the songwriter's son, is directing the production at Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, which will then travel to Denmark. Performances Oct. 6-Nov. 5. Tickets at theatreworks.org
Ray of Light Theatre is back at the Victoria for its third annual production of "The Rocky Horror Show." D'Arcy Drollinger, who can often be seen as Champagne White and other drag personas at Oasis, will be playing Frank-n-Furter - who's just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania. Performances Oct. 26-Nov. 4
November
For its second production of the season, Theatre Rhino will be back at the Gateway Theatre with one of the trailblazing plays about AIDS. Larry Kramer pulled from autobiographical events to write "The Normal Heart," first staged in 1985, and the play excoriated the mainstream press, politicians, his activist colleagues, and, even to an extent, himself, for indifference, fear, and infighting as the disease began to reveal itself in the gay community. Performances Nov. 3-25.
Bay Area Musicals ambitiously opens its third season at the Alcazar Theatre with "42nd Street," the song-and-dance extravaganza that famously debuted in 1980 on the very day that its director-choreographer Gower Champion died. Based on the 1933 movie about a chorine tapped for the leading role in musical at the last minute, she is thrust onto the stage with this admonition from her director: ''You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!'' Performances Nov. 11-Dec. 9. Tickets at bamsf.org
Disney has had successes ("Beauty and the Beast") and failures ("Tarzan") in translating its animated features into Broadway musicals, but you have to count "Aladdin" in the big-hit department. Still running on Broadway to full houses after nearly 1,500 performances, there is now a second magic carpet on the road headed to Orpheum Theatre. Performances Nov. 1-Jan. 7