Mark Cofta’s theater picks: Around the world in November

A slate of classics, contemporary favorites, and premieres in town this month have one thing in common: They’re transporting us from Philadelphia.

Iraq: InterAct Theatre Company premieres British playwright Fin Kennedy’s thriller Broken Stones (through November 19), investigating the 2003 theft of priceless artifacts from the Baghdad Museum during the Iraq War. The action races from Iraq to London, New York City, and Hollywood as a marine chases the truth. Director Seth Rozin’s cast features Charlotte Northeast and Rand Guerrero.

Spain: The Wilma Theater’s season opens with Blood Wedding (through November 19), combining Federico García Lorca’s fiery poetry with Hungarian director-choreographer Csaba Horváth’s magical realism sensibilities and the Wilma’s Hothouse Company’s dynamic style. Campbell O’Hare and Jered McLenigan star as the ill-fated bride and groom.

Ireland: The Irish Heritage Theatre dedicates its season to women, starting with Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (November 2 through 18), a supernatural tale that follows a traveler on the verge of losing everything she holds dear. Loosely based on the story of Medea, the play features Kirsten Quinn, Jenna Kuerzi, and Tina Brock; Peggy Mecham directs.

The Netherlands: Bruce Graham’s new drama The Craftsman (November 9 through December 10), commissioned by the Lantern Theater Company, explores the case of a Dutch art dealer who sold rare paintings to the Nazis during World War II. M. Craig Getting directs a fine ensemble led by Anthony Lawton and Ian Merrill Peakes in a play that explores wartime ethics and hatred’s corrosive effects.

England, today: Scott Greer stars in the Arden Theatre Company’s Every Brilliant Thing (November 9 through December 10), written by Duncan Macmillan with actor Johnny Donahoe. The lauded play, an Edinburgh Fringe Festival hit for three years running, opens the Arden’s Bob & Selma Horan Studio Theatre in their Hamilton Family Arts Center, and is Greer’s 31st Arden play. He plays a man coping with his suicidal mother, but it’s not grim or preachy, especially since audience members are invited to play roles in the story.

England, 1912: Quintessence Theatre Group’s My Fair Lady (November 15 through December 17) is the Germantown classics company’s first musical, a two-piano, small-cast version of the Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner classic based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Leigha Kato, who played Shaw’s Saint Joan in 2016, is Eliza Doolittle, with Gregory Isaac as her teacher Henry Higgins.

Mississippi: Curio Theatre Company’s 13th season continues with Crimes of the Heart (November 17 through December 9), Beth Henley’s beloved 1981 tragi-comedy about three sisters who reunite when the youngest shoots her husband. This Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics’ Circle Award winner features Rachel Gluck, Colleen Hughes, and Tessa Kuhn, directed by Gay Carducci.