By Mark Edelman

The 2026-27 theater season heats up while temperatures outside cool down. Time to get back on your performing arts wheels and pedal over to your favorite DMV venue for some of these great shows:

GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES

Keegan Theatre

Now through Sep 6

Two kindred spirits find their way back to each other across a lifetime of scraped knees, broken bones, and a whole host of imperfect moments in this new comedy by award-winning playwright Rajiv Joseph. Beneath the play’s sharp wit and darkly comic edge lies a tender story of love, resilience, and the quiet ways we hold on to one another. Tickets at http://www.keegantheatre.com

BLITHE SPIRIT

Little Theatre of Alexandira

Now through September 19

Noel Coward’s witty comedy of manners about a new husband who unwittingly shakes up the household with wife number 2 when he invites a medium over to summon the spirt of his dearly-departed ex. It’s Noel Coward, so you can bet trouble ensues—but all in that well-mannered, gin and tonic or three milieu that never gets completely out of hand. Tickets at www.thelitletheatre.com

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG

Signature Theatre

Now through Nov 1

Those keepers of the Sondheim flame out in Shirlington dig into the composer/lyricist’s masterwork about friendship, ambition and the compromises that shape a life. Matthew Gardiner directs the show twenty years after its last Signature production. Tickets at www.sigtheatre.org

DIRTY DANCING

National Theatre

Sep 9- Oct 4

Get ready to have the time of your life when the stage version of this beloved rom-com bursts onto the National Theatre stage for a month. Live music from the movie takes you back to the Catskills and one more tale of star-crossed lovers—well, almost (that age difference can be a problem). After all these years—and the sad loss of the film’s original star Patrick Swayze – nobody puts Baby in a corner. Tickets at www.broadwayatthenational.com

COME FROM AWAY

Ford’s Theater

Sep 10- Oct 18

The heart-warming true story of how a small Canadian town cared for 6,579 airline passengers stranded there on 9/11 became a Broadway musical hit. Now it’s back at Ford’s in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11, the day thirty-eight commercial airplanes were diverted to the town of Gander, Newfoundland. Offering food, shelter and comfort to these strangers, our Canadian neighbors renewed hope and humanity in a time of darkness. Tickets at http://www.fords.org

THE FRUITS OF OUR LABOR

Arena Stage

Sep 10- Nov 1

Step Afrika! Returns to South West with a powerful new production exploring rhythm, resilience and the unfinished story of the American experience. Blending stepping, percussion, and striking visual imagery, this visceral new piece examines what it means to believe in a nation still in the making with explosive movement and a bold palette of red, white, and blue.

Tickets at http://www.arenastage.org

SOMEWHERE OVER THE BORDER

Atlas Performing Arts Center

Sep 10- Oct 4

Mosaic brings back Brian Quijada, one-half of the award-winning duo who brought us Mexodus, which premiered over on H Street and went on to two successful off-Broadway runs. Inspired by the true story of his mother’s immigration in the 1970s, Quijada takes us on another musical journey, this time from El Salvador to America to the tune of cumbia, Mexican mariachi boleros, rock and hip hop. Like Dorothy in that “over the rainbow” musical, Reina travels north to the Mexican border, gathering friends and facing down dangers as she strives to build a better life for su familia. Tickets at www.mosaictheater.org.

VENUS

Woolly Mammoth

Sep 9- Oct 4

Newly christened artistic director Reggie White starts things off at Woolly this season with a new take on the odd couple format. Nicole likes things orderly: clean dating profiles, curated apartments, clear exits. Beth is all instinct: showing up uninvited to book club, sending too many flowers, and midnight dates under the stars. What begins as an intoxicating collision of opposites turns bizarre as romance descends into obsession in this fever dream by Steve Yockey, creator of HBO’s The Flight Attendant. Tickets at http://www.woollymammoth.net

MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

Round House Theatre

Sep 9- Oct 11

The first in what turned out to be August Wilson’s ten play cycle of African-American life spanning the last century. Olney Theatre and Round House join forces to produce and present this important work about the hopes and fears of Black artists trying to scratch out a living against the exploitation that surrounded them. The blues emanating out of Chicago provides the backbeat as conflicts flare over art, power and control. Tickets at http://www.roundhousetheatre.org.

THE SCORE

Harman Hall

Sep 11- Oct 18

Shakespeare Theatre Company kicks off its 2026-27 season with the kind of high-powered theater we’ve come to admire under artistic director Simon Godwin. This time, Brian Cox, star of HBO’s Succession, limns the role of Johann Sebastian Bach, a reluctant visitor to the court of Frederick II, then Europe’s most ambitious and dangerous leader (sound familiar yet?). Challenged by the King, Bach is forced to weigh the tyranny of an autocrat against his own artistic integrity (getting warmer?). Sir Trevor Nunn—the man who gave us Cats and Les Miserables— helms this production, its first and only stop on this side of the pond. Tickets at www.shakespearetheatre.org.

THE SECOND BEST SCHOOL SHOOTING

Next Stop Theatre

Sep 18- Nov 4

As two best friends try to make sense of a school shooting, the confront a question for our times: how do you grieve when the world has mostly moved on. A U.S. premier about grief, friendship and what happens when one tragedy is eclipsed by another. Tickets at http://www.nextstoptheatre.org

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Folger Library Theatre

Sep 22- Nov 1

Psalmayene 24 is back to direct one of the Bard’s more obscure plays, in which human nature collides with the letter of the law with potentially life-threatening consequences. In a morally lax city, can a corrupt official coerce a virginal nun to submit to his desires when her brother’s life may hang in the balance? It’s “Days of Our Lives” circa 16th century Elizabethan England. Tickets at http://www.folger.edu.

WISH YOU WERE HERE

Studio Theatre

Sep 23- Nov 1

Salme’s getting married and her four best friends get her ready in a flurry of tulle and teasing about the wedding night ahead. But it’s 1978 in Karaj, on the eve of the Iranian Revolution, and over the next decade everything changes for these tightknit friends, their country, and the futures they find for themselves. In another moment of upheaval in Iran, Sanaz Toossi (English) brings her trademark wit, insight, and more than a few dirty jokes to this story of diaspora from the people who stay.

DANCE THEATRE OF HARLEM

National Theatre

Sep 25-26

Washington Performing Arts opens its 61st season—this time at the National Theatre—with this ground-breaking company performing several of the most beloved pieces in its repertoire, including Geoffrey Holder’s Caribe- themed reimaging of Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird. George Balanchine’s Donizetti Variations—long a DTH favorite—joins the program, along with Robert Garland’s Return, set to the music of Aretha Franklin and James Brown. See—there is life after the Kennedy Center (at least for the time being). Tickets at http://www.broadwayatthenational.com

CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM

Imagination Stage

Sep 26- Oct 18

Recommended for kids 3-9 and their folks, this new musical based on the popular children’s series celebrates letters, words, and imagination with infectious rhythms, dazzling puppets, and lively dancing. Your kids are part of the action, too. Tickets at www.imaginationstage.org

The writer is a playwright who loves writing about theater. He is a lifetime member of the Broadway

League and a Tony® voter. Catch his monthly podcast at http://www.onstagedmv.org.

Photo credits: Firebird by Rachel Papo; The Score by Manuel Harlan. Gruesome Playground Injuries courtesy of Keegan Theatre