Three best friends want to escape the doldrums of Suburbia, U.S.A., in “American Idiot.”

Jake Epstein, who plays one of those friends, says he can relate.

“You grow up wanting to bang your head onto something, just to entertain yourself,” says Epstein, who is most recognizable from his “Degrassi” days.

“I’m one of the very few Canadians in the cast,” says the performer, who grew up outside of Toronto. “Coming to the U.S. feels a bit like leaving suburbia.”

Right before his character, Will, plans to escape to the city, he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant.

“So Will gets left behind,” says Epstein. “He spends the majority of the show on a couch, smoking and drinking himself into a depression.”

Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the musical based off the punk rock band’s 2004 “American Idiot” album.

“All the storytelling is told through Green Day’s original songs,” Epstein says. “There’s very little dialogue, so you really have to listen to the lyrics.”

The performer says he’ll always have a soft spot for the band, not just because of this musical: “The very first concert I went to was a Green Day concert when I was 12. I begged my parents to allow me to go. … It really opened my eyes to a world of performing and rock music.”

‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’

The show takes place in 2004, and it has some political undertones. “There’s a character that goes to war. Another spirals into a world of drugs. Then there’s my character, who’s going nowhere in his life. It sounds a bit depressing, now that I’m saying it all out loud,” says Epstein with a laugh. “But these are realities that people deal with.”

Unless you have it, you probably don’t spend much time talking about diabetes. The disease isn’t commonly discussed, in large part because its seriousness isn’t acknowledged, says Robbie McCauley.

In her one-woman show, “Sugar,” the writer, performer and Emerson professor changes that pattern as she recounts her lifelong struggle with it.

“After seeing this show, I’d like people to recognize how important this pervasive and dangerous condition is, and to hopefully be able recognize its symptoms in themselves, their family members and others,” says McCauley, who has Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes.

According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 27 percent of the 25.8 million Americans with diabetes haven’t been diagnosed. Afri-can-Americans are disproportionately affected by it.

McCauley studied the history of sugar from slavery to colonialism while writing the play, and interviewed other diabetics. She wants to raise awareness by sharing her story, but at the same time provide an engaging theatrical experience.

“Through theater, hardship can be beautiful,” she says, insisting that the play isn’t a downer. “Despite everything, my life has been joyful.”

There’s a balance of comedy and tragedy in her story, she says: “Love stories are also about pain. Adventure stories are also about absurdity. … Most people’s lives have range to them, and that’s why I do theater.”

Like Charlie Sheen and the producers of “Jersey Shore,” the playwright behind “God of Carnage” knows the secret to a successful show: people behaving badly.

In Huntington Theatre’s latest, two sets of wealthy Brooklyn parents meet to discuss their sons’ playground altercation. Polite conversation, however, quickly degenerates into a display of animalistic warfare much worse than their children’s squabble.

“In real life, people have a social buffer. These characters are allowed to say and do all of the things that we wish we could,” says director Daniel Goldstein. “All the rules are taken away.”

The play debuted in Paris, so it had to be translated for British audiences and, later, American ones.

“It’s still the same play at its core,” Goldstein says. Though cultural references and the setting were adjusted for each country, the original jokes transcend languages.

The play’s four characters are funny because they’re both realistic and outlandish, Goldstein says. There’s Alan, a lawyer glued to his phone, and his “wealth manager” wife Annette. The couple visits the home of Michael, a wholesaler, and Veronica, a writer obsessed with Africa, its tragedies in particular.

“We can pay attention to wrongs being done in faraway lands,” Goldstein says. “But we don’t actually allow ourselves to notice the things that are taking place right in front of us.”

In 1958, abstract impressionist painter Mark Rothko landed a commission worth $2.5 million in today’s currency to paint a series for Manhattan’s exclusive Four Seasons Restaurant.

The Tony Award-winning play, “Red, “ in which Rothko and his young assistant heatedly debate the artist’s motives as they construct the pricey canvases, has become one of the most produced plays in the U.S., says David Gammons, director of Boston’s version of “Red.”

“I’ve made a deliberate attempt to steer clear of websites, images and even reviews of other productions,” says Gammons, who proudly insists that he has not seen the show elsewhere. “I want to keep ours as fresh and uncorrupted by other people’s choices as possible.”

