As a suburban Jewish kid, Lonnie Firestone spent a lot of time at assorted Jewish community centers. “The Washington, D.C., JCC always struck me as unique—it was housed in an elegant building, it presented a high caliber of artistic programming and, of course, it had Theater J,” says the Brooklyn-based writer, whose profile of Theater J artistic director Ari Roth appears here. “It seems fitting for a theatre that leads the pack in Middle East drama to be based in Washington. It isn’t the only theatre grappling with the culture and conflicts of Israelis, Palestinians and other Arab populations, but it is doing so at an unprecedented level.”

Writer and critic Wendy Smith, who reviews three new books about musical theatre here, confesses that “growing up in New York City in the 1970s, I scorned musicals and spent my time immersed in drama”—which meant she missed, among other treasures, the original productions of Company, Follies and A Little Night Music. “I’m making up for that with numerous sterling revivals,” Smith adds. “It took me a while to realize that a great musical was as revelatory and challenging a piece of theatre as Shakespeare or O’Neill—an obvious fact that I was reminded of by reading the passionate and engaging books by Scott Miller, Thomas Hischak and Misha Berson.”