It's become the magic word, no matter how narrowly it need be defined. You must search to find theatrical productions that don't trumpet the word "premiere" in promotional material. There are San Francisco premieres, Bay Area premieres, West Coast premieres, North American premieres, and someday, universal premieres. For now, the gold standard is "world premiere," and at least a dozen of said events are set to open this fall on area stages as a new theater season gets underway.

Of course, everything is a premiere if you haven't seen it before, nor does prior exposure to a title need relegate it to a second tier. What follows is a selective look at the fall theater season, which will begin with – what else? – world premieres.

Starting here

John Fisher, Theatre Rhino's executive director, can usually be counted on to provide his theater with a new play each season, and so it is as Rhino gets ready to celebrate its 35th anniversary. Fisher, whose previous works include Medea: The Musical and SexRev: The Jose Sarria Experience, offers backstage comedy in his new play Slugs and Kicks being staged at Thick House. Its population includes a young gay actor, a beautiful actress, a vicious queen, and a hopeless romantic. (Nov. 24-Dec 9; www.therhino.org)

It's lucky Number 13 for Thrillpeddlers' annual Shocktoberfest celebration that this year includes two world-premiere plays. Michael Phillis (D*Face ) has contributed The Bride of Death to the program, and is one of the actors in the story of a reclusive actress whose mansion houses horrible secrets. Rob Keefe, a frequent Thrillpeddlers collaborator, has written The Twisted Pair, about a desperate scientist who tries to hitch his wagon to the 1953 discovery of DNA. The Shocktoberfest bill also includes the 1922 Grand Guignol play Coals of Fire, a musical collaboration between Leigh Crow and Scrumbly Koldewyn, and the traditional lights-out spook-show finale. (Sept. 27-Nov. 17; www.thrillpeddlers.com)

Playwright Sheila Callaghan has a major "downtown" reputation in New York, which is where Port Out, Starboard Home is headed after its Z Space debut. It's set aboard a cruise ship on which the travelers, including a closeted older man traveling with his son, find themselves unhinged from the rules of time and space, as the play offers a surreal view of a pampered society. Callaghan developed the play with the foolsFury company, including director Ben Yalom and choreographer Erika Chong Shuch. (Sept. 7-23; www.zspace.org)

Out of the past

Two landmark plays that touched the soul of the gay community at critical times are returning to local stages. First up is Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart at ACT, which features cast members of the recent Broadway revival, continuing under George C. Wolfe's direction. Kramer's play, first staged in 1985, is a largely autobiographical recounting of the first responders to the AIDS crisis, and an excoriation of the news media and politicians who were slow to respond. (Sept. 13-Oct 7; www.act-sf.org)

The cast of Fierce Love performs a "re-mixed" edition of the Pomo Afro Homos' 1991 show subtitled Stories from Black Gay Life at New Conservatory Theatre Center. (Photo: Courtesy NCTC)

Fierce Love: Stories from Black Gay Life began its life in San Francisco in 1991 before touring the country with an assortment of stories from a world that had had scant recognition on stage. Written by the Pomo Afro Homos troupe, a "re-mixed" edition brings the show back home under founding member Brian Freeman's direction at New Conservatory Theatre Center in a co-production with AfroSolo. (Oct. 17-28; www.nctcsf.org)

In Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, the life and career of our seventh president got the rock-musical treatment on Broadway in 2010, and will be staged this fall at San Francisco Playhouse. (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Singing the body politic

If you want a musical escape from electioneering, these musicals do not fit the bill. The parallels to contemporary politics ring only too clearly in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, the 2010 Broadway Emo-style rock musical that looks at the life and controversial career of our first "populist" president. It also marks the stepping-up move of San Francisco Playhouse from its Sutter Street venue to the former Post Street Theatre. (Oct. 9-Nov. 24; www.sfplayhouse.org)

In the 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing, a presidential candidate runs on a "love" platform that requires him to marry a pageant winner in a kind of precursor to the multiplying television talent/dating competitions. 42nd Street Moon is opening its season at the Eureka Theatre with the 1931 musical with songs by George and Ira Gershwin and a libretto by Morrie Ryskind, the first musical to receive a Pulitzer Prize. (Oct. 3-21; www.42ndstmoon.org)

Even among Stephen Sondheim fans, Assassins has been something of the black sheep of his oeuvre. Written with John Weidman, the 1990 musical offers a kind of vaudeville performed by the various men and women who have, successfully or not, tried to kill presidents of the United States. Shotgun Players is presenting the queasy-making musical as part of its season at the Ashby Stage. (Sept. 26-Oct. 28; www.shotgunplayers.org)

Director and master storyteller Mary Zimmerman turns to a Chinese folktale for The White Snake, her new play coming to Berkeley Rep.
(Photo: Jenny Graham)

Tales retold

Mary Zimmerman is Berkeley Rep's favorite storyteller, and the theater has hosted such acclaimed reinventions as Metamorphoses, The Arabian Nights, and Argonautika. In The White Snake, she builds her theatrical magic around a Chinese folktale about a serpent spirit who takes a human form as she falls in love with a guileless young man. This co-production with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival drew raves when it opened in Ashland earlier this year. (Nov. 9-Dec. 23; www.berkeleyrep.org)

SF playwright Lauren Gunderson's works have been seen across the country, and Impact Theatre has first dibs on her new comedy Toil and Trouble. To be staged at LaVal's Subterranean in Berkeley, the Macbeth story gets a contemporary twist as three young friends become combatants after they occupy a South American island populated only by miniature vicuna. Founding artistic director Josh Costello returns to direct. (Nov. 1-Dec. 8; www.impacttheatre.com)

Latter-day Broadway

It's hard to remember how unlikely a show titled The Book of Mormon could become both a critical and box office smash. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone ridicule the religion of possibly our next president with a sweetness, albeit R-rated, that charmed flocks from many pastures. As of press time, the only way to score tickets to the Curran Theatre is to subscribe to the SHN season, though that restriction will be lifted as the run approaches. To the alert shall the single tickets pass. (Nov. 27-Dec. 30; www.shnsf.com)