Three new theatrical productions this week

Depending on your mood – if you want to laugh, cry, think very deeply or mix ‘n’ match – you’ll find a new show to your liking this week from three of the bay area’s professional theaters.

American Stage and Stageworks are preparing for new things to come by the end of September, Ring of Fire and What the Constitution Means to Me, respectively. And freeFall is closing in quickly on the final weekend of production for its show Fable.

In the meantime Jobsite, the Off-Central and LAB Theatre Project are raising curtains Sept. 4 and 5.

Jobsite’s “POTUS.”

POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive at Jobsite Theater, Straz Center, Tampa, Sept. 4-29. And the award for the season’s longest title goes to this political comedy from Selina (Something Clean) Fillinger, directed by Summer Bohnenkamp. The Washington Post called it “a profane West Wing comic strip of a play in which a septet of hyper-caffeinated actresses let their funny flags fly.” The titular American president is never seen; seven women, including the First Lady, the Chief of Staff, the Press Secretary and the president’s drug-dealing felon of a sister careen from one White House calamity to another. “As a young person and a woman, I’m expected to perform hope for people, without having the luxury of expressing my rage,” Fillinger told the New York Times. “But I feel like rage can be hopeful as well.” The cast includes Carla Corvo, Noa Friedman, Robin Gordon, Caroline Huerta, Andresia Moseley, Katrina Stevenson and Kandyce Walker.

Ward Smith and MacKenzie Aaryn in “Blackbird” at the Off-Central.

Blackbird at the Off-Central, St. Petersburg, Sept. 5-15. Winner of the UK’s Olivier Award for Best Play, David Harrower’s drama consists entirely of a tense and emotional confrontation between 55-year-old Ray Brooks and Una Spencer, 27. Both have been trying to move on with their lives, but there’s a serious roadblock: Fifteen years earlier, they’d had a three-month sexual relationship, when she was 12 years old. Blackbird premiered at the 2005 Edinburgh International Festival (Harrower is a Scottish playwright), and arrived in New York two years later, where the Broadway production starred Jeff Daniels and Alison Pill. At the Off-Center, artistic director Ward Smith plays Ray, with MacKenzie Aaryn as Una. The director is Alan Mohney, Jr. Throughout the run, sexual assault victim advocates from the Suncoast Center, a certified rape crisis center in Pinellas County, will be on hand with literature and information, and will conduct a talkback following the Sunday, Sept. 8 matinee.

PER at LAB Theater Project, Ybor City, Sept. 5-22. Vaguely based (as is Blackbird) on true events, the psychological drama by Donald Loftus concerns a young Swedish man, Per (say “Pair”) Nilsson who, in 1889, collaborated with his domineering mother in the murder of his young wife. Mom was found guilty of the murder and beheaded; Per was declared insane and institutionalized at a Stockholm asylum. Tormented by the ghosts of guess who, Per wishes to be set free. After months of therapy, the psychiatrist is convinced of Per’s sanity … but there’s a catch. Caroline Jett directs Blake Boles, Jennifer Casler, Elliana Goreck, Nathan Juliano and Samantha Parisi.