Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island rounds out the CSF’s 2012 season. It shares Mary Rippon outdoor theatre space with Twelfth Night and Richard III, so its set can sprawl and the action on it flow fast and furious.

An ambitious project, Women of Will examines Shakespeare’s evolution as a writer through the prism of his female characters. It is not one play but actually five distinct plays that span Shakespeare’s entire folio in chronological order.

Say what you will about Tybalt or Iago, Edmund (the bastard!) or Lady Macbeth. For my money, the greatest Shakespearean villain is Richard. He opens Richard III as the Duke of Gloucester and ends it as the King of England. He is, by his own hand or through his devices, a serial killer of prolific pedigree.

For the 55th time, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival brings ol’ Will back to Boulder. This year’s annual celebration of one of the world’s greatest playwrights showcases two Shakespeare, one Shakespeare-related and two non-Shakespeare plays: Twelfth Night, Richard III, Women of Will, Noises Off and Treasure Island. The festival kicked off last weekend in splendid style with Twelfth Night.

It’s not often that one has the opportunity to see psychological horror played out on stage. Pratfalls and buffoonery abound. Studies in tragedy crop up weekly. Musical theater is so prevalent that it has become its own sub-genre. But plays devoted to the terrors that come from within one’s own mind are few and far between.

In a world brimming with so much cynicism, now more than ever people occasionally need the kind of charming, guileless sentimentality offered up by shows like The Drowsy Chaperone. Though it first hit Broadway in 2006, aside from its meta-structure The Drowsy Chaperone feels like it could easily be a product of the Jazz Age.

Though they were incredibly gifted performers whose music still resonates and whose influences remain readily apparent today, you don’t see bumper stickers reading, “God Bless Janis Joplin.” Or Jimi Hendrix. Or Frank Sinatra. Or Dean Martin. The only such bumper sticker you ever see is, “God Bless Johnny Cash,” and you don’t just see it on beat-up, old pickup trucks.

Originally produced in 1939 and since adapted for radio, television and the big screen, The Man Who Came to Dinner has proven itself deserving of the label “classic.” Yet, until now, I have never seen it live on stage, so I want to give a great, big “Thank you!” to the Longmont Theatre Company for bringing George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s comic crucible to Boulder County.

Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw isn’t informed so much by the question “Is it better to lie than to hurt someone with the truth?” but rather by the statement, “Life is pain; lies and truth are mere tools to help one salve that pain.” Curious Theatre Company’s regional premiere of this crackling comedy brings all of the play’s East Coast energy to bear on Rocky Mountain audiences.

If Front Range theatre were baseball, the Denver Center Theatre Company would be the Major League. Walking into the Stage Theatre is like walking into a pro ballpark. The energy crackles in a way that it simply doesn’t in many smaller venues, and audience expectations are understandably higher than they would be at a “minor league” performance.