Nine-hour plays tend to be tough sells. As do plays set in 19th-century Russia, particularly ones featuring political philosophers as their protagonists.

But nine-hour political plays set in 19th-century Russia with a 44-membercast? That appears to be a recipe for success, at least when the author is Tom Stoppard, and the director (Jack O’Brien) has worked wonders with everything from “Henry IV” to “Hairspray.” And so “The Coast of Utopia” has become an unlikely torch carrier for a fall theater season that promises an unusual glut of politically conscious theater along with the usual helpings of boulevard comedies, imported revivals, and jukebox musicals.

“Utopia” is actually a trilogy, and Mr. Stoppard apparently has revised all three works since their 2002 debut in London. Lincoln Center Theater will unveil the individual plays during the next several months, but if you can’t wait that long for your Turgenev and Bakunin fix, Part I (titled “Voyage”) opens November 5, while Part II (“Shipwreck”) joins the repertory December 21. Time will tell whether Mr. Stoppard’s legendary arias of verbiage will benefit from some downtime or whether total immersion is the way to go; either way, “Utopia” makes a strong advance case for being the play(s) to see this season.

The few working actors who didn’t get cast in “Utopia” seem to have found works dealing with politics of a more contemporary nature. After a well-publicized dust-up with New York Theatre Workshop, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” (October 15) has moved to the Minetta Lane. It’s based on the letters, diaries, and e-mails of the title character, an American woman who died while protesting Israel’s presence in Gaza. Two other British playwrights look at Americans abroad. David Hare (“Stuff Happens”) revisits American political mores in “The Vertical Hour” (November 30); this Broadway effort, Mr. Hare’s first to originate here rather than in London, features Julianne Moore as a former war correspondent in Wales. David Grieg contributes “The American Pilot” (November 21 at Manhattan Theatre Club), in which the title character crash-lands in potentially hostile territory.

The Impact Festival, which opened last night and runs through October 22, offers several theater pieces among its wide-ranging roster of progressive works. Following on its heels is the Havel Festival (October 26–December 4), where the Ohio Theatre and Brooklyn’s Brick Theatre will team up to present Czech playwright-dissident-politician Vaclav Havel’s entire canon. And don’t forget 3Graces Theater’s mounting of “Nickel and Dimed” (October 5), based on the best-selling exposé of life on minimum wage; A.R. Gurney’s “Post Mortem”(October 18 at the Flea),set in a dystopian America in the not-so-distant future; and Manhattan Class Company’s 10th-anniversary revival of “Nixon’s Nixon” (October 4).

If any jukebox musical would plausibly have a political component, it would be one devoted to Bob Dylan. But judging from out-of-town reports, Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” (October 26) focuses instead on romance at a rundown carnival. Fellow dance-theater alchemist Martha Clarke also returns this fall, this time with the tentatively titled “Pirandello Project” at New York Theatre Workshop (December 4).

Les Freres Corbusier offers a double dose of theological provocations. Its “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant” returns to the Fourth Street Theatre in late November, just in time for the holidays. First, though, comes “Hell House” (October 10) at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. These evangelical haunted houses have been hugely popular around the country, but the bratty company’s approach will presumably be a bit different.

Lighter fare can be found among the new works. In addition to “The American Pilot,” MTC has comedies by Paul Rudnick (“Regrets Only” on November 14, starring Christine Baranski as a Manhattan socialite), Charles Busch (“Our Leading Lady” on December 19, set in Ford’s Theatre on the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination), and newcomer Simon Mendes da Costa (“Losing Louie” on October 12). MTC has generally reserved its Broadway space, the Biltmore, for established playwrights like Richard Greenberg and Conor McPherson. “Louie,” which interweaves events that take place 50 years apart in the same bedroom, marks a rare Broadway stint for an unknown author.

Douglas Carter Beane will finally see one of his plays reach Broadway on November 13, when “The Little Dog Laughed” transfers with its leading lady (Julie White) intact and a new male star (Tom Everett Scott). “Little Dog” came from Second Stage, and two other major off-Broadway houses are also transferring relatively daring musicals from last season. “Grey Gardens” (November 2), the fleshed-out rethinking of the 1975 documentary, features a legendary performance by Christine Ebersole, while I described “Spring Awakening” (December 10) during its Atlantic Theatre run as “the most thrilling rock musical of the last decade.” And City Center’s Encores! series of semi-staged musicals will get a transfer of sorts when star Kristin Chenoweth and director Gary Griffin bring their 2005 production of “The Apple Tree” to the Roundabout’s Studio 54 space (December 14).

