Covington's Playmaker's Theater kicks off its season with The Dining Room. A. R. Gurney's often humorous and sometimes touching play makes the dining room -- the center of WASP middle-class life -- into a showcase for a century's worth of vignettes as we watch a family bemoan the looming decline of their suburban lifestyle and values. The large cast plays a much larger array of family members and domestic servants of differing ages and generations as the play delves into petty and tragic events taking place or revealed in the unchanging room over the course of the 20th century. Maya Levy directs Mack Maginnis, John Chetta, Calvin Billiot, Ronda Powell, Angelique LaCour and Kristin Dugas. Tickets $10 adults, $5 students. -- Will Coviello

8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., Sept. 15-16; through Oct. 1

Playmakers Theater, 19106 Playmakers Road, Covington, (985) 893-1671; www.playmakersinc.com