Season highlights: Theater

"A Little Night Music" and "Company." It's another big year for Stephen Sondheim in Boston. An excellent production of "A Little Night Music" is currently playing at the Lyric Stage Company (617-437-7172, www.lyricstage.com), while SpeakEasy Stage opens the Nancy and Edward Roberts Studio Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts with "Company." Previews Oct. 15 and Oct. 16 (matinee), opens Oct. 16 (evening), closes Nov. 13. 617-933-8600, www.speakeasystage.com, www.bostontheatrescene.com.

"Approaching Moomtaj." Michael Weller, who chronicled the highs and lows of young baby boomers in the '60s and '70s with plays such as "Moonchildren," brings the premiere of his play about a middle-age man struggling to save his career and marriage to the New Repertory Theatre. Through Oct. 17. 617-332-1646, www.newrep.org.

"Gem of the Ocean." The latest in August Wilson's 10-play cycle about the black experience in 20th-century America is actually the first chronologically. The Huntington Theatre Company, one of Wilson's primary champions, hosts him along with Phylicia Rashad, Delroy Lindo, and Lisa Gay Hamilton. Previews begin Friday; play opens Sept. 29, closes Oct. 30. 617-266-0800, www.huntingtontheatre.org. Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" will be performed by Up You Mighty Race Performing Arts Company in the Tower Auditorium at the Massachusetts College of Art. It previews Oct. 14, opens Oct. 15, and closes Oct. 31. 617-442-4425, www.theatermania.com, www.uymr.org.

"Sonia Flew." The Huntington Theatre Company unveils the Virginia Wimberly Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts with the world premiere of local playwright Melinda Lopez's work about a Cuban refugee who came to the United States on the eve of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Previews begin Oct. 8; play opens Oct. 13, closes Nov. 28. 617-266-0800, www.huntingtontheatre.org.

"Elaine Stritch at Liberty." The wonder woman of Broadway, Stritch (below) brings her one-woman show to the Wilbur Theatre in story (Marlon Brando and Judy Garland) and song (more Sondheim). Previews Oct. 19, opens Oct. 20, closes Oct. 31. 617-931-2787.

"The Playboy of the Western World" and "The Well of the Saints." Broadway in Boston and the Huntington host the Abbey Theatre's production of the John Millington Synge classic at the Wilbur Theatre, while the Sugan Theatre Company performs "The Well of the Saints," his lesser-known play about two blind beggars who get back their sight, at the BCA Plaza Theater. "Playboy" previews Nov. 2, opens Nov. 3, and closes Nov. 28. (617-931-2787.) "The Well of the Saints" previews Oct. 29 and Oct. 30 (matinee), opens Oct. 30 (evening), and closes Nov. 20. 617-933-8600, www.sugan.org, www.bostontheatrescene.com.

"The Provok'd Wife." The American Repertory Theatre opens its season with a play by John Vanbrugh that was declared "rampant and scandalous" when it premiered. We'll see how it plays 300 years later, directed by Mark Wing-Davey. Previews begin Nov. 27; play opens Dec. 1, closes Dec. 26. 617-547-8300, amrep.org.

South African Festival. The American Repertory Theatre hosts a number of arts events about South Africa 10 years after the end of apartheid, centering on three plays: Pamela Gien's "The Syringa Tree" on the Loeb Stage Dec. 30-Jan. 16; Pieter-Dirk Uys's "Foreign Aids" at the new Zero Arrow space Jan. 5-23; and John Kani's "Nothing But the Truth" Jan. 21-30 on the Loeb Stage. 617-547-8300, amrep.org.