“How lucky were we to live in the time of Stephen Sondheim?” In the final moments of To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Stephen Sondheim, Callaway finally asks the question that she’s spent 75 or so minutes answering with a resounding verve. In a one-night engagement at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater on Saturday night, Callaway brought down the house with stories of her experiences working with the legendary composer and first-rate performances of some of his greatest and more obscure songs alike.

While residents of the Washington region have found themselves chilled to the bone in a snowy cold snap this week, DC theater favorite Nova Y. Payton is heating up Signature Theatre’s ARK space in a cozy cabaret celebration of composer Burt Bacharach’s extensive catalog, playing through February 4. Featuring some of the writer’s greatest hits, from “Walk on By” to “Close to You,” in jazzy arrangements that showcase Payton’s vocal prowess, That’s What Friends Are For is a warm, comfortable diversion that both Bacharach devotees and novices alike can enjoy.

The distance between The Avett Brothers’ upbringing in Concord, North Carolina, and the 19th-century whaling industry of New Bedford, Massachusetts, spans hundreds of miles and several lifetimes. But in Swept Away, a new musical that asks just how far humans will go to survive, sea shanties of a bygone era are replaced with selections from the folk rock band’s sweeping repertoire. Following its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre last year, Swept Away takes audiences out to sea in Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater through Jan. 14.

“Soldiering is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak,” declares a fresh-from-battle Major Sergius Saranoff in George Bernard Shaw’s military comedy Arms and the Man. Having witnessed the harsh realities of life on the frontlines, the officer returns home with little more than dashed expectations of idealized heroism in Shaw’s reflection on the frivolousness of wars and the men who start them, playing in a safe production at Washington Stage Guild through Dec. 10.

For the unacclimated, an advertisement for William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale might conjure images of holiday stories that are often seen on stage this time of year. But DC audiences will find a twisting, tangled yarn spun of jealous royals, blood-thirsty bears and folksy shepherds rather than holly sprigs and spirits of Christmases past, present and future. Playing through Dec. 17 in an admirable production, Folger Theatre reasserts The Winter’s Tale as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” and begs audience members to open their imaginations to the playwright’s most extraordinary dramatic whims.

Beneath a mosquito net in a dark room in Kolkata, India, the dim glare of an iPhone lights a man’s face as he scrolls through Grindr. Intending to recruit interview subjects for a research project, Choton feels his professional endeavor transcend into something more sensual as he chats with a Bengali stranger who is cruising for sex. This moment of attraction and its resulting sexual revelation is one of many personal breakthroughs that make up Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s Public Obscenities, playing through December 23 in a slow-burning bilingual production at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

From the moment one walks into the Atlas Performing Arts Center for Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates, it is clear that the audience is about to be transported. In this new production by Mosaic Theater Company, sparse patches of artificial grass lead from the theater’s entrance, to the bleacher-style seating that surrounds the stage, and into scenic designer Nadir Bey’s massive set. A wooden platform consisting of a modern-day college professor’s office and the rustic accouterments of a 19th-century plantation cabin dominates the stage, surrounded by a field of puffy cotton shrubs. The set evokes not only a strong sense of two places but also a contrast between a distinct past and present — a clear signal that the narrative will traverse time during the play’s 90 minutes.

“E Pluribus Unum”: out of many, one. In a country where few among us understand Latin, it is a ubiquitous phrase, emblazoned on our currency and halls of government. It’s also a welcome message to audiences at Signature Theatre, where Ragtime plays through January 9; it hangs above an upright piano whose few introductory chords summon a Little Boy who makes a simple declaration: “In 1902, Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue Hill in New Rochelle, New York, and it seemed for some years thereafter that all the family’s days would be warm and fair.” But nostalgic simplicity ends with the falling banner, giving way to a sprawling rhapsody on turn-of-the-century America, including the music and people (both historical and fictional) at its evolving forefront. Since premiering in 1996, Ragtime has earned a reputation for its massive casts and memorable score full of now-standard musical theater anthems, including “Wheels of a Dream” and “Make Them Hear You.” But in a new, high-flying production at Arlington’s Signature Theatre, this epic musical forces us to look once again at the “many” in our “one,” and both the dashed and realized American dreams we continue to clamor toward.