Curtain calls: September performing arts performances

Aug. 29, 2018 6 AM PT

Coming to stages around San Diego County in September are Smokefall, The Heart of Rock & Roll, Chicago and Mystic India: The World Tour.

9.1, 2: Follies: In Concert

The past becomes present tense (and sometimes very tense) in the Stephen Sondheim-composed show — staged here in a spare concert version — about a bittersweet reunion in a dilapidated Broadway theater.

Coronado Playhouse, 1835 Strand Ave., Coronado, 619.435.4856, coronadoplayhouse.com

9.1-16: Smokefall

Backyard Renaissance opens its stint as La Jolla Playhouse’s latest resident theater company with Noah Haidle’s defiantly eccentric play about (in part) a paint-eating teenager named Beauty and a pair of singing, joking unborn twins.

Backyard Renaissance Theatre Co., La Jolla Playhouse’s Shank Theatre, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, 858.550.1010, backyardrenaissance.com

9.6-10.21: The Heart of Rock & Roll

The big news is that the Globe has landed another major new musical with this jukebox show centered around the songs of Huey Lewis and the News, the ’80s-era act whose hits include The Power of Love and Hip to Be Square.

Old Globe Theatre, Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park,
619.234.5623, theoldglobe.org

9.6-30: Fun Home

The Rep scores a coup with the San Diego premiere of this best-musical Tony Award winner, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel about coming of age — and coming out — in a troubled Pennsylvania household.

San Diego Rep, Lyceum Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, downtown, 619.544.1000, sdrep.org

9.12-29: Chicago

We had it comin’: Moonlight revives Kander & Ebb’s deliciously vicious musical about crime, punishment and celebrity in the Windy City of the 1920s.

Moonlight Stage Productions, Moonlight Amphitheatre, 1250 Vale Terrace Dr., Vista, 760.724.2110, moonlightstage.com

9.13-10.14: Bull In a China Shop

Bryna Turner’s fact-based comedy about two early-20^th-century pioneers of both women’s education and sexual politics gets its local premiere at the LGBTQ-centered Diversionary.

Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd., University Heights, 619.220.0097, diversionary.org

9.22-10.21: Hundred Days

This folk-rock musical memoir from the husband-and-wife duo The Bengsons explores what choices you might make — and chances you might take — if you had just 100 days left to live.

La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr., La Jolla, 858.550.1010, lajollaplayhouse.org

9.28-10.28: Young Frankenstein

The musical take on Mel Brooks’ bonkers film comedy gets Frankenstein’s monster and his entourage dancing to such tunes as Transylvania Mania and (of course) Puttin’ On the Ritz.

San Diego Musical Theatre, Horton Grand Theatre, 444 Fourth Ave., downtown, 858.560.5740, sdmt.org

9.28-10.28: Guadalupe in the Guest Room

The latest show in NVA’s groundbreaking Teatro Pueblo Nuevo program is the local premiere of Tony Meneses’ play about grief, acceptance and the magical properties of telenovelas.

New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 State St., Carlsbad, 760.433.3245, newvillagearts.org