Rev up your brains, Vancouver, it’s going to be a smart, smart season.

The Arts Club is kicking off its fall with Other Desert Cities by the hyperliterate American playwright Jon Robin Baitz. It’s listed below.

The Arts Club is also doing an increasingly impressive job of supporting Canadian writing talent. Watch for Helen Lawrence, a multimedia spectacle about Vancouver circa 1948 created by local TV writer and producer Chris Haddock (Da Vinci’s Inquest) and art star Stan Douglas. It runs March 19 to April 13, 2014, at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage.

On the East Side, the Cultch will also be rocking with intellectual and theatrical adventure, as well as debuting its new venue, the refurbished York Theatre. The fall and early-winter Cultch offerings Penelope, The Daisy Theatre, and An East Van Panto all made it onto the picks list below. But don’t forget about late-season opportunities, including the chance to see legendary playwright Judith Thompson in the premiere of her new script, Watching Glory Die (in the Cultch’s Historic Theatre April 22 to May 3, 2014).

War Horse
(September 24 to 29 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre)
Joey, the horse, is sold into military use at the beginning of World War I. Despite being underage, 16-year-old Arthur joins the army in the hopes of reuniting with his beloved beast.
The Draw: The combination of spectacle and tears. Word has it that the puppetry that brings the horses to life is exquisite and the show—which was created at the National Theatre of Great Britain—is honestly moving.
Target Audience: Animal lovers. (Bring large supplies of tissue.)

Other Desert Cities
(September 25 to October 20 at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage)
The Wyeth family parents are pillars of the Republican party who refer to the Reagans as Ron and Nancy. But at a Christmas reunion in Palm Springs, daughter Brooke reveals that she is about to expose the family’s secret: during the Vietnam War, her brother bombed an army recruitment facility, then committed suicide. Brooke holds her folks responsible and she’s going to publish a memoir that could ruin them.
The Draw: Playwright Jon Robin Baitz. The last time I saw one of his scripts—it was The Substance of Fire—I found it so emotionally and intellectually stimulating that I feared I was going to start speaking in tongues. Really. Glossolalia.
Target Audience: The literate will flock to this Arts Club production.

Penelope
(September 26 to October 13 at the Vancity Culture Lab)
In this international hit, which Rumble Theatre and the Cultch are presenting, four aging manly types hang around the baking-hot bottom of an empty swimming pool on Penelope’s estate. Before Odysseus returns, they make their last, desperate attempts to woo her.
The Draw: Philosophical ambition. According to Ben Brantley, theatre critic for the New York Times, Enda Walsh’s play is “about our attraction to our own annihilation and the nature and limits of language”.
Target Audience: Mortals.

Communion
(October 25 to November 9 at Pacific Theatre)
Playwright Daniel MacIvor explores the dynamics between three women: Leda, an atheist with cancer; Carolyn, Leda’s lesbian, sometimes icy therapist; and Annie, Leda’s estranged Christian daughter. According to Leda, the fundamentalist Annie believes in a God who “hates fags and loves uteruses”.
The Draw: MacIvor. With scripts such as You Are Here and A Beautiful View, he has consistently proved that he is the real thing: a great Canadian playwright.
Target Audience: Searching for meaning and intimacy? Finding them elusive? This Ruby Slippers production is for you.

Except in the Unlikely Event of War
(November 15 to 30 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre)
This script, which is being coproduced by Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre and Pi Theatre, is playwright Sean Devine’s response to Report From Iron Mountain, the best-selling hoax from 1965 that satirizes society’s dependence on war.
The Draw: The cold, fresh wind of moral rigour. Devine’s first script, Re:Union, was philosophically bracing as well as entertaining.
Target Audience: The intelligent and socially engaged. Also, people who want to impress their dates by appearing intelligent and socially engaged.

The Daisy Theatre
(November 26 to December 15 at the Cultch’s Historic Theatre)
Puppeteer Ronnie Burkett’s new show is inspired, in part, by the underground puppet performances that sprang up in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
The Draw: Top-flight collaboration. A genius performer, Burkett has commissioned 10 gifted Canadian playwrights—including Brad Fraser, Daniel MacIvor, and Joan MacLeod—to write 10-minute scripts. He’ll toss different combos of ’em into the improvisational mix every night.
Target Audience: The living. Burkett must be seen.

An East Van Panto
(December 4 to 29 at the York Theatre)
Pantos are all about cheering the heroes and booing the villains. Theatre Replacement, which is presenting this show with the Cultch, is all about innovation, so get ready for a noisy—and surprising—ride.
The Draw: Veda Hille (Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata) is writing the songs with Amiel Gladstone. Hille is so talented that, in my next life, I have decided to be her—or marry her. One or the other.
Target Audience: This show is an all-ages invitation to get wacky.

Cavalia’s Odysseo
(December 21 to 29 under the White Big Top at the Olympic Village)
Fifty horses and an international cast of gorgeous humans come together to tell a dreamlike story about the meeting of equine and bipedal worlds.
The Draw: Ecstasy. As they thunder around the arena doing impossible things, horses and riders infuse the audience with their shared joy.
Target Audience: Lovers of the animalistic.

Measure for Measure
(January 17 to February 8, 2014, at Pacific Theatre)
The Honest Fishmongers, a company that’s given us windburn-fresh versions of Hamlet and King Lear, will have its way with Shakespeare’s darkly pervy script.
The Draw: The band of artists. Innovative director Kevin Bennett will direct Julie McIsaac (Isabella) and Simon Webb (Angelo) in a cast that also includes Katharine Venour and Emmelia Gordon.
Target Audience: Lovers of Shakespearean adventure. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” That’s from Henry V, but you know what I mean.