For the unacclimated, an advertisement for William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale might conjure images of holiday stories that are often seen on stage this time of year. But DC audiences will find a twisting, tangled yarn spun of jealous royals, blood-thirsty bears and folksy shepherds rather than holly sprigs and spirits of Christmases past, present and future. Playing through Dec. 17 in an admirable production, Folger Theatre reasserts The Winter’s Tale as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” and begs audience members to open their imaginations to the playwright’s most extraordinary dramatic whims.

Beneath a mosquito net in a dark room in Kolkata, India, the dim glare of an iPhone lights a man’s face as he scrolls through Grindr. Intending to recruit interview subjects for a research project, Choton feels his professional endeavor transcend into something more sensual as he chats with a Bengali stranger who is cruising for sex. This moment of attraction and its resulting sexual revelation is one of many personal breakthroughs that make up Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s Public Obscenities, playing through December 23 in a slow-burning bilingual production at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

From the moment one walks into the Atlas Performing Arts Center for Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates, it is clear that the audience is about to be transported. In this new production by Mosaic Theater Company, sparse patches of artificial grass lead from the theater’s entrance, to the bleacher-style seating that surrounds the stage, and into scenic designer Nadir Bey’s massive set. A wooden platform consisting of a modern-day college professor’s office and the rustic accouterments of a 19th-century plantation cabin dominates the stage, surrounded by a field of puffy cotton shrubs. The set evokes not only a strong sense of two places but also a contrast between a distinct past and present — a clear signal that the narrative will traverse time during the play’s 90 minutes.

“E Pluribus Unum”: out of many, one. In a country where few among us understand Latin, it is a ubiquitous phrase, emblazoned on our currency and halls of government. It’s also a welcome message to audiences at Signature Theatre, where Ragtime plays through January 9; it hangs above an upright piano whose few introductory chords summon a Little Boy who makes a simple declaration: “In 1902, Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue Hill in New Rochelle, New York, and it seemed for some years thereafter that all the family’s days would be warm and fair.” But nostalgic simplicity ends with the falling banner, giving way to a sprawling rhapsody on turn-of-the-century America, including the music and people (both historical and fictional) at its evolving forefront. Since premiering in 1996, Ragtime has earned a reputation for its massive casts and memorable score full of now-standard musical theater anthems, including “Wheels of a Dream” and “Make Them Hear You.” But in a new, high-flying production at Arlington’s Signature Theatre, this epic musical forces us to look once again at the “many” in our “one,” and both the dashed and realized American dreams we continue to clamor toward.

POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive opens with a single, shocking utterance of the C-word. Yes, that C-word (or an adjectival variation of it, at least). And then another. And another, until the audience’s shock gives way to laughter, gives way to intrigue, and gives way to a collective forward lean. Thus begins Selina Fillinger’s 100-minute political romp, running through November 12 at Arena Stage’s Fichandler Stage, which cheekily abandons the usual pomp and circumstance of the Oval Office in favor of refreshing, sharp-tongued irreverence and laugh-out-loud absurdism.

Standing at nearly 6 feet 4 inches, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. was a formidable presence in national Democratic politics, both in spirit and stature, for three decades. Now, in Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard, a new play from the Ford’s Theatre Legacy Commission program, playwright Pearl Cleage draws on her experience as Jackson’s speechwriter and friend to contextualize his political legacy through the voices of the people who first sent him to City Hall in 1973.

For millennia, dictionaries have served to inform readers of the meanings, variations, and characteristics of countless words and phrases. Brief, colorful definitions combine to make massive, organized texts, bringing a sense of order and logic to the chaos of language. But unlike its reference book namesake, Dorothy’s Dictionary by E.M. Lewis, running through Oct. 22 at Washington Stage Guild, struggles to balance meaningful insight with pragmatic storytelling.

Sammi Cannold’s Evita begins and ends with the same striking image: an angelic white gown floating over rolling fields of white flowers. The metaphor isn’t difficult to discern as the world continues to grapple with the legacies of Eva Perón’s meteoric rise to become first lady of Argentina in the 1940s and the subsequent Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice megahit that has kept her firmly in the international consciousness long after her death. But in this fresh production, running through Oct. 15 at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Hall and produced in association with American Repertory Theater, director Cannold forces a closer, neon-tinged look at the myth-making of Eva Perón and the alchemy required to become a populist icon.