For young Percy Talbott and the folks of Gilead, Wisconsin life is not a physical journey out of the small town. In their case, it’s a new way of looking at life within as they rediscover all that’s good about their close knit community. It takes an outsider like Percy to show the insiders where the dormant joys lie buried, waiting to be rediscovered. And life in Gilead centers around The Spitfire Grill, the homey diner crossroads where everyone knows, or tries to know, one another’s business. Based on the 1996 film of the same name, the stage musical version tells the story of Talbott . . .

Over the years, A Midsummer Night’s Dream has proven to be one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays—and now it’s about to be shown at two outdoor theaters in Wisconsin. Next week, the Bard’s classic makes it to the outdoor stage of the American Players Theatre (APT) in Spring Green. A month later, Door Shakespeare will launch its own staging.

What do you do when you lose your one true love? With five well-defined female characters (plus two goofy men), a soundtrack of cuddly Beatles tunes, and the plot of a Lifetime channel movie, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, performed last weekend by Soulstice Theatre, has all the elements of a perfect chick play. David, a former college teacher, has been living in an island cottage purchased with the settlement from his wife’s tragic demise two years ago.

In the intimate Alchemist Theatre located on Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View, Pink Banana Theatre Company finds a home—one that “encourages new and emerging artists to focus on their artistic crafts while given the opportunity to grow creativity.” This is the spirit that pervades their spring 2008 production Pink Banana One Acts: The Next Big Thing.”

Robb Smith plays an American college professor working overseas in Beirut who is captured by terrorists. Forced to take in the world around him through sound alone, the professor spends much of his time trying analyzing the social complexity of his situation. Smith has a firm grasp on the character’s intellectual side, rendering an intelligent performance that is solidly rooted in emotional reality.

Tom Griffin’s comic drama The Boys Next Door brilliantly showcases a poignant, humorous story about people with developmental disabilities. The play deftly walks the line between complexity and accessibility by treating the characters as three-dimensional human beings instead of resorting to juvenile . . .

Pain and suffering, when they transcend the vague forms of conjecture and materialize into a cold, hard fact, can shake the firmest of faiths. When Michael Chobanoff, who plays C. S. Lewis in Acacia Theatre’s production of Shadowlands, stands before the audience and declares self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation, even those unfamiliar with his life will have an inkling his complacency will be severely tested. And so it is.

The third annual Play in a Day hit the Tenth Street Theatre this past weekend. A joint project between DIY theater groups Insurgent Theatre and Alamo Basement, Play in a Day comes from the rather absurd notion of making an entire play in 24 hours complete with sets and costuming. The hope here is to blur the line between performance and process. To a certain extent the final show is merely a rehearsal for a more balanced show that will never be completed. Ideally, things feel rough and incomplete.

In 1952, scriptwriter George Axelrod scored a major success with The Seven Year Itch, a Broadway comedy about a married man whose fantasy life gets a little out of control when he meets a beautiful young woman. Decades later, Jeremy Desmon updated the story in a compelling exploration of extramarital fantasy with The Girl in the Frame.

Obesity and self-image are very serious issues in this country that rarely get directly addressed in contemporary drama. While Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig does very little to rectify this, these issues come to the center of a story so rarely that it ends up being very provocative. Renaissance Theaterworks ends its current season with the romantic drama, now through May 18.