Playwright John Logan provided the script, but Gammons and this production’s actors and designers had free reign to interpret their show’s visuals, including the set, a well-researched amalgamation of Rothko’s real-life studios.

“It’s been fun to marry the realism of Rothko’s studio space with theatricality, remembering that this is a play, after all, not a documentary,” Gammons says.

The theme illustrated in Rothko’s signature style of painting — blocks of color floating on contrasting background — also exists in the storyline.

“The play sets up this tension, as in the paintings themselves,” Gammons explains. “Red is the life force, the drive, the passion — while black represents the inesca-pable knowledge of our own mortality.”

Rothko felt this tension his whole life, and committed suicide in 1970.

No arts degree required

Playgoers who can’t distinguish a Rothko from a Monet can relax.

“This piece is not alienating if you don’t know a lot about art,” says Gammons. “You don’t have to come in an expert on art history to engage with the characters.”

Back in medieval times, villages dealt with their crazy people by sending them out to sea to drift on a boat with no captain.

“It’s a very strong allegory, this idea of the ‘Ship of Fools’ wandering about without a rudder,” explains Patrick Swanson, director of the 41st annual Christmas Revels. “The world upside down is encapsulated in a boat.”

Every year, the Revels show is about rebirth, ringing in a new year. Sometimes the tale is serious, other times it’s funny.

“This year it’s mostly funny,” Swanson assures.

The story takes place in a 16th century Mediterranean fishing village, where three fools are responsible for an annual pageant to mark the new year.

“We’re in the hands of three characters who bumble their way through the whole process,” he says.

Needless to say, they end up alone at sea.

Local artist Mitch Ryerson had a challenging task: building a “Ship of Fools” for the production.

“Sanders is a peculiar theater,” says Swanson. “There’s no way to get anything large on the stage through its small doors. Mitch had to create a prop for us in the form of a giant jigsaw puzzle that gets put together as the show progresses.”

Culture and tradition

The Revels observe many traditions in their show every year: Poems are read, carols sung and a dance is performed by the chorus and audience together.

“Every year there is new context for these familiar things that people expect,” says Swanson. “We like to introduce different cultures.”

This year, there will be visitors from the East: the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble.

Unlike prime time fairy-tale-with-a-twist hits “Once Upon A Time” and “Grimm,” American Repertory Theater’s newest play, “The Snow Queen,” is a throwback to simpler storytelling.

“We’ve designed the stage like an old Victorian attic where children come to hear this story every year,” says director Allegra Libonati. “There are sheets, mattresses, sticks and chairs — everything you’d use to build forts as a kid.”

The Hans Christian Andersen tale is about two best friends: Kai, who is kidnapped by an evil winter enchantress, and Gerda, the girl who embarks on an epic adventure to rescue him. There’s a castle and a princess, flying reindeer and a devilish goblin. Many of the characters are puppets, made with cardboard and papier-mache.

Libonati says that the show is meant to empower kids through their imagination. The plot, though, is an allegory of growing up.

“What’s amazing about fairy tales is that they really deal with the inner workings of personal development,” the director explains. “They’re deep with psychological issues.”

As a society, there’s no doubt that we’re drawn to the classic stories, represented on TV, the big screen and modern literature.

“Why right now?” Libonati muses. “When things start to crumble on the practical scale, we look inward. On a dream level, fairy tales help us through the different trials of life.”

Cold reality

The Snow Queen represents winter. Like the character, the season “can be exquisite and sparkling, but also dangerous and vengeful,” says Libonati.

Get there early!

Kids who arrive at the theater early can visit craft tables to make snowflakes and roses, which they can use later to help Gerda defeat the wicked Snow Queen.

The performers in “Three Pianos” play 24 songs about a man who wanders into the woods and renounces all human contact. But the music is really all about a boozy night of male bonding.

“The message of the songs can be very sad and lonely, yet what they did was bring a group of people together,” says Rick Burk-hardt, one of three men who wrote and performs in the show. It revolves around a piece of music, “Winterreise,” by 19th century Austrian composer Franz Schubert. In his heyday, Schubert and his poet friends gathered for elaborate parties called Schubertiads to play the songs.

