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Wherefore art thou, bilingual adaptation of Shakespeare’s iconic play about rivalry, young love, and sword fights? The romance is closer than you think: Writers KJ Sanchez and Karen Zacaría along with director Anna Skidis Vargas bring this timeless work into a new context, right on UT-Austin’s campus. The tale that pits Montague against Capulet settles in fair Alta, California, circa 1840. “Set in the limbo between Mexican rule and new statehood,” the event description reads, “this retelling shifts between English and Spanish, bringing new life to a well-loved tale of love, bloodshed, family and fate.” Now there’s an idea you won’t bite your thumb at. – James Scott

The worst myth about William Shakespeare was that he was a unique genius who penned his greatest plays and sonnets in pristine isolation in his home in Stratford-upon-Avon. Lizzy Duffy Adams’ scathing comedy gets to the reality: that he was a jobbing playwright, a controversial upstart crow in Elizabethan London’s vibrant, tumultuous theatre scene. A long day with his contemporary, the radical Christopher Marlowe, becomes an examination of collaboration, influence, politics, desire, and the wild energy of life behind the stage. Austin Playhouse’s production runs Thursday-Sunday through April 28. – Richard Whittaker

Who’s ready for a bedtime story? Because there’s nothing like Stephen Sondheim’s grand unification theory of the Brothers Grimm’s collection of German fairy tales. All your childhood folklore favorites become tangled up in the search for the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold. Underneath the toe-tappers and cunning one-liners, there’s a fable about the perils of getting what you wished for and not paying attention to what you have, a moral reiterated by a witch who’s not good, not nice; just right. – Richard Whittaker