“What happens to the living when all our hopes and dreams are reserved for the afterlife?” It’s a question that has been mulled over, in one way or another, since the beginning of modern religion. And it emerges again as the guiding question in Amm(i)gone, a new play created and performed by Adil Mansoor and running at Woolly Mammoth through May 12.

When Arlington’s Signature Theatre first programmed Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Rado’s “tribal rock musical” Hair for the 2019/20 season, the artistic staff had no idea that their plans would be derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, as the theater finally realizes its production (running through July 7), the national focus has turned away from the pandemic and toward a wave of protests materializing across college campuses. That Hair would finally land amid such student-led social unrest may feel a bit like poetic justice, but Signature’s bouncy, nostalgic revival prioritizes the vibrancy of mid-century free love over the grittiness of that era’s anti-war spirit.

It begins with a pitched sigh from the depths of the belly, lingering for a moment before the button gets pushed. Originating millimeters from the microphone’s waffled cap, the forced air grows tighter and fuller, morphing into a pulsating, gentle “shhhh.” Another push. Like a descant above a meditative symphony, the kinetic crackle of a shaking jaw bounces in the breeze. Push. And there, in the air, hangs the ocean. So it goes in Islander, a soaring new musical that blends loop technology with the miraculous versatility of human sound, playing at Olney Theatre Center through April 28 in the last stop of its North American tour.

Unknown Soldier is a new(ish) musical that asks whether we really know ourselves and the people around us, and just how far we’ll go to hold on to our memories, dreams, and desires. Written by book writer and co-lyricist Daniel Goldstein and late composer and co-lyricist Michael Friedman, the musical premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2015 and enjoyed a shortened 2020 run at New York’s Playwrights Horizons before the COVID pandemic closed theaters.

It’s hard to imagine that, when writing Little Shop of Horrors in 1982, composer Alan Menken and book writer and lyricist Howard Ashman were hoping to elicit a reaction of, “Well, that was sweet.” After all, a people-eating plant capitalizing on one man’s unchecked greed to devour human flesh and take over the world is hardly the stuff of rom-coms. Sociologists may tell you that, in the four decades since its premiere, society has become desensitized to such acts as a result of the violent images both in entertainment and the news. But, in the case of Ford’s Theatre’s garden-variety Little Shop, running through May 18, the more likely culprit is simply that, in its slickness, the show struggles to leave any blood on the stage.

By the time the cater-waiter steps onto the stage juggling a hulking, teetering wedding cake in Studio Theatre’s production of At the Wedding, the ultimate matrimonial indignity of a ruined cake seems damn near inevitable. After all, up until this point, playwright Bryna Turner has lobbed out one old wedding-story chestnut after another like bridal bouquets: drunk mother, meddling ex, aggrieved bridesmaid. But in that moment, when its beautifully frosted tiers seemed destined for dancefloor disaster, the cake steadies, making a clean exit and offering a refreshing reprieve from the plot twists and laugh-a-minute dialogue that make up the bulk of Turner’s play.

“Phone rings, door chimes, in comes… Company?” That refrain is one of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest earworms (second only perhaps to “Bobby, Bobby baby, Bobby bubi, Robby,” etc. in the same song). And, in the touring production of Marianne Elliott’s inventive reimagining of the beloved musical, playing at the Kennedy Center through March 31, it presents more like a cautious question than a confident declaration.

Musically, Penelope bursts with romantic elegance and engrossing tedium. Composed and orchestrated by Bechtel, the score utilizes lovely, string-heavy interludes to color the soundscape and transition between key songs and sequences. In “Prayer,” Penelope chronicles her daily religious ritual, hoping to curry enough favor with Athena to bring Odysseus home. The song soon transitions to a stirring recitation of another of Penelope’s rituals: weaving beautiful images on her loom each day, only to unravel them each night to keep her suitors at bay. As Penelope, Phillips is spellbinding in “The Pilgrim Song,” pondering what her life may have become with just a few different decisions. And channeling Joni Mitchell in “I Do,” a song recounting their wedding and early love, Phillips is simply transcendent.