It’s hard to imagine that, when writing Little Shop of Horrors in 1982, composer Alan Menken and book writer and lyricist Howard Ashman were hoping to elicit a reaction of, “Well, that was sweet.” After all, a people-eating plant capitalizing on one man’s unchecked greed to devour human flesh and take over the world is hardly the stuff of rom-coms. Sociologists may tell you that, in the four decades since its premiere, society has become desensitized to such acts as a result of the violent images both in entertainment and the news. But, in the case of Ford’s Theatre’s garden-variety Little Shop, running through May 18, the more likely culprit is simply that, in its slickness, the show struggles to leave any blood on the stage.

By the time the cater-waiter steps onto the stage juggling a hulking, teetering wedding cake in Studio Theatre’s production of At the Wedding, the ultimate matrimonial indignity of a ruined cake seems damn near inevitable. After all, up until this point, playwright Bryna Turner has lobbed out one old wedding-story chestnut after another like bridal bouquets: drunk mother, meddling ex, aggrieved bridesmaid. But in that moment, when its beautifully frosted tiers seemed destined for dancefloor disaster, the cake steadies, making a clean exit and offering a refreshing reprieve from the plot twists and laugh-a-minute dialogue that make up the bulk of Turner’s play.

“Phone rings, door chimes, in comes… Company?” That refrain is one of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest earworms (second only perhaps to “Bobby, Bobby baby, Bobby bubi, Robby,” etc. in the same song). And, in the touring production of Marianne Elliott’s inventive reimagining of the beloved musical, playing at the Kennedy Center through March 31, it presents more like a cautious question than a confident declaration.

Musically, Penelope bursts with romantic elegance and engrossing tedium. Composed and orchestrated by Bechtel, the score utilizes lovely, string-heavy interludes to color the soundscape and transition between key songs and sequences. In “Prayer,” Penelope chronicles her daily religious ritual, hoping to curry enough favor with Athena to bring Odysseus home. The song soon transitions to a stirring recitation of another of Penelope’s rituals: weaving beautiful images on her loom each day, only to unravel them each night to keep her suitors at bay. As Penelope, Phillips is spellbinding in “The Pilgrim Song,” pondering what her life may have become with just a few different decisions. And channeling Joni Mitchell in “I Do,” a song recounting their wedding and early love, Phillips is simply transcendent.

With five Broadway credits under his belt, John Gallagher Jr. is unquestionably a bona fide star of the stage. But in his solo turn as part of the Renée Fleming Voices series at the Kennedy Center’s Studio K Saturday night, musical theater fans were hard-pressed to find any familiar show tunes on the bill. Nevertheless, in his tight 70-minute set of heartfelt original music and moving covers, Gallagher revealed his easy versatility across genres, blending folk, punk, rock, and country. And even in these varying styles, his stellar dramatic talents were on full display.

Forget The Big Short. And Margin Call. And Too Big to Fail, Inside Job, and (even as it prepares for its musicalized coronation in Boston this summer) The Queen of Versailles. Despite spending less than five minutes on the 2008 financial crisis, in which its titular firm was vanquished in a legendary collapse, The Lehman Trilogy assuredly claims its place as the definitive retrospective on the run-up to that particular financial meltdown. Playing in a first-rate production at Shakespeare Theatre Company through March 30, The Lehman Trilogy spans 150 years of American “progress” through the lens of one family. Given the breadth of its three-and-a-half-hour run time, one might be tempted to call this story an epic, saga, or rhapsody. But to do so would ignore what makes The Lehman Trilogy one of the most exquisite plays of the modern age. It isn’t merely an examination—it is an autopsy. And if the American Dream is the beating heart of the American experience, The Lehman Trilogy diagnoses greed as the lethal clog in its coronary artery.

Just three stops from the Pentagon on the 7A Metrobus, a new soldier has arrived in Arlington. Written and directed by Marshall Pailet, Private Jones is a musical enjoying its world premiere at Signature Theatre through March 10. But while military types might be a common sight in Shirlington and the surrounding environs, Private Jones offers a fresh riff on well-worn war stories, narrowing its focus to the experiences of a deaf soldier at the peak of World War I.

Arena Stage and its founding artistic director Zelda Fichandler hold a special place in the histories of the American theater and Washington, DC, as the first integrated theater in the city and an early promoter of the regional theater movement. So it’s fitting that Arena Stage has produced the world premiere of Kia Corthron’s Tempestuous Elements, a hometown play about another game-changing woman and educational pioneer, Dr. Anna Julia Cooper. Seizing this opportunity to bring an often overlooked figure to the forefront, Corthron chronicles Cooper’s tumultuous tenure as principal of DC’s historic M Street School at the turn of the 20th century.