The fall theater season in the Lehigh Valley is kicking into high gear with two original works and an extreme take on Shakespeare.

Crowded Kitchen Players presents the world premiere of “Weimar,” Oct. 2 - Oct. 18, Charles A. Brown Ice House, Bethlehem.

Touchstone Theater presents the Lehigh Valley premiere of “Still Here,” Oct. 3 in its south side Bethlehem theater.

Reclaimed Performing Arts Company will stage “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Oct. 4, Rodale Community Room, Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown.

“Weimar” is the latest original play from Ara Barlieb, co-founder of Crowded Kitchen Players.

The show is an ensemble play that takes place at a New Year’s Eve party in Berlin in 1932, shortly before the Nazis took control of Germany.

Barlieb, who also directs the play, says that writing it was “exciting, but daunting.”

“It’s darkly, darkly funny and deeply tragic, all at the same time,” says Barlieb.

Annaliese Bergmann (Trish Cipoletti), an upper class World War I widow, hosts an annual New Year’s Eve party at her apartment.

As 1932 comes to an end, she is determined to celebrate what has been another harrowing year of life and near-ruin in the German Reich.

Hitler’s Nazis have been trounced in the November elections and the Nazi party membership is shrinking. Hitler is falling in popularity and the democratically-elected Weimar Republic is barely maintaining national stability.

Germany is reeling from the ravages of The Great Depression of 1929, which created massive debt, unemployment and homelessness and left a restless German youth with little hope for the future.

Bergmann’s friends warily gather to commiserate and to dare to dream that the Republic has at last prevailed over the withering threats of Stalinism to the east, the Ruhr Valley invasion by France to the west, and the National Socialists and Communists within.

Her guests include a trio of widowed friends (Peggy Mulligan, Pamela Wallace, Jen DiSante), accompanied by Herr Goldwasser, a Jew, all of whom share the same tastes in politics and the same resolve to survive whatever the New Year may bring.

Elisabeth Forster (Denise Shelton) is the keeper of the Nietzsche Archives, and has recently found a benefactor, of a kind, in Hitler.

Heinrich Schumacher (Nick Lopez) is a chummy but somewhat sinister fellow whom everyone knows, but whom no one seems to trust. Is he a National Socialist, or just a provocateur?

Herr Reimenschneider (Magnus Lawlor), hopes that Germany’s Criminal Code will finally repeal its persecution of homosexual men and remove the daily threat of arrest or public assault at the hands of roving gangs of militant youth.

Retired Reichswehr Oberstleutnant Hasenjager (Bruce Brown) has long abandoned his loyalty to the abdicated Kaiser and become resigned to Germany’s collapse following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Herr Kistenmacher (Dave Polgar) is a politically uncommitted party animal who drinks as excessively as he complains about what’s wrong with everything and everybody in Germany.

Thomas Edgecombe (Colin Core) is an uninvited American party-crasher who came to Berlin for the debauchery of its Kabarett scene.

Cocktail pianist Frau Zieglar (Lynn Flickinger) provides light and chilling music unscored for the party.

The cast includes Alexandra Racines and Sharon Ferry.

The set is designed Tony Award-winning Richard Hoover.

Hoover won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for Tennessee Williams’s play “Not About Nightingales.” He also is known for his work on the television show “Twin Peaks.”

Original music for the show was composed by Charlie Barnett.

“Weimar,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17; 2 p.m. Oct. 4, 11, 18, Charles A. Brown Ice House, 56 River St., Bethlehem. 610-704-6974, https://www.ckplayers.com/

Touchstone Theatre will present a theatrical exploration of grief and loss created by Touchstone Theatre, Moravian University MFA student Anisa Hosseini.

Hosseini collected stories told by those from the community who have lost someone significant in their lives.

The performance uses their words verbatim as it attempts to answer the question: “In what ways do those we’ve lost live on?”

Do we see them in signs and symbols that remind us of them, through their appearances in our dreams or is it possible that they have vanished altogether?

At the very least, could these stories, the ones we continue to tell and cherish, be proof of their enduring presence?

The performance will include a portion in which audience members will have the opportunity to write about a favorite memory of a loved one they have lost, should they choose to participate.

Audiences are warned the performance explores themes of grief, death and remembrance, and may evoke strong emotions for audience members who have experienced a similar loss.

“Still Here,” 2 p.m., 8 p.m. Oct. 3, Touchstone Theatre, 321 E. Fourth St., Bethlehem. 610-867-1689; http://www.touchstone.org/

Reclaimed Performing Arts Company is holding its fourth annual “Extreme One-Day” Shakespeare production with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The theater group was founded by 2023 Cedar Crest College graduate Carter Reichard, who directs the play.

Once the show is cast, the actors work individually on their roles. There will be a virtual read-through Oct. 3. The cast and production team meet for the first time at 9 a.m. Oct. 4 for an all-day single rehearsal and to coordinate fight and intimacy choreography, blocking and more. By the end of the day, the public is presented with the production.

One of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers.

Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding.

The groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans. The fairies themselves are also in conflict, as the King and Queen of Fairies argue over a changeling boy.

The cast includes David Adah-Ogoh, Kristen Brown, Raven Whitefawn, Emmett Shaffer, Alyssa Rismiller, Anna Hartman, Damen Rice, Nic Penn, Mason Broderick and Caelie McRobert.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” 7 p.m. Oct. 4, Reclaimed Performing Arts Company, Rodale Community Room, Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. Sixth St., Allentown. https://reclaimedpac.square.site/

“Curtain Rises” is a column about the theater, stage shows, the actors in them and the directors and artists who make them happen. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com