Disgraced, Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play of 2012, reminds us of the power of theater. An ex-Muslim man, a Black woman, a Jewish man, and a WASP woman discuss religion around a dinner table and tensions rise. Without lavish props or dramatic effects, the play leaves audiences moved, shaken, and thinking. Akhtar hopes to do that again with McNeal, a new play that stars Robert Downey Jr. “It’s been 40 years since I was last on ‘the boards,’ but hopefully I’ll knock the dust off quick,” the actor told The New York Times. In McNeal, directed by Bartlett Sher, a revered author with a difficult personal life develops a complicated relationship with artificial intelligence. Akhtar now questions what stories we tell and how we tell them. —Jeanne Malle