Does story or text make a William Shakespeare play? The Bard, who borrowed liberally from history, literature, and mythology to concoct his plots, would’ve probably said the latter, so it makes sense that the playbill for Synetic Theater’s wordless remounting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, running at Olney Theatre Center through Aug. 10, is void of his name. But Ben Cunis and Paata Tsikurishvili’s movement-centered adaptation—set to an ethereal electronic score by Konstantine Lortkipanidze—has all the makings of the Midsummer you already know, and if you’re really jonesing for a line or two, you can probably fill in the blanks yourself.

As the DC area was walloped by a historic heat wave last week, the thought of an outdoor concert seemed, at least to this critic, daunting. There was a time before air conditioning when open-air venues like Wolf Trap’s Filene Center offered audiences and performers an escape from the stifling indoors, but if the pulsating wave of playbills at Broadway in the Park, a stellar one-night co-production from Signature Theatre and Wolf Trap, was any indication, those days are behind us. Still, there’s an unmistakable magic to enjoying music outside, even on the hottest days, and you could pinpoint the moment the magic overcame the audience on Saturday, when a cool breeze wafted through the venue just as Jessie Mueller started George and Ira Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and a single firefly made itself known to the right of the stage; it was like the audience got comfortable for the first time all week.

When one thinks of William Shakespeare and fruit, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is the pomegranate tree from which the nightingale sings to Juliet, a wishful mistake for the morning lark that brings an end to the young heterosexuals’ first brush with forbidden love. That might not be the case for much longer, though, at least not for Folger Theatre audiences who take in director Mei Ann Teo’s bawdy new production of Twelfth Night, which plays through June 22 and touts an unusually large bag from Bite the Fruit, the longtime Dupont Circle purveyor of “provocative apparel and adult novelty.” But unlike that other play, there isn’t much that’s forbidden (or particularly hetero, come to think of it) in Teo’s lively staging.

“What makes ‘beautiful’ beautiful?” is a question that could launch any number of unending linguistic or philosophical discussions (and probably has). Consider its connection with artistic inspiration, or perhaps divine grace and the ability to distinguish between good and evil. It offers plenty of threads on which to tug, but in Your Name Means Dream, playing at Theater J through April 6 in a co-production with TheaterWorks Hartford, playwright José Rivera instead poses the question as a bookend in his evaluation of humanity’s relationship with artificial intelligence, and the experiences of the soul that differentiate us from it.

In a New York Times essay last fall, Shakespeare Theatre Company artistic producer Drew Lichtenberg quoted an unnamed theater administrator regarding the challenging post-pandemic state of the arts when he said, “Agatha Christie is single-handedly saving the American regional theatre.” As the recovery continues, and the future of federal arts funding is called into question, it’s no wonder that regional theaters are calling on properties with strong name recognition and a deep well of public goodwill to bring audiences through their doors. Even the Broadway season abounds with adaptations, from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray to television shows Stranger Things and Smash, and films Death Becomes Her and Good Night, and Good Luck. Arena Stage, among the most storied and historic regional theaters in the country, is no exception to the trend. Artistic director Hana S. Sharif, who staged Christie’s Death on the Nile late last year, has brought Edith Wharton’s beloved novel, The Age of Innocence, to the Fichandler Stage, in a smart new adaptation by Karen Zacarías running through March 30.