Miss Helen, the character played by Rosemary Harris (right, seated, with Jim Dale and Carla Gugino) in Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, was inspired by the real-life Helen Martins, a reclusive artist and widow, who lived in the tradition-bound South African rural village where Fugard owns a house. Although he did not know her personally, as a writer he was intrigued by her independent spirit so at odds with her “feudal” community, which thought her crazy. Martins eventually killed herself. But writing a play is like fishing: Sometimes the fish don’t bite. “Though obviously provoked by Miss Helen’s story, I’d never quite been hooked by it,” he has explained. “I’m a fisherman and I know the difference between a fish that’s just playing with your bait and one that says “WRITE! I’M IT! and takes your rod down as you sit back and put the hook deep in.” It wasn’t until he met a young social worker that he was caught. She had befriended Martins, and when she gave him a photograph of the two women together, he swallowed the bait. “I took one look at the photograph … and there was the play. I was hooked.”

» The Road to Mecca, American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212.719.1300

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (left, Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald as the titular leads) is the eighth and latest production of the American classic to play on Broadway since it opened at the Alvin (now the Neil Simon) Theatre on Oct. 10, 1935. The folk opera, which was revived three times in New York during World War II, received its European premiere in Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943. There, it became a rallying point for the Resistance. Written by two Jews (George and Ira Gershwin) and depicting an all-black community (Catfish Row), Porgy and Bess was anathema to Hitler’s Aryan cause; the authorities closed it after a handful of performances. But the show found an afterlife underground. One of its songs, “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” even became a weapon of war, used by the Danes to jam Gestapo telephone lines, its humorous lyrics assuming a powerfully poignant significance: “L’il David was small, but oh my! / He fought Big Goliath / Who lay down an’ dieth! / Li’l David was small, but oh my!”

» The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St., 877.250.2929

Celebrities who want to hide in plain sight can do so with ease at Sleep No More, the interactive Off-Broadway show, where everyone in the audience—famous or not—wears a white mask (right, actor Matthew Oaks with camouflaged audience members). The action is set in the fictional McKittrick Hotel during a performance of Macbeth. Playgoers go from room to room until the very end, when masks come off over cocktails in the bar. Who knows, the person next to you could be Matt Damon, Natalie Portman, Jude Law or Joan Rivers—all of whom have seen the show.

» Sleep No More, The McKittrick Hotel, 530 W. 27th St., 866.811.4111