Kate Whoriskey, successor to Bart Sher as artistic director of Intiman Theatre, made her bones as a Major American Director™ with Ruined, a play set in a brothel in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Playwright Lynn Nottage (Intimate Apparel) wrote Ruined, but Whoriskey spent years helping her develop it. They conducted research in Uganda, tried out the play in Chicago and New York, and won all kinds of awards: an Obie, a Drama Desk, a Pulitzer. Now Whoriskey is bringing her shiniest achievement—based loosely on Mother Courage, Bertolt Brecht’s wartime amorality play—to her new city. (Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer St, www
.intiman.org. 2 and 7:30 pm, $10–$50.)

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....