“Mahalia, A Gospel Musical” is so much more than a biographical musical about the great Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel. Full of the gorgeous church hymns and old spirituals she sang with her tremendously soulful and powerful voice, it does, indeed, tell the story of her rise to fame in the 20th Century. But in so doing, it also elucidates a crucial piece of American history.

Cari Scholtens and Jil Farheart look pretty much the same: they’re both tall, lean brunettes. But Farheart has a scar on her cheek. And while Scholtens owns a plastic sword and axe, Farheart’s sword and axe are necessarily steel; she’s a bounty hunter, and uses them when she has to. In a world of dark cults, vicious monsters, and the ever-present threat of violence, “when she has to” is pretty often.

When John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer and Tony Award winning drama “Doubt: A Parable” came out amid the first of Catholic priest sex abuse revelations 15 years ago, it was powerful and shocking.

In the final moments of Grand Rapids Ballet’s MOVEMEDIA: Handmade, dancers onstage transform into an underwater human merry go round. With linked arms, an outer circle moves clockwise, while an inner circle moves in the opposite direction in Nicolas Blanc’s world premiere “Aquatic Hypoxia.”