“There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.” G. K. Chesterton

Skyline Theatre presents Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, beginning this weekend and running through November 22.

This tale, seemingly as old as time, dates back to the traditional French fairy tale La Belle et la Bête written in 1756 and has resulted in numerous adaptations including the famous 1991 animated classic (although, admittedly, my personal favorite version is Jean Cocteau's surreal 1946 French film).

In this stage adaptation of the animated film, beautiful Belle is, improbably, the village outsider who prefers books to the advances of the hunky, yet shallow Gaston. When she goes looking for her hapless father, an inventor who’s lost his way in an enchanted forest, she discovers him in a haunted castle, captive of a mysterious Beast. She then wins her father's freedom by reluctantly trading places with him. Thus begins the most unlikely of romances, made considerably more tolerable, if occasionally adorable, by singing teapots and waltzing silverware.

"Belle and the Beast’s story is timeless," observes Skyline Theatre director Anne-Marie Roberts. "It contains the universal themes of love and self-sacrifice. Children in all their innocence innately understand and connect with these truths.”

Best of all, following each of the performances, guests can meet and have their pictures taken with Belle, the Beast, and other memorable characters in the musical.

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast performs at Skyline High School (2552 N. Maple Rd in Ann Arbor) on November 14, at both 2:30 and 7:30 pm; November 20 & 21, at 7:30 pm; and November 22, at 2:30 pm. Tickets are available online or at the door. For more information, visit Skyline’s website.

“Grease is the word,” sang Barry Gibb nearly 40 years ago. It was 1978 and John Travolta had just discoed his way to superstardom in Saturday Night Fever. This time he’d spark some summer lovin’ and help spin the 1971 stage musical Grease into a cult film and a staple for high school musical theater programs across the county.

This weekend Pioneer High School’s Theatre Guild offers its take on Rydell High’s class of 1959, with direction by Matthew Kunkel, University of Michigan Directing Major.

The story centers on Danny Zuko, a too-cool-for-school hot-rodder who reluctantly crosses clique lines and kills it at the high school dance for his sweetheart, Sandy Dumbrowski, who in turn is negotiating her own way among the bad girls. At its core are the timeless high school high jinks and teen angst that make Grease the perfect high school musical.

Peer pressure played out by duck-tailed T-birds and gum-smacking Pink Ladies? What’s not to like?

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Grease opens Friday, November 7, at 8:30 pm and runs through Sunday, November 15, at 2 pm. Tickets are $10 (students, Seniors 65+, and PHS staff) and $15 adults. For more information, visit Pioneer Theatre Guild's webpage.

“Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, And set them upright at their dear friends' door….”

Just in time for Halloween (and running the following weekend), Ann Arbor High School’s Huron Players bring you Shakespeare’s most disturbing tragedy, Titus Andronicus.

In this blood-soaked drama -- one of Shakespeare’s earliest, written sometime between 1588 and 1593 -- Saturninus and Bassianus are vying for the title of Caesar when Titus returns victorious from war with the Goths. Titus is offered the emperorship, but instead confers the title on Saturninus, thereby setting in motion a revenge so shockingly graphic the play wasn’t performed for centuries. Let’s just say that in addition to the considerable bloodshed, Titus cornered the meat-pie market a good 400 years before Sweeney Todd.

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Titus Andronicus starts Friday, October 30, 7:30 pm, with additional performances Sunday, November 1, at 2:00 pm, Friday, November 6, and Saturday, November 7, at 7:30 pm in Huron High School's Little Theater. General admission: $8, students and staff $6. Additional information available on the Huron Players website.

The University of Michigan’s Department of Musical Theater presents Green Day's American Idiot with lyrics by Green Day member Billie Joe Armstrong based on a book by Armstrong and film director Michael Mayer.

Directed by U-M Associate Professor of Musical Theater Linda Goodrich, with music direction by Assistant Professor of Music, Jason DeBord, this 2010 Tony Award-winning sung-through stage adaptation of the band’s 2004 multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning punk rock opera of the same name is a searing concept album-cum-stage musical indictment of post 9/11 American political culture as witnessed by three lifelong friends - Johnny, Will, and Tunny - grappling with meaningless war and disaffected social malaise before each embarks on a roller-coaster ride of self-discovery.

