Our local theater wrapped up the year in a festive mood. Stagecrafters cast a spell in their production of “A Sherlock Carol” by playwright Mark Shanahan, infusing the Dickens Christmas classic with a Sherlock Holmes story. Artistic Director Tony Braithwaite guided his Act II Playhouse ensemble in “Most Wonderful Time,” an original Christmas cabaret. While holiday fare capped off the season, many notable theater productions preceded these shows.

Quintessence Theatre changed horses, shifting its focus from the classics to champion newer works. In “The Return of Benjamin Lay,” an intrepid dwarf preached abolition. James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” was brought to the stage in an adaptation by Paul Oakley Stovall and Benjamin Sprunger. “Fire!” was a drama about the struggle to create a black, avant-garde literary magazine during the Harlem Renaissance. The last two shows were world premieres.

But at year’s end, Quintessence returned to theater mainstays with Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance.” Favoring cabaret-like setups over a strong story narrative, the musical is a challenge to produce. Director Alex Burns’ revival triumphed with strong singing, sumptuous stagecraft and satirical wit to skewer Victorian morality and the cliches of standard opera.

Stagecrafters presented plays like “Grand Horizons” and “Rabbit Hole,” which center on tragicomic family involvements. Unlike Quintessence, Stagecrafters does not concentrate on the classics, yet their occasional productions of Shakespeare plays are a cut above what you usually see elsewhere. In “Twelfth Night,” director Patrick Martin had strong support from musicians, stage designers and players in staying true to the comedy’s thoughtful, lighthearted tone. Stagecrafters has a strong history of shunning showy efforts at being “creative” in their Shakespeare revivals.

Act II Playhouse presented a crowd-pleasing mix of genres: “Grace & Gloria” features an odd couple, two different women who discover common ground. “Dial M for Murder” is a rewrite of the classic movie mystery. “A Grand Night for Singing” was the troupe’s regular salute to Broadway, this year to Rodgers and Hammerstein, while “Theater People” was their perennial farce.

The surprise show at Act II was a production of Stephen King’s “Misery.” Directed by veteran Mary Martello, the play version held you in its jaws. The set design was spooky, and the actors were perfectly cast. “Misery” is a horror-thriller, but the production nudged you into seeing it as a character study with an odd metaphorical dimension.

Old Academy Players, much like Act II, offered an eclectic round-robin of shows. But the genre of one play, “The Dining Room” by A. R. Gurney, eludes description. Seven actors played 53 characters as Gurney aspired to dramatize the decline of upper-class Anglo-Saxon culture in America. But much like “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder, you feel life’s evanescence still more strongly.

The unique feature of the Old Academy season is their annual “Summer One-Act Bonanza,” where they stage a series of unpublished,15-minute plays. Old Academy also encourages participation from novice players and backstage workers. Co-produced by Sarah Labov and Nancy Frick, many of the one-acts are darkly comic, often punctuated with a surprise ending.

The Drama Group of Germantown and Allens Lane Theater, temporarily halted by the COVID crisis, are back on stage. Drama Group used ingenious scrim screen staging to produce “Spring Awakening” by Frank Wedekind, a play that was scandalous in 1891. Allens Lane presented “Crossing Delancey” on its main stage, a charming work that rivals the biting romantic comedies of the 1980s.

In a special surprise, Robert Calandra (a frequent contributor to Chestnut Hill Local) and Howard Burke collaborated to create “The Lost Tango,” an original musical that was well-received at the Venice Island Performing Arts Center in Manayunk in November. Overall, our local theater thrived this past year with a blend of innovative and traditional shows.