Every Thursday, we round up Pay-Whats and other cheap seats at local theaters. Just so’s your weekend is a little easier.

Before we start, remember the general rules: (A) Reservations for these? Not so much. (B) They’re offered on a space-available basis, so have a backup plan. (C) Click each theater name for details and contact info. Oh, and you might tell ‘em City Paper sent you.

Warmed-over plug from last week: The best deal in town right now is the always-$10-a-seat Catalyst Theater, making a zoot-suit riot out of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Bertolt Brecht’s cautionary black comedy about the Hitler-style rise of a Chicago gangster.

Otherwise, here’s what I know about:

  • Orange Flower Water, Didactic Theatre. “Romantic chaos…moral ambiguity…two couples…an extramarital affair”—yup, sounds like Six Feet Under scribe Craig Wright (whose plays Grace and Melissa Arctic had their world premieres in D.C.). I’m seeing it Sunday. Pay-What preview tonight, Thursday, at 7:30 p.m. At DCAC, 2438 18th St. NW.
  • Jon Spelman’s Frankenstein, Round House Theatre. The noted storyteller/performer retells Mary Shelley’s Gothic parable from the Creature’s point of view. Critics see it next week. Pay-What preview tonight, Thursday, at 8 p.m. At Round House Silver Spring, 8641 Colesville Road.
  • Never the Sinner, Actors Theatre of Washington. John Logan’s crime-scene-and-courtroom drama about the Leopold & Loeb murder. Bob Mondello liked the atmospherics of a 1997 Ethan McSweeny staging a bit better than the play itself, but I hear this one might be interestingly disturbing. Pay-What preview tonight (regularly $31.50), Thursday, at 8 p.m. At the Source Theatre space, 1835 14th St. NW.
  • Spring Forward/Fall Back, Theater J. A premiere from theater titan Robert Brustein, founder of Yale Rep and longtime New Republic theater critic. From the theater: “A deeply personal new play about successive generations of fathers and sons and their continuing conflicts over music. An esteemed conductor is compelled to visit the formative stages of his life, returning to the rich, immigrant culture of an Upper West Side tenement filled with love and dissension.” Critics see it next week. Pay-What previews Sunday and Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. At the DCJCC, 16th and Q Streets NW.