Dear Elizabeth, Plays at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston through November 9th.

In this well-acted production, see how the correspondence between two of the 20th century’s most important and celebrated American poets — Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell — creates a different kind of love story, one between two artists and friends. Bishop and Lowell's thirty-year friendship served to buoy the poets up, each having a profound impact on the other. The story delivers us to the heart of an epic, if not tortured, relationship.

Ether Dome, Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company, it plays at the Calderwood Pavilion through November 23rd.

Horace Wells, a Hartford dentist, experiments with a surprising new treatment to end pain. His student and sometimes partner introduces the technique to the surgeons at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, where epic battles for credit and ambition ignite. As the doctors discover the transformative benefits of their new tool, they simultaneously descend into despair, and even insanity – the story of the dentist is reputedly the inspiration behind Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This fascinating new play explores the ecstasy of pain, the sweetness of relief, and the hysteria that erupts when healthcare becomes big business.

Whiplash, In theaters Friday.

Haunted by the failed writing career of his father, Andrew Neiman is a 19-year-old jazz drummer who is determined to rise to the top of the country’s most elite music conservatory. Terence Fletcher, a conductor equally known for his talent for teaching as he is for the terrifying method of his instruction, discovers Andrew, and the next day, Fletcher requested that Andrew be transferred into his band. This single act changes the young man’s life forever.

*****

This week on Open Studio Jared visits the Fruitlands Museum, celebrating its centennial with an exhibit of its 100 most popular objects from the Transcendental, Shaker, Native American, landscape and portrait collections. Plus, hear an interview with Boston Ballet’s artistic director Mikko Nissinen and designer Robert Perdziola about Swan Lake, playing through November 16.

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