The fall theater season is already well under way, with Trinity Rep revisiting the Adrian Hall adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s tale of political corruption, All the King’s Men, and Pawtucket’s Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre staging a powerful production of The Elephant Man, the true story of John Merrick, the sideshow freak who became the darling of Victorian society.

But there’s a lot more theater to come in the next couple of months.

Warren’s 2nd Story Theatre will be returning to the courtroom at the old Bristol State House on High Street for Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde Sept. 28. The company opened last season at the Bristol court with another play about a trial, Inherit the Wind, based on the so-called Scopes monkey trial. That show was so well received that artistic director Ed Shea decided to return to the site this season for Kaufman’s look at Wilde’s unraveling.

Things get under way at the Providence Performing Arts Center Nov. 13 with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the one-act hit that calls on audience members to step on stage and try their spelling skills against a troupe of young cast members.

The following week, Disney’s hugely popular High School Musical arrives in town. Two high schoolers — the popular captain of the basketball team and a smart newcomer — have to deal with peer pressures to land the leads in the big school show. Adults tend to look upon the show as inane, but kids love it. Even first-graders can sing the songs by heart. High School Musical runs Nov. 20-25, with a Thanksgiving Day performance Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m.

Trinity Rep ushers in the holiday season Nov. 16 with a return to a more a traditional take on A Christmas Carol — which is to say lots of snow, roving minstrels and none of the puppets that found their way into last year’s production. Company member Fred Sullivan Jr. directs this year’s version, while Brian McEleney and William Damkoehler share the lead as stingy Ebenezer Scrooge.

At the same time, 2nd Story Theatre is undertaking its first holiday offering, William Gibson’s sweet, often irreverent The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut & the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree. After appearing in several Christmas Carols at Trinity Rep, director Ed Shea has shied away from Christmas plays. But there was something about Gibson’s quirky look at the Nativity that he found hard to resist. It opens in previews Nov. 16.

The talented young actress Gabby Sherba, who is taking time off from college, plays Mary, who in Gibson’s world is an indolent teen who is saving her money to move to Jerusalem. Raising a kid, no matter how divine, is not part of the picture.

Meanwhile, the Providence Black Repertory Company opens its season Oct. 4 with Two Can Play, Jamaican playwright Trevor Rhone’s tale of Jim and Gloria, who fantasize about leaving their war-torn Caribbean nation for a new life in the U.S. only to find life is more complex than they thought. It’s a romantic comedy about the perils of love, marriage and the American dream.

cgray@projo.com