Natalia Cruz de Dios who plays Stella the Spider in American Stage’s ‘Tales By Twilight’ running through Feb. 23 at Boyd Hills Nature Preserve in St. Petersburg, Florida. Credit: Photo via americanstage/Flickr

Local professional theaters are bringing back past favorites with new twists this spring, and staging musical classics rarely (or never) seen before in these parts. But they’re also giving us some newbies: regional premieres of critically acclaimed plays and world premieres by emerging playwrights.

Straz Center’s Broadway series

Welcome to the Wayback Machine. In addition to perennial crowd-pleasers like “Mamma Mia!” (closes Feb. 2) and “Disney’s The Lion King” (Apr. 2-20), the Straz Center’s Broadway Series is jivin’ with jukebox musicals, drawing on the songbooks and lives of Neil Diamond (“A Beautiful Noise,” Feb. 11-16) and Michael Jackson (“MJ the Musical,” Feb. 25-March 2).

They’re literally going “Back to the Future” with the musical based on the movie (Apr. 29-May 4). But I’m most looking forward to “Shucked” (June 3-8), the rollicking 2022 Tony winner about… corn!

Stageworks Theatre

Shows so nice we’re seeing them twice! Natalie Symons’s funny, poignant “The People Downstairs” premiered at American Stage in 2021, and now Stageworks is giving us the chance to pay a return visit to her quirky, endearing characters (Feb. 7-23). Bonus: the playwright, who’s also a terrific actor, will star alongside Gavin Hawk, Don Walker, and Karla Hartley.

Later in the season, another return engagement: Mark E. Leib’s “When the Righteous Triumph” (Mar. 6-9 at the Straz Center), a powerful drama about the movement that led to the desegregation of Tampa’s lunch counters in 1960. Though the premiere two years ago was a success, the history is still too little known, which is why a group of supporters led by former Congressman Jim Davis raised the money to give the play a second run, this time with many more student matinees. In April, another hit returns: “Morningside” (April 25-May 11), the comedy described as “the worst baby shower ever,” with several returnees from the crackerjack 2020 cast. Finishing out the season, Desiree Montes plays Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” (June 6-29), a role that won her accolades in Orlando.

Jobsite Theater

Giles Davies’ star has always shown brightly in Jobsite’s innovative Shakespeare productions, and now he’s back in the title role of “Macbeth” (through Feb. 9) for the second time since 2013. The staging has what they’re calling a “Pictofuturist” aesthetic (think “Dune”).

Next up is another reprisal of a past company hit, Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic “The Pillowman” (Mar. 12-Apr. 6), a Best of the Bay winner in 2006. The new production brings back Steve Garland and Paul Potenza, but this time in the roles of the police interrogators, with Georgia Mallory Guy as the writer under suspicion and Troy Padraic Brooks as her brother. Next up is “The Butterfly’s Evil Spell” (May 7-June 1), a devised ensemble piece adapted from Garcia Lorca and staged in the tradition of the wondrous “Shockheaded Peter.”

Come summer, look for a sly take on a certain school of magic in “Puffs” (July 9-Aug. 3).

American Stage

“This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing” is described by American Stage as a “modern fairytale” about three sisters trying to find their way in the world; it’s running now through Feb. 9.

Starting this weekend, the company opens the latest offering in its Beyond the Stage series, “Tales By Twilight” at the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve (6 and 8 p.m. performances Jan. 30-Feb. 23). In “Don’t Feed the Animals” by Anthony Gervais, two park rangers go in search of an injured falcon and encounter a menagerie of talking animals along the way; the flashlight-equipped audience follows along.

Hairy creatures of the human variety frolic and sing outdoors in this year’s American Stage in the Park show, “Hair” (March 26-Apr. 27), followed (indoors) by one of my most-anticipated productions of the season, James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fat Ham.” Think “Hamlet” set at a backyard barbecue in a close-knit African-American community; I’ve seen clips of the original production, and it’s sublime (and very funny).

Tampa Rep

In the realm of many happy returns, this is one of the happiest: the brilliant Ned Averill-Snell in the one-man show “Every Brilliant Thing” (Jan. 30-Feb. 9), Duncan Macmillan’s captivating play about a list kept by a young boy to lift his mother out of depression. I first saw Averill-Snell perform the show in 2021, when it was staged outdoors in Ybor City Museum State Park. This time around he’ll be indoors at USF Theatre Centre.

