A sharp travel-horror comedy by LA-based playwright Meg Miroshnik, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls follows Annie, a doe-eyed young American who visits Moscow and lands in a sinister world of gloomy paranoia that is part fairy tale and part sex, drugs, and clubs. Her host mother is a witch, the woman across the hall lives with a drunk bear, and Annie’s fairy godmother is a darkly graceful prostitute named Nastya. Directed by Ali el-Gasseir, Russian Girls is a bracing pleasure. (Washington Ensemble Theater, 608 19th Ave E, www.washingtonensemble.org, 7:30 pm, $25, through Oct 22)