Over the course of its 150-minute run time, Jonathan Spector’s This Much I Know rattles off a seemingly endless array of aphorisms that could have been ripped from your favorite armchair psychologist’s podcast: “We decide to do something, then we make up the reason.” “The less you know, the more certain you are.” “That’s why fake ideas are so dangerous—because they’re ‘sticky.’” Building a drama around such didactic dicta could be a deadly endeavor. But in a stunning feat, Spector contextualizes these and similar truisms in a jolting examination of the depths of belief, achieving a result that is both deeply funny and refreshingly thought-provoking.

“What happens if the cut, the burn, the break was never in my brain, or in my blood, but in my soul?” Like the sharp edge of a surgical scalpel, this question cuts to the heart of Next to Normal, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical playing in an uneven new production at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre through March 3. Over the course of its nearly two-and-a-half-hour run time, the rock musical asks hefty questions about the treatment of mental illness, the trial-and-error nature of pharmaceutical cocktails, and the continuance of care at the cost of compassion.

By the time the final song arrives in Audra McDonald’s powerhouse performance with the National Symphony Orchestra, the directive to “Get Happy” (by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, sung in medley with “Happy Days Are Here Again” by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen) feels a bit like cheeky sarcasm. After all, how could a person be anything but ecstatic after experiencing two whirlwind hours of McDonald at her best, lobbing soaring renditions of Broadway standards into the audience like the unbeatable champion of some musical theater home run derby. There are certainly worse ways to spend a Tuesday night, and few better.

In an oft-quoted 1780 letter to Abigail Adams, then-Envoy to France John Adams declared, “I must study Politicks and War, that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy … in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.” Adams’ attitude was emblematic of a new American ethos bent on building a better life for their progeny. But in Love, Love, Love, playing through March 3 at Studio Theatre, British playwright Mike Bartlett dares to ask what happens when a prosperous generation fails to secure that life for their children, perhaps for the first time in modern history. Nevermind the play’s roots in the U.K. – the hard truths of blissful Boomer ignorance feel right at home on American soil, where those born between 1946 and 1964 possess half of the nation’s wealth. Despite this immense concentration of resources, Bartlett persuasively makes the case that the sorry state of =affairs for younger generations can be chalked up to the hedonistic entitlement of their parents, a corrupted carryover of free love and rebellion of the 1960s.

“How lucky were we to live in the time of Stephen Sondheim?” In the final moments of To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Stephen Sondheim, Callaway finally asks the question that she’s spent 75 or so minutes answering with a resounding verve. In a one-night engagement at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater on Saturday night, Callaway brought down the house with stories of her experiences working with the legendary composer and first-rate performances of some of his greatest and more obscure songs alike.

While residents of the Washington region have found themselves chilled to the bone in a snowy cold snap this week, DC theater favorite Nova Y. Payton is heating up Signature Theatre’s ARK space in a cozy cabaret celebration of composer Burt Bacharach’s extensive catalog, playing through February 4. Featuring some of the writer’s greatest hits, from “Walk on By” to “Close to You,” in jazzy arrangements that showcase Payton’s vocal prowess, That’s What Friends Are For is a warm, comfortable diversion that both Bacharach devotees and novices alike can enjoy.

The distance between The Avett Brothers’ upbringing in Concord, North Carolina, and the 19th-century whaling industry of New Bedford, Massachusetts, spans hundreds of miles and several lifetimes. But in Swept Away, a new musical that asks just how far humans will go to survive, sea shanties of a bygone era are replaced with selections from the folk rock band’s sweeping repertoire. Following its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre last year, Swept Away takes audiences out to sea in Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater through Jan. 14.

“Soldiering is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak,” declares a fresh-from-battle Major Sergius Saranoff in George Bernard Shaw’s military comedy Arms and the Man. Having witnessed the harsh realities of life on the frontlines, the officer returns home with little more than dashed expectations of idealized heroism in Shaw’s reflection on the frivolousness of wars and the men who start them, playing in a safe production at Washington Stage Guild through Dec. 10.