The New York Times’ Charles Isherwood called American Idiot a “thrillingly raucous and gorgeously wrought Broadway musical …. [jolting] you back to [a] dizzying roller coaster of young adulthood; that turbulent time when ecstasy and misery almost seem interchangeable states, flip sides of the coin of exaltation.”

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Performances will be at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, October 15-25. For tickets and additional information visit the School of Music, Theater, and Dance website.

Bonnie & Clyde opened the Dexter-based Encore Musical Theatre Company’s eighth season on Friday, October 2, and will continue through October 25.

The musical follows star-crossed lovers, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, as they fall in love, rob banks, and kill a few people on their way to notoriety in Depression-era Texas. Frank Wildhorn’s compelling score - a mix of rollicking gospel, blues, and ballads - accompanies the outlaws’ reckless thrill-ride.

The musical Bonnie & Clyde has a special connection to Encore’s co-founder, Dan Cooney, one of the original cast members of the Broadway production. Director Ron Baumanis, and music director Tyler Driskill, reprise their work following Ann Arbor Civic Theater’s excellent Bonnie & Clyde production last year. This time around they’re accompanied by Wilde Award Winner Mahalia Greenway (Bonnie) and American Idol contestant Adam Woolsey (Clyde), with Peter Crist (Buck Barrow) and Elizabeth Jaffe (Blanche Barrow).

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Bonnie & Clyde runs through Sunday, October 25. For tickets, call The Encore Theatre Box Office at 734.268.6200 or visit the website.

This upcoming weekend, the University Musical Society (UMS) presents Antigone, starring Academy Award-winning actress Juliette Binoche in a contemporary version of Sophokles’ timeless tragedy of familial love caught in conflict with political obligation.

Directed by Ivo van Hove and translated by Canadian poet Anne Carson--a former U-M professor of classics and comparative literature (as well as MacArthur “Genius” grant winner)--this modern adaptation tells the story of a young woman, Antigone, who defies her uncle Creon, head of state in Thebes, when he refuses her brother burial on the grounds that he is a traitor.

In his review in the New York Times, theater reviewer Ben Brantley notes, “Ms. Binoche glows with the fever of fanatical, fixed purpose. She brings to mind the great Maria Falconetti in Carl Dreyer’s silent Passion of Joan of Arc, a film Ms. Binoche has cited as a major influence on her acting.” Check out a copy of Antigone.

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Antigone runs Wednesday, October 14 - Saturday October 17, 2015 at The Power Center, 121 Fletcher St., Ann Arbor. Learn more and purchase tickets online.

In honor of Arthur Miller’s centenary and the University of Michigan Department of Theatre & Drama’s 100th Anniversary, director Wendy C. Goldberg and other alumni of the Department of Theatre & Drama will present All My Sons, Miller’s first major success after graduating from U-M, a Tony Award-winner for Best Author, and winner of the 1947 Drama Critics Award for Best Play.

The New York Times called it “the most talented work by a new author in some time….To judge by the intellectual content and the dramatic workmanship of “All My Sons," Mr. Miller is here to stay….”

Like Death of a Salesman written two years later, the story follows a flawed everyman wrestling with the American Dream: Joe Keller is a successful businessman who may have knowingly sold faulty cylinder heads for aircraft engines in World War II that caused the deaths of 21 pilots. The play takes place over the course of a weekend three and a half years later when his youngest son, Chris, hopes to marry his deceased older brother's fiancee, Ann, the daughter of Keller's best friend Steve (his partner who was jailed for the crime).

The University of Michigan Department of Theatre & Drama will also present the Arthur Miller Symposium, a series of free talks and panel discussions occurring October 14-16. They include: “Miller into the Future” (7pm, October 14, Stamps Auditorium); “Miller as Touchstone” (4:30pm, October 15, Arthur Miller Theater); and “Miller in Production” (6:30pm, October 16, Stamps Auditorium).

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Performances of All My Sons run October 10-11, and 15-18, in the Arthur Miller Theatre on U-M’s North Campus. For tickets call (734) 764-2538 or purchase online.