Eager to be there when the curtain goes up

Directors are directing, designers are designing, and actors are taking to stages all over the region as the new season begins, with nearly 50 professional companies mounting shows in 2011-12.

What follows is an arbitrary list of openings I'm looking forward to seeing through the end of the calendar year (we'll be back with a spring list in January). It's a melange of shows - some old, some new to Philadelphia, some new altogether - with music, comedy, drama. I can't vouch for any until they open, of course, but I can declare that the variety reflects the work of the region's rich assemblage of theater artists. - Howard Shapiro, Inquirer theater critic

The Return of Don Quixote Here's Don Quixote, quietly resting in retirement, and startled to learn that he's being mocked in an unauthorized biography. So it's back to the windmills. People's Light & Theatre in Malvern presents the loose adaptation of Don Quixote of La Mancha, Sept. 21-Oct 16. (610-644-3500 or www.peopleslight.org)

Chicago Broadway's/American Idol's/Bucks County's Justin Guarini stars in the Media Theatre production of the Kander and Ebb musical about gals, guns, and goofs in Chicago's shoot-'em-up days. Sept. 28-Nov. 6. (610-891-0100 or www.mediatheatre.org)

August: Osage County Tracy Letts' funny, searing play about an American family whose patriarch has gone missing and whose matriarch is a pill-popping machine won the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize and the general admiration of Broadway audiences. The characters are unforgettable. The Arden Theatre Company's version runs from Sept. 29-Oct. 30. (215-922-1122 or www.ardentheatre.org)

New Jerusalem, The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation David Ives' play is based on true events in the life of the philosopher Spinoza, caught between politics and his own Jewish community in Amsterdam during the Inquisition. Lantern Theater produces, Oct. 6-30. (215-829-0395 or www.lanterntheater.org)

Our Class Ten Polish schoolchildren - five Catholic and five Jewish - find their lives horribly upended in a nation invaded by the Soviets, then the Germans. The story is based on real events in a Polish town as World War II escalates. The Wilma produces, Oct. 12-Nov. 13. (215-546-7824 or www.wilmatheater.org)

Red The Tony winner by John Logan, about artist Mark Rothko and his young assistant (to be played by The Sixth Sense's Haley Joel Osment) and the making and selling of art, is sharp, tightly written, and enthralling. Philadelphia Theatre Company, Oct. 14-Nov. 6. (215-985-0420 or www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org)

The How and the Why With a big-deal academic conference about to begin, a young evolutionary biologist gets into an intellectual dustup with one of the field's established scholars, and you know how it is in evolution: The fittest survive. InterAct Theatre Company produces, Oct. 21-Nov.13. (215-568-8079 or www.interacttheatre.org)

The King and I Walnut Street Theatre's holiday show is the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, about the British governess who tutors the king's children in the court of Siam and gets herself tutored, in a way, by the king. Shall they dance? You'll see. The show runs on the Walnut's main stage. Nov. 8-Jan 8. (215-574-3550 or www.walnutstreettheatre.org)

Gruesome Playground Injuries Rajiv Joseph's vignettes trace the 30-year relationship between Doug and Kayleen, who meet in a school nurse's office before their lifelong entanglement . . . er, relationship. Theatre Exile produces at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre on Sansom, Nov. 10-Dec. 4. (215-218-4022 or www.theatreexile.org)

Billy Elliot: The Musical Lee Hall's gripping story and Elton John's music make for an inspired, inspiring piece of theater, fashioned from Hall's film about a boy in tiny-town England who just wants to dance. The national tour of the Tony winner, still on Broadway, comes to the Academy of Music, Nov. 16-27. (215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org/broadway)

Gypsy Bristol Riverside Theatre has cast Broadway vet Tovah Feldshuh as the mama who lives out her dreams by pushing them on stage - one of theater's iconic roles. It's all coming up roses, Dec. 6-Jan. 15. (215-785-0100 or www.brtstage.org)