“In a way, we re-enact these parties,” says Burk-hardt. The three men perform the full 75-minute song cycle, complete with singing and choreographed piano configurations. They riff on the original piece and occasionally slip into the persona of the composer and his contemporaries.

Burkhardt and his friends decided to write the show after happening upon an old, water-damaged “Winterreise” score at a late-night party in New York.

“So we played it,” Burkhart remembers. Without intending to, they had recreated a Schubertiad. “All the ingredients were there: A group of friends, this music, alcohol. There was dancing [and] horsing around, and it kept coming back to these songs.”

He might be best known for a perpetual tan, but George Hamilton also has a quite lengthy theatrical résumé.

“I’ve done musicals all my life,” says the 72-year-old actor and comedian. “I’ve always known that to survive in this business, I’d have to learn theater. Every summer, people thought I was in Monte Carlo or the south of France, but really I was out on national tours.”

Hamilton went on the road for “Funny Girl” back in the ’60s and did “Chicago” on Broadway in 2007. Now he comes to Boston to play Saint-Tropez drag club owner Georges in “La Cage Aux Folles.”

“It’s a story about a man torn between his son and his lover,” says Hamilton. “I’m a comedian by nature, but sometimes I have to resist the joke to ground the piece. It’s much more poignant this way.”
Hamilton knows Boston well: He lived on Chestnut Street in Beacon Hill in the ’50s. He’s also performed here before.

“I remember the first time I played Boston. I was very surprised that the laughs I had gotten in other cities weren’t there. I could not believe I was bombing,” he recalls. “But afterward I got great reviews and an ovation from the audience.”

It seems like he’s already done it all: TV, movies, memoirs. What’s next?

“I’d love to do a talk show where we’d change hosts every night and I’d be the only guest,” he laughs.

Reflecting on the ‘First Bite’ of vampire-mania

Hamilton predicted the vampire trend years ago. In 1979 he starred in the horror spoof “Love at First Bite,” a film where Dracula stumbles through modern New York in search of his soul mate. “It’s so ’70s and yet stands up today,” says Hamilton. He’s still considering making a sequel.

There are three characters in “High”: a priest, a nun, and a drug addict. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but the play’s plot is actually very serious.

“It’s about faith and addiction,” says director Rob Ruggiero, a Milford, Mass. native. “The play deals with a religious faith, but also a belief in a higher power — the faith in yourself to change.”

The show takes place in a Catholic rehab center, where a former alcoholic nun (played by diva Kathleen Turner) agrees to sponsor a 19-year-old crystal meth addict. Though it’s not strictly autobiographical, the production is based on the experiences of its playwright, Matthew Lombardo, a recovered meth user.

“We’ve always been concerned with honoring Matthew’s journey,” Ruggiero says. “To make sure the light that we represent on stage is truthful and not theatricalized and respectful of that addiction community.”

Needless to say, the piece does not glamorize substance abuse.

“It’s very raw at times. This play could serve as a wake-up call for some people, in terms of the destructing nature of drug addiction.” says Ruggiero.

There is a bit of comedic relief in the story, however, by way of unlikely friendships between the two clergy and their teenage charge.

And what of Turner? Her film credits are numerous and acclaimed, but the husky-voiced actor’s roots are on the stage.

“There are a lot of actors who come to the theater to explore, but Kathleen is the real deal,” says Ruggiero. “She’s as candid as you would imagine, but she’s always respectful.”

“These people devoutly believed in something that is impossible to do,” says Alfred Uhry, the playwright behind “Angel Reapers,” a theater piece that showcases the group’s songs, dances, and spiritual struggles. “We’re sexual beings – that’s how we all got here. To completely deny that that exists within you is going to cause a lot of stress, a lot of complications.”

The Shakers lived and worked communally, though men and women were always separate and forbidden from interacting. Their name stems from their intense style of worship: When seized by religious fervor (and repressed sexual angst) followers would speak in tongues, hoot like owls, and dance.

“They moved together in a sort of robotic way. It’s very rhythmic,” describes Uhry. “These were eighteenth century New England people, so they were also pretty prudish. They covered everything but their hands and faces.”

The show is not a history lesson – there aren’t many, if any, Shakers around today to verify the facts. Though Uhry and choreographer Martha Clarke selected about 18 real Shaker-written a capella songs from a collection of thousands for the show, the dances are new interpretations.