The week’s other openings

The Hundred Flowers ProjectCrowded Fire Theater, San Francisco, (415) 746-9238Christopher Chen is “a talent to keep an eye on,” said the San Francisco Chronicle. His new show—about six actors who try to create a relevant play about Mao Zedong—turns weighty themes into “two hours of hairpin-turn paradigm shifts” that “make for some very exciting theater.” 

CompanyOrdway Center for the Performing Arts, Saint Paul, Minn., (651) 224-4222 Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical about a commitment-phobe and his married friends is often criticized for “lacking heart,” said the Minneapolis Star Tribune. That charge is nearly impossible to level at Peter

BuildGeffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, (310) 208-5454A drama about a depressed video-game designer who’s created a simulated version of his dead wife may sound novel, said the Los Angeles Times. But don’t be fooled—“the artist as isolated, wounded figure” is a centuries-old notion, one that playwright Michael Golamco fails to “scrape clean of clichés.”Rothstein’s “thoroughly engaging production” and its uniformly strong cast.