Theatre Washington is kicking off the fall arts season with discounts on dozens of stage productions in the DMV. DC Theatre Week runs Sept. 24-Oct. 11 (yes, it’s more than a week) with tickets as low as $25, $45 or $65, but you don’t have to cross the Potomac to take in a riveting drama or an electrifying musical. The productions below are right here in Virginia. Bonus: you can make it dinner and a show at restaurants offering a two-course pre-theater meal for $25, $45 or $65 (or, in some cases, late-night bites for your post-show munchies). Participating eateries in Arlington include Ambar Clarendon, Big Buns, Café Monet, Colada Shop, Makers Union, Matchbox and Wiseguy Pizza.
Merrily We Roll Along at Signature Theatre
Stephen Sondheim’s tale of friendship, ambition and compromise returns to the acclaimed Shirlington playhouse for the first time in two decades. Follow three longtime friends as they move through 20 years of their lives in reverse chronological order, leaving the cynicism of age to revisit the optimism of their youth. Theatre Week tickets are $45, but if you can’t make it in that timeframe, the show runs through Nov. 1. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington (Shirlington)
Betrayal at 1st Stage
As Emma and Robert’s marriage ends, Emma reconnects with Jerry, a former lover, who also happens to be Robert’s best friend. That’s when things get dramatic in this tale by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, which The New York Times described as an “elegy about time and memory [where] the greatest dramatic weight lies in what’s unspoken.” The show runs Oct. 8-25. Theatre Week tickets are $25. 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons
Monsters of the Villa Diodati at Creative Cauldron
Running Oct. 8-Nov. 1 in The Little City, this musical adaptation by creative power couple Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith reimagines the dark and stormy night on Lake Geneva that gave life to John Polidori’s The Vampyre and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Lord Byron is hosting a group of famous writers who entertain themselves by telling ghost stories. He issues a challenge: to craft “the perfect take of terror” in one night. Tickets begin at $25. 127 E. Broad St., Falls Church
Bat Boy: The Musical at Workhouse Arts Center
Billed as a rock musical based on an urban legend, this horror comedy follows the adventures of a chimera (in this case, half boy, half bat) who lives in a cave in Hope Falls, West Virginia. Like its lead character, the play is a moster mashup of horror, humor and rock ‘n’ roll. See it through Oct. 25 at the Lorton arts campus that was once a prison. Theatre Week tickets are $30-$50. 9518 Workhouse Way, Lorton
