Mark Cofta’s February theater picks

Nothing against plays that have been produced before, but I feel a special excitement about new plays — though what defines "new" isn't as obvious as it might seem.

Emma Goidel's Local Girls (February 24 - March 13), for instance, is what we call a world premiere. The local phenom’s A Knee That Can Bend was a hit for Orbiter 3 (and another premiere from this busy young playwright). In Azuka Theatre Company's first show at The Drake, high school misfits yearn for a glorious rock and roll escape from Tucker, Georgia. Allison Heishman directs, and the cast includes Mary Tuomanen, Anna Szapiro, and Tabitha Allen.

Villanova Theatre's A Wonderful Noise (February 9 - 21) is an area premiere: a barbershop-style musical written by Michael Hollinger (Opus, Ghost-Writer, and Red Herring, all Barrymore Award winners) and Vance Lehmkuhl (best known locally as City Paper "How-To Harry" political cartoonist, 1991 - 2003). A 1940s quartet competes at the national championships, but their handlebar moustaches hide the fact that they're actually women determined to break the Barbershop Society's gender barrier.

People's Light’s Sense and Sensibility (February 10 - March 20) is another notable regional premiere. Though Jane Austen wrote the novel in 1811 and it's been adapted for stage and film before, Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan's script will receive the same style of large cast, stunning set, and beautiful costumes that People's Light lavished on Pride and Prejudice two years ago.

Stories from the UK, Australia, France, and Chicago

Inis Nua Theatre Company produces only smart modern plays from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, so it's no surprise that Spine (February 17 - March 6) is an American premiere. Clare Brennan's one-woman show is a love song to libraries as well as a manifesto on reading and learning.

Iron Age Theatre Company offers the Philadelphia premiere of DOGFALL (February 3 - 21) by Australian playwright Caleb Lewis. A dark comedy about war, DOGFALL joins Iron Age's Fringe hit A Great War as a theatrical commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of World War I — though its action stretches from then to today, on battlefields all over the world.

Other area premieres of note include Kim Davies's Smoke (February 18 - March 13) at Theatre Exile; The Sisterhood, Ranjit Bolt's translation of Molière's Learned Ladies (February 3 - 21) in a gender-bending production by Mauckingbird Theatre; and Ike Holter's Exit Strategy at Philadelphia Theatre Company (January 29 - February 28), the East Coast premiere of a drama set in a Chicago public school.

Really, really new

For the newest in theater, though, check out SmokeyScout Productions' Nice and Fresh: Pop-Up Performances of New Theater and Dance (February 19 and 20 at the Moving Arts of Mt. Airy). Josh McIlvain and company invite artists to present eclectic short pieces and excerpts, often of works-in-progress, for just $7 ("the price of a sandwich"). This month's edition includes a new McIlvain one-act, dance by Vervet Dance, music by Pig Iron-trained Baby Steps, and performance art by Thomas Choinacky.