Broadway also looks to broaden its appeal to several key demographics. Kids can choose from the critically lauded “Mary Poppins” musical, which finally makes its way over from London on November 16, or the holiday stopover of the touring “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” (November 8). Gen-Xers can choose between musicals based on two beloved sources: Broadway’s “High Fidelity” (December 7) and off-Broadway’s “Evil Dead: The Musical” (November 1), based on the Sam Raimi gorefests. The traditionally underserved ventriloquism buffs, meanwhile, get their day in the sun September 28, when “Jay Johnson: The Two and Only!” opens.

Or, if you prefer grinches of a more literary sort, the alarmingly prolific Neil LaBute brings his one-man play “Wrecks” (October 10) to the Public, starring Ed Harris. And iconic Western author Cormac McCarthy makes a foray into the world of theatre in late October with “The Sunset Limited,” presented by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre.

In terms of revivals, a quartet of classics are crossing the Atlantic but stopping short of the East River (i.e., being performed in Brooklyn).That includes a pair of Ibsens at BAM — the National Theatre of Norway’s”Wild Duck”(October 25), transplanted to the 1950s, and a modernist “Hedda Gabler” (November 28) from German provocateur Thomas Ostermeier. BAM will also host the marvelous director Declan Donnellan, who hasn’t been seen in these parts since 2004; his Russian-language “Twelfth Night”opens November 7.Not to be undone, St. Ann’s Warehouse will feature London’s Gate Theatre a week later in its acclaimed production of the malleable Georg Büchner classic “Woyzeck.”

Stubborn Manhattanites might consider seeing the other Gate Theatre — the one from Dublin — perform its “Waiting for Godot” (October 24) at NYU’s Skirball Center; this is a virtual restaging of the production the Gate brought to the Lincoln Center Festival in 1996 as part of its 19-play Beckett festival.And Classical Theater of Harlem, which presented its own “Godot” earlier this year to mark the Beckett centennial, presents a homegrown “King Lear,” starring Andre de Shields, in early October.

If your taste in revivals runs a bit more modern, “A Chorus Line” (October 5) and “Les Miserables” (November 9) both return to Broadway with memories of the original productions still fresh in the minds of many.”Annie” and “Company” both saw Broadway revivals in the last decade or so; they’re back, although “Annie” (December 6) is setting up in the Madison Square Garden theatre this time and “Company” (November 29) is getting a fairly radical actors-with-instruments staging by John Doyle, who gave “Sweeney Todd” a similar makeover last year.The Roundabout will take cracks at Tennessee Williams (“Suddenly Last Summer” with Blythe Danner and Carla Gugino, opening November 15) and the all-too-rarely revived George Bernard Shaw (“Heartbreak House” with Philip Bosco and Swoosie Kurtz, opening October 11). And Nathan Lane plays the glibly self-destructive title character in the 1971 Simon Gray comedy “Butley” (October 25).

David Mamet directs his new adaptation of “The Voysey Inheritance” (December 6) at the Atlantic, while Scott Elliott directs recent Tony winner Cynthia Nixon in the New Group’s “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (October 9). And Sam Shepard’s “Tooth of Crime” will get seen in its rare, rock-star staging of 1983 on October 5 at La MaMa, featuring that production’s original cast. Emphatically not a revival is Theatre Couture’s take on Stephen King’s “Carrie” (December 6) at P.S. 122. The campy company had looked into reviving the infamous musical version but wound up creating its own adaptation instead.

The season promises to be strong on works by female playwrights, starting tomorrow, when Young Jean Lee’s off-kilter comedy “Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven” opens at HERE, and culminating in November with Lydia Diamond’s adaptation of the Toni Morrison novel “The Bluest Eye.”This Steppenwolf Theatre production will open at the New Victory, the enterprising children’s theatre. (Between this and “The Sunset Limited,” Steppenwolf is seeing to it that you never have to pick up a book this season.)

A half-dozen other relatively unheralded women will see major works open.Among them: Julia Cho’s “Durango” (November), about a Korean-American family’s road trip, at the Public; the two-character drama “Blue Door” (October 10) by Tanya Barfield, at Playwrights Horizons; “The Internationalist” (November 7), a Vineyard Theatre production by Anne Washburn of the 13P playwrights collective; and Heather Woodbury’s “Tale of 2Cities” (October 12),a two-part chronicle of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ cross-country transplant to Los Angeles. And Sarah Ruhl’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist “The Clean House,” which opens October 30 in Lincoln Center’s off-Broadway space, makes its much-anticipated New York debut after more than a half-dozen major regional productions.

And if you’re looking for more works by acclaimed female playwrights — say, 30 dozen or so new works — keep your eyes peeled for “365 Days / 365 Plays,” the fruit of Suzan-Lori Parks’s yearlong one-playa-day project. It’s happening under the auspices of the Public, starting November 13, but will take place all over the city. Suddenly, “The Coast of Utopia” looks downright breezy.