Actor John Turturro is best known for roles in movies by Spike Lee, the Coen Brothers and others, but this month he's making his debut as a Broadway director. Turturro is directing three one-act plays by three big-name writers: Ethan Coen, Elaine May and Woody Allen.

The elevator lunch crowd of a Los Angeles office building is the last place you'd expect to encounter William Shakespeare, but that's just where the Salty Shakespeare theater group is taking him.

Thursday is opening night for Katori Hall's Olivier Award-winning play about Martin Luther King Jr. and his encounter with a chamber maid in Memphis the night before his assassination. Starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, The Mountaintop is probably the most anticipated play of the fall season.

The man who once brought Richard Nixon to life onstage returns in a Broadway revival of Man and Boy. He explains how he plays a villain learning to cope with a conscience — and why the 1963 show's theme still resonates.

Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones joins NPR's Neal Conan to discuss Fela!, his hit musical about the life of Nigerian musician and human rights activist Fela Kuti. The show kicks off a national tour this month.

The South Park creators' musical broke cast recording sales records, thanks to fans and promotions.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz just attended two productions of Porgy and Bess: an operatic performance at Tanglewood and a musical-theater version in Cambridge, Mass. He says it can work either way, "as long as Gershwin's great score remains its heart and soul."