Intensely emotional and achingly poignant, Act 1 DeSales University Theatres production of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" features outstanding performances across the board.

The powerful musical runs through May 7 on the Main Stage of the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts in Center Valley.

The show tells the story of Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris who falls for the gypsy Esmeralda. It draws its darker story from Victor Hugos novel and the songs from 1996 Disney film.

Star of the Days 2023 season opener "Matilda the Musical" is a dark, but ultimately buoyant trip through the torments of childhood, on stage through April 30 at St. Johns United Church of Christ, 139 N. Fourth St., Emmaus.

The story based on Roald Dahls book "Matilda," follows the misfortunes of Matilda Wormwood, a brilliant but unloved child who goes to a school run by the cruel Miss Trunchbull who has made the schools motto "Bambinatum est magitum" - "Children are maggots."

The show opens up with the younger members of the cast singing "Miracle," a subversive song about children whose parents put them on a pedestal. Quickly, it becomes apparent Trunchbulls school is a harsh reality for these children.

Northampton Community Colleges Theatre Department mines the laughs with a broadly comedic production of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." On the colleges Lipkin Theatre stage, 3835 Green Pond Road, Bethlehem Township through April 16, the production playfully uses physical comedy to accentuate Shakespeares witty wordplay.

Director William Mutimer has set the comedy in the flirty Roaring Twenties to good effect.

Max Wetherhold as the musician Balthasar sets the scene, crooning popular hits from the 1920s like "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue," and "Bye, Bye Black,bird," while accompanying himself on the ukulele.

Father and daughter Bill and Anisa George give a sometimes touching, sometimes harrowing look back at their relationship and their lives in theater with their stunning original piece "The Last Play" through April 2 at Touchstone Theatre, 321 E. Fourth St., Bethlehem. Wrenchingly honest, "The Last Play" is part family retrospective and part creative expression of what it means to be a theater artists.

Bill George, a co-founder of Touchstone Theatre, has spent his life creating theater. Anisa George has been on stage with her father since she was a baby. Now 40, Anisa is contemplating moving away from theater to focus on other pursuits, and that prompted the creation of "The Last Play" with her father. However, as she noted on stage, she has tried before to leave making theater but has always returned.