Mark Cofta’s theater picks: The Bard, Ibsen, Heller, and Mary Magdalene

After a Bard-less winter, spring brings some notable William Shakespeare productions. Currently running are Lantern Theater Company's The Tempest (through April 29; here’s my review) and Quintessence Theatre Group's Julius Caesar (through April 28).

New Shakespeare springing forth includes Villanova Theatre's Much Ado About Nothing (April 10 through 22), a romantic comedy directed by mega-talent James Ijames.

Another happy love story, Twelfth Night (April 19 through May 13), will be produced by the Resident Ensemble Players at the University of Delaware. A co-production with the Acting Company, director Maria Aitken's version will transfer to New York City's Polonsky Shakespeare Center after its Newark run.

Malvern's People's Light premieres Romeo & Juliet: A Requiem (April 25 through May 27). Director-adaptor Samantha Reading and co-conceiver Zak Berkman reconfigure Shakespeare's enduring tragedy as a play for six actors playing members of the feuding Capulet and Montague families, who relive the young lovers' final days in hope of redemption and reconciliation.

Ibsen, Heller, and Irish classics

Quintessence runs director Rebecca Wright's new adaptation, written with the ensemble, of Henrik Ibsen's rarely seen The Wild Duck (April 4 through 29, in repertory with Julius Caesar).

The Irish Heritage Theatre and Plays & Players co-present a spring production of The Women of Ireland: Short Irish Classics (April 5 through 21), including the iconic one-acts Riders to the Sea by John Millington Synge and Cathleen Ni Houlihan by Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats, plus Tiny Plays for Ireland, four contemporary short plays by Irish women (developed by Dublin-based new-play company Fishamble).

Curio Theatre Company revives a modern classic: Joseph Heller's adaptation of his seminal satirical 1961 novel Catch-22 (April 25 through May 19), which Curio first produced in 2006.

New in Gnostic Gospels, lightning, and E.M. Forster

April's many premieres include Magdalene from Tribe of Fools (April 5 through 22), a one-woman play about the "13th Apostle" written by Philadelphia's Rachel Gluck, directed by Brenna Geffers, and starring Colleen Hughes. Gluck's script uses material from the Gnostic Gospels and examines the exclusion of women from organized Christianity.

Theatre Exile, producing at the Latvian Society while its South Philly home is renovated, premieres local playwright Michael Hollinger's Sing the Body Electric (April 19 through May 13), an intriguing story about love, sex, and lightning.

The Wilma Theater concludes its season with Passage (April 18 through May 13), a premiere by Christopher Chen. It's a fantasia on E.M. Forster's 1924 novel A Passage to India, which explores colonization (InterAct produced Chen's Barrymore Award-winning Caught in 2014).