Lily Janiak

Tether Dance Project’s “Escapement” turns a chance San Francisco encounter into a dance meditation on time, freedom and routine.

Jonathan Weber’s “City on the Edge” is a breezy yet deeply well-informed primer, perfect for getting techie carpetbaggers up to speed on their adopted hometown.

Iris Company’s immersive dance show “The Still Point” makes its Bay Area debut at SOMArts, drawing on Buddhism and T.S. Eliot.

Gary Graves has premiered multiple scripts about Niccolò Machiavelli since 2009, and he’s closing Central Works’ 36-year run with two new three-hour shows about the thinker.

Recovering from open heart surgery, Brian Copeland is emceeing San Leandro’s Comedy in the Plaza for the nonprofit Davis Street.

Berkeley Rep’s “The Lunchbox,” adapted from Ritesh Batra’s 2013 film about a mistaken tiffin delivery in Mumbai, broke a 58-year box office record.

Geetha Reddy’s play about the Indian caste system in a Silicon Valley aerospace firm is unique, zippy, rich, suspenseful and hilarious.

Lily Janiak When many new scripts still have kinks to work out, audiences might wish them well while also blithely letting their memory fade.

For San Francisco Shakespeare Festival — which mounts free theater in Bay Area parks every summer — Elizabeth Carter plays Cleopatra; Jeremy Ohta Lee, Antony.

Kyra Belle Johnson leads a dazzling “Beauty and the Beast” revival packed with theatrical invention, nostalgia and showstopping musical numbers.