It’s enough to make you jumpy as a puppet on a string: This spring’s theater season is a stunner. There are enticing revivals, long-awaited transfers, intriguing collaborations, and acclaimed new work. There are stage icons and movie stars – not to mention a trio of potential megahits. No doubt by summer there will be the usual disappointments and half-successes. But for now, with all this promise in the air, it might as well as be spring.

Ah, to be in England, now that spring is here.

David Hare, one of contemporary London theater’s chief exports, returns with another political drama. “Stuff Happens” is Mr. Hare’s docudrama about the weeks leading up to the Iraq war, and the cast of characters includes President Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. The story and dialogue are “based on actual events, both public and private, that have been authenticated by multiple sources.” The play opened in London in 2004, but Mr. Hare continues to update the script with current material (Public Theater; opens April 13).

Then comes English playwright Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys.” The award-winning story of a bunch of public school boys, their dueling teachers, and the uses (and misuses) of history sold out in its first run. Now Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of London’s National Theater, brings the original London cast to Broadway (Broadhurst; opens April 23).

Englishness hits a high with “The Importance of Being Earnest,” starring Lynn Redgrave and directed by Sir Peter Hall (BAM; opens April 18). Meanwhile, British pop stars have furnished the scores for two Broadway blockbusters-in-waiting. Elton John and his longtime songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, penned the songs for “Lestat,” the musical adapted from Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles” (Palace; opens April 25). Phil Collins wrote the score for “Tarzan,” the new Disney musical with rope-swinging antics designed by Pichon Baldinu of “De La Guarda” fame (Richard Rodgers; opens May 10).

Or in Ireland …

A trio of contemporary Irish playwrights is responsible for some of the season’s most anticipated plays. Atlantic Theater Company’s off-Broadway production of Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” moves to Broadway’s Lyceum in May. (Atlantic, through April 9; Lyceum, opens May 3).

Then comes a revival of Brian Friel’s acclaimed “Faith Healer” (1979) with the kind of cast that playwrights dream about: Ralph Fiennes as the faith healer, Cherry Jones as his wife, and Ian McDiarmid as his manager. Messrs. Fiennes and McDiarmid (along with director Jonathan Kent) developed the production at Dublin’s Gate Theater (Booth; opens May 4).

Last but not least is the Broadway premiere of “Shining City” by the talented young Conor McPherson. Rumor has it this may be Mr. McPherson’s best play yet. Tony winner Robert Falls (“Death of a Salesman”) directs Brian F. O’Byrne (“Doubt”), Oliver Platt, and Martha Plimpton in a drama about a man who enters therapy after seeing the ghost of his dead wife (Biltmore; opens May 9).

THE FILM CROWD New York has been abuzz with the news that Julia Roberts is coming to Broadway in a revival of “Three Days of Rain.” But the best news is that the play is by a Tonywinning playwright (Richard Greenberg) with a Tony-winning director (Joe Mantello). Fellow big-screen actors Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper will co-star (Bernard B. Jacobs; opens April 19).

John Rando (“Urinetown”) directs a stage version of the Adam Sandler vehicle “The Wedding Singer” (Hirschfeld; opens April 27). After playing in London, David Eldridge’s stage adaptation of Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 film “The Celebration” lands on Broadway. The American version, “Festen,” will star Julianna Margulies and Ali McGraw (Music Box; opens April 9).

Meanwhile, at the Manhattan Theater Club, a Hollywood producer wants to turn a promising young playwright’s work into a horror film. That’s the premise of “Based on a Totally True Story,” the new play by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, starring Carson Elrod (“Reckless”) (City Center; opens April 11). And real-life Hollywood screenwriter-director Paul Weitz has a new play, “Show People.” Peter Askin (“Hedwig and the Angry Inch”) directs this tale of two out-of-work former Broadway actors hired by a software executive to impersonate his parents (Second Stage; opens April 6).

THE THEATER CROWD There is no more “capital-T” Theater project on the docket than the Roundabout’s revival of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s acid-tongued “Threepenny Opera,” starring Tony winner Alan Cumming. The attractions also include Cyndi Lauper as Jenny, Isaac Mizrahi’s costumes, and a new translation by Wallace Shawn (Studio 54; opens April 20).

Fans of Tony Kushner’s work will find him this spring at an unlikely venue, the family friendly New Victory, where he joins forces with illustrator Maurice Sendak to bring to life a double bill of pre-war Czech children’s operas, “Brundibar” and “A Comedy on the Bridge.” Tony Taccone directs (New Victory; opens April 30).

The Signature Theater Company will revive John Guare’s “Landscape of the Body,” a collage of scenes and songs that is part murder mystery, part American dream gone horribly awry. Michael Greif directs a cast that includes the indie-film actor Lili Taylor (Peter Norton Space; opens April 16).

