On stage in November

If it's November, it must be time for...Fringe Festival? Plus, holiday favorites hit area stages and "Ol' Man River" will soon be taking up residence in your head.

Show Boat sails at Signature Theatre this month. (Chris Mueller)

The musical Show Boat heads to Signature Theatre this month. The Tony-winning drama (featuring that earworm "Ol' Man River") tells the story of the characters who live and work on a Mississippi river boat from the 1880s to the 1920s. (Nov. 10-Jan. 17)

For theater outside the mainstream, check out three Fringe favorites that are being resurrected this month during Fall Fringe. The productions "Fool for a Client," "The Terrorism of Everyday Life" and "Splitting the Difference" are being staged to raise funds for the fifth annual festival coming our way next summer. (Nov. 11-22)

Shakespeare gets a sci-fi makeover of sorts at Harman Hall this month. As You Like It, directed by Maria Aitken of "The 39 Steps" fame, captures the basic plot, but Rosalind's escape isn't exactly linear. She ends up visiting various eras in American history, from the Golden Age of Hollywood to Jamestown. (Nov. 17-Dec. 20)

Interested in scheduling a date with a knight in shining armor? Olney Theatre is staging the musical Camelot, complete with magic, love triangles and the famed Knights of the Round Table. (Nov. 18-Jan. 3)

You might have thought good fences made good neighbors, but Arena Stage's The Fantasticks is turning Robert Frost's poem on its head. The story follows a couple of neighbors who work to ensure that their children fall in love with each other. (Nov. 20-Jan. 3)

I know, I know. You've seen the Nutcracker more times than you can count. But the Kennedy Center has something new when the Pennsylvania Ballet performs it with George Balanchine's choreography. It's never been performed in D.C., so here's your chance to catch a fresh take on the Rat King. (Nov. 24-29)

The big show of the month prize goes to August: Osage County. The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning drama follows one seriously dysfunctional family's unraveling after the patriarch vanishes into thin air. (Nov. 24-Dec. 20)

-- Stephanie Merry