The week’s other openings

Ameriville

Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, Chicago

(773) 871-3000

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“Influenced by hip-hop, slam poetry,” and several other storytelling traditions, this show certainly makes a statement, said the Chicago Tribune. Opening in post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, it eventually becomes too broad a denunciation of America’s ills. But when the actors play ordinary New Orleanians, they “bring them to life with empathetic eloquence.”

Josephine Tonight

MetroStage, Alexandria, Va.

(800) 494-8497

Sherman Yellen and Wally Harper’s new musical about Josephine Baker benefits from “an exuberant performance” in the title role, said Washingtonian.com. Zurin Villanueva convincingly charts Baker’s rise from gangly Missouri teen to “elegant, commanding star,” elevating the show from “ho-hum musical biography” to “a knockout night at the theater.”

Elemeno Pea

South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, Calif.

(714) 708-5555

Any adult with a sibling or two can relate to the “authentic doses of judgment and jealousy” in Molly Smith Metzler’s new play, said LA Weekly. Her lively story about two sisters from blue-collar Buffalo is weighed down by heavy-handed messages about money and class, but “the sisterly love story—with all its jagged edges”—is winning.