Next up is another of my most-anticipated shows of the season: the acclaimed musical based on the popular novel “The Bridges of Madison County” (April 17-27 at the Straz Center’s Jaeb Theatre) featuring Emilia Sargent as Francesca, the lonely Iowa housewife stirred to life by a charismatic photographer.

freeFall Theatre Company

Much to get excited about in freeFall’s spring season, beginning with a lesser-known Sondheim musical. “Road Show” (Feb. 14-March 16) is based on the exploits of the Mizner Brothers in the Alaskan Gold Rush and the 1920s real estate boom in Florida, where the Spanish-accented architecture of Addison Mizner made an indelible mark. Joey Panek and Robert Teasdale lead the ensemble as the two brothers.

Florida real estate also figures in the world premiere of “For Closure!” by Hannah Benitez (Apr. 11-May 11), a satirical romp involving Realtors, psychics and a shady politician on our very own Gulf Coast. Word has it Matthew McGee will play the psychic, described as a mix of “Liberace, Walter Mercado and Dom De Luise.” Kelly Pekar will also play multiple roles.

Finally, Eric Davis leads what sounds like a fascinating project, “The House of Future Memory” (June 13-July 13), in which performers draw on “the dreams, fears and desires of the audience to create a unique evening of storytelling and theatre that can only happen once.” Also of note: the fabulous Varla Jean Merman brings her “Errors Tour” to freeFall for two performances on March 7.

The Off-Central

Romance rules this spring at the Off-Central, beginning with the crossword puzzle comedy “Two Across” (Jan. 30-Feb. 9), starring Debbie Yones and Michael Gregory (see this week’s Do This).

The charming “Morning After Grace” follows (March 6-16), in which a liaison at a Florida retirement community leads to confusion and new possibilities. Sara Nower, Larry Corwin and JC Anthony star.

Finally, there’s “Love Bird” (April 10-20), in which a seabird living on a trash-strewn island falls in love with… well, don’t want to spoil the surprise, but an actor who performed this play in a prior production called it “sweet, silly, sincere, and strange.” The actors cast at the Off-Central, Roxanne Fay and Katherine Yacko, seem like an inspired pairing.

TheatreFor

The Bay area’s newest theater company, Clearwater’s TheatreFor, opened its spring season last weekend with “Venus in Fur” (through Feb. 9), David Ives’s twisty two-hander.

Following, from Feb. 13-23, is “A Complete History of America (Abridged),” produced in cooperation with Marshall Paddon’s Super Secret Syndicate and billed as “a ninety-minute rollercoaster ride through the glorious quagmire that is American history.”

Next, director Michael Cote presents “A Lighter Shade of Noir” (March 6-23), an evening of eight short plays in the noir genre. The spring closes out with Steve Martin’s absurdist comedy “Meteor Shower” (Apr. 17-May 4) and Dee O’Brien’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (May 29-June 15), promising touches of Monty Python and Norman Lear.

Lab Theater Project (stylized “LAB”)

The only area theater devoted entirely to premieres of new plays has two shows on tap for spring. In Paula Fell’s “Trust Me” (March 13-30), a businessman in debt to a loan shark faces an impossible choice, and in Craig Houk’s “Cooler” (May 15-June 1), two aging actors face off over a game of poker, confronting their future legacies and past loves.

Opera is theater, too

Opening this weekend, Opera Tampa at the Straz Center brings us Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” (Jan. 31-Feb. 2). Adapted from Voltaire’s novel about an almost-incurable optimist, the operetta is known for its incandescent overture and the fiendishly difficult soprano aria “Glitter and Be Gay.”

Also on tap: Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” (March 7 & 9) and Puccini’s “La Bohème” (April 11 & 13).

In March, St. Petersburg Opera at The Palladium offers the lilting melodies and romantic intrigues of Stephen Sondheim’s delightful “A Little Night Music” (March 7-11). Also on tap for the St. Pete Opera: Bizet’s “Carmen” (June 6-15).

Addendum: The Tortoise and The Mayor For full disclosure’s sake, I’m duty bound to tell you that I’m playing Art the Tortoise in American Stage’s “Tales By Twilight: Don’t Feed the Animals” and Mayor Julian Lane in Stageworks’ revival of “When the Righteous Triumph.” See you in the audience!

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