With the new year close at hand, Seattle theaters are getting in gear for a busy 2012. Coming up soon: Shakespeare, a rock musical, a festival of quickie new works and more.

Here is a heads up for some of the early January offerings; stay tuned to Weekend Plus for more:

14/48 Festival: Does the stress of tight (brutally tight) deadlines produce great theater? That theory is tested annually by this marathon.

In each of the two weekends of the fest, seven playwrights, seven directors and a group of actors, designers and musicians have 48 hours to choose a theme and write, rehearse and produce seven new 10-minute plays on Friday and another seven new plays (and new theme) on Saturday.

And for the past 15 years, audiences have eagerly gathered to see what they come up with.

This twice-yearly sprint returns to ACT Theatre for the first two weekends of January, with 50 artists participating in what organizers claim is the "world's quickest theater festival."

The 14/48 Festival runs Jan. 6-7 and 13-14 at ACT Theatre, Seattle. (206-292-7676; www.acttheatre.org)

"Spring Awakening": Ah, youth. This offbeat, affecting amalgam of the old and the au courant by composer-musician Duncan Sheik and writer Steven Sater won a merited 2007 Tony Award for best Broadway musical.

With hard-rocking anguish and tender balladry, "Spring Awakening" tells the same story of young love and social repression as the theater classic it was based on: Frank Wedekind's highly controversial play of the same title.

On Broadway, "Spring Awakening" helped launch the careers of "Glee" stars Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, and it toured to Seattle's Paramount Theatre (with different leads).

The upcoming Balagan Theatre outing will be the first local staging, directed by Eric Ankrim at the company's new home: The Erickson Theatre on Capitol Hill.

The cast includes Jerick Hoffer, Diana Huey and Brian Earp in this story of teens whose carnal connection has tragic repercussions.

Jan. 6-15 at Erickson Theatre, Seattle. (800-838-3006; balagantheatre.org).

Book-It/UW Novel Workshop Series: Book-It Repertory collaborates with the University of Washington School of Drama to develop new stage works based on contemporary and classic fiction.

The outcome of intensive workshops and master classes with Book-It professionals and UW acting students will be "first reads" — staged readings of four new scripts that could later end up in a Book-It season.

They will be presented in two double bills: "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb and "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett (performed Jan. 12 and 14); and Charlotte Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" and "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," by mystery author Agatha Christie (Jan. 13 and 15).

At Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre, University of Washington, Seattle. (206-543-4880; www.book-it.org)

Also making an entrance:

"Coriolanus," William Shakespeare's action-drama inspired by the historical tragedy with an ancient Roman warrior, in a chamber adaptation by Seattle Shakespeare Company. Tuesday-Jan. 29 at Center House Theatre, Seattle (206-733-8222; www.seattleshakespeare.org)

"West Side Story," the classic musical of warring street gangs and forbidden romance, on tour in a recent hit Broadway revival. Jan. 10-15 at Paramount Theatre, Seattle (877-784-4849; www.stgpresents.org).

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published Dec. 30, 2011, was corrected Dec. 30, 2011. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of new plays staged in the annual 14/48 Festival, and a photo caption listed a curtain call from 2010, when it was 2011.