Love him or hate him, the director Robert Wilson always creates on a grand scale. His upcoming “Peer Gynt,” in Norwegian with English supertitles, blends a surreal set with evocative choreography and original music by Michael Galasso (BAM Howard Gilman Opera House; opens April 11).

In the category of hot young playwrights, Lisa Kron comes out firing on all cylinders as she brings her acclaimed “Well” to Broadway, with the same cast (including Ms. Kron as herself and Jayne Houdyshell as her nagging mother) that won the show so many fans during its run at the Public Theater last year. Leigh Silverman directs (Longacre; opens March 30).

Next up is David Marshall Grant, whose 1999 comedy “Snakebit” earned him a considerable following. After a sophomore slump, he’s back with “Pen,” in which a teenager referees his (divorced) parents’ fights (Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater; opens April 2).

Then there’s the gifted playwright Adam Rapp, whose drama “Red Light Winter” sold out its run last year in Chicago, opened here to serious praise in February, and continues through the spring (Barrow Street Theater; through July 16). See if you can follow this: “Red Light Winter” stars Christopher Denham as a playwright who seems not unlike Adam Rapp. Mr. Denham is also a playwright, and his new play, “Cage Love,” is directed by Mr. Rapp (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; opens April 27).

Among young directors, Pavol Liska is generating some buzz. Mr. Liska, who grew up in communist Czechoslovakia before coming to New York, has been making waves over the past few seasons with ambitious takes on classics like “The Three Sisters.” His new “Fragment,” based on parts of the “lost plays” of Euripides and Sophocles, deals with themes dear to downtown theatergoers: war abroad and fear at home (Classic Stage Company; opens March 26).

SINGULAR SENSATIONS A solo show about a man known for his solo shows, “A Spalding Gray Matter” has a lot to live up to. Michael Brandt focuses on the late writer-actor’s depression and 2004 suicide (Clurman; previews begin May 3). The singer-actress Adrienne Barbeau (who created the role of Rizzo in the original “Grease”) channels Judy Garland backstage on the night of her final concert appearance in “The Property Known as Garland” (Actors’ Playhouse; opens March 23). And Amy Irving plays the lead role in “A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop,” about the poet’s epic love affair with a Brazilian architect, in a script by Marta Goes (59E59 Theaters; opens March 30).

At Theater Row, Hal Brooks (“Thom Pain”) directs a documentary theater solo piece about the New York public schools, “No Child,” with Nilaja Sun portraying the children, teachers, and parents (Beckett Theater; opens May 10). The one-of-a-kind Sandra Bernhard, meanwhile, merely plays sides of herself – and rock and roll – in her latest solo show, “Everything Bad and Beautiful” (Daryl Roth; opens April 5).

A BACKWARD GLANCE There’s also a healthy helping of nostalgia coming up. “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” had 1,847 performances in the late 1960s. It returns for a revival with a talented cast led by Robert Cuccioli (“Jekyll & Hyde”) (Zipper; opens March 27).

Maurice Hines, brother of the late Gregory Hines and creator-director of the new dance musical “Hot Feet,” pays tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire (Hilton; opens April 30). For musical theater buffs, there’s “The Drowsy Chaperone,” an irreverent show set on the Great White Way of the 1920s that puts “Thoroughly Modern Millie” star Sutton Foster back in the Jazz Age (Marquis; opens May 1).

The legendary Group Theater was the first to perform Clifford Odets’s 1935 chronicle of working-class life, “Awake and Sing!” The new Lincoln Center Theater production features Mark Ruffalo, Ben Gazzara, and Zoe Wanamaker; Bartlett Sher directs (Belasco; opens April 17). And it’s the first revival in 25 years for Herman Wouk’s courtroom drama, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” starring David Schwimmer of “Friends” fame (Lyceum; opens May 7).

The One You Won’t See, Yet

The most high-profile play you won’t see this spring is “My Name Is Rachel Corrie.” Crafted from the e-mails and diaries of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to protect a Palestinian Arab home in the Gaza Strip, the drama is in the midst of a successful run under the auspices of London’s Royal Court Theater.

New York Theatre Workshop, known as a bold presenter of often controversial work, was supposed to present the play this spring, but postponed the production in February, with NYTW artistic director James Nicola citing concerns about the play’s readiness and, more memorably, its political ramifications. Mr. Nicola unwittingly touched off a controversy that will not see its end until “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” finally opens in New York. And open it will. The Royal Court, which has subsequently extended the play’s London run through May 7, is now sifting through offers from other New York producers for a run later this year.