'The Pillowman' Cometh; 'Cell Phone' Calls

Tom Story in Martin McDonagh's macabre "The Pillowman," opening next month at Studio. (By Matt Dean -- Studio Theatre)

It's play time in Washington. Serious play time. It's entirely possible that the impressive lineup of drama scheduled for the coming months could make this the most fertile theatrical spring around these parts in years.

In a particularly promising spring, though, these three shows -- involving a torturer, a listener and a sorcerer -- top the list of things I want to see:

- "The Pillowman." Borrowing from Kafka and the Brothers Grimm, this scalding piece of chiller theater comes from the macabre PC of Martin McDonagh, author of "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and "The Lieutenant of Inishmore." A London-born playwright of Irish parents, he has shown a singular knack for mixing wit and blood and never more terrifyingly than in "The Pillowman," which begins at Studio Theatre in March. Director Joy Zinoman, who's shown her own knack with modern English plays, leads a cast that includes Dennis Arndt and Tom Story.

- "Dead Man's Cell Phone." Sarah Ruhl is a writer of depth and whimsy, demonstrated in the Washington productions of "The Clean House" and "Passion Play: A Cycle." So the unveiling in June of a brand-new play at Woolly Mammoth is an event of some consequence. The work, in which a woman becomes involved in a dead stranger's family after picking up his ringing cellphone, brings Ruhl back to Woolly and director Rebecca Bayla Taichman, who skillfully shepherded "The Clean House" to the Woolly stage.

- "The Tempest." If you caught Aaron Posner's beautifully balanced "Measure for Measure" at Folger Theatre last winter, you know that this savvy director can add all manner of lovely and imaginative embroidery to the work of Shakespeare. This May, it's Shakespeare's valedictory to the magic of playmaking that Posner tackles, and it will be fun to see what level of enchantment he conjures this time at Folger.

- If there's anything to bemoan in the list of seasonal arrivals, it has to be that "Cats" will be back, at the Warner in March. This news officially extends the show beyond its allotted nine lives and into the realm of the undead.