Because of the large swath of Manhattan that Off-Broadway occupies, it’s less easy to focus on than Broadway, where all the shows are within walking distance of one another. Besides, Broadway gets time in the spotlight every summer with the Tony Awards; no closeted high school theater queens are planning their Drama Desk Awards viewing party. However, as more and more productions are transferring from Off to the Great White Way (including Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Scottsboro Boys this season), a quick glance at what the major Off-Broadway players have in store is in order.

MCC Theatre will continue bringing stars to the Lucille Lortel Theater (where we were treated to Hugh Dancy in The Pride) with its production of Neil LaBute’s The Break of Noon (Oct. 28). Starring David Duchovny as a man who survives an office shooting during which he saw the face of God, LaBute’s latest morality play will also star Amanda Peet.

The Vineyard, which had a stellar season last year thanks to The Scottsboro Boys and Adam Rapp’s The Metal Children, will begin the 2010-2011 season with Will Eno’s Middletown (previews begin Oct. 6). Eno, who was Pulitzer-nominated for Thom Pain (based on nothing), returns to the stage with a “powerful and poignant” play starring Linus Roache, Heather Burns, Michael Park and The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Georgia Engel.

Theater fans are also eager for the new season at Playwrights Horizons, another Off-Broadway company that had a remarkable season last year. Things look promising indeed, with season-opener Edward Albee’s Me Myself & I (Sept. 12), starring Brian Murray and Elizabeth Ashley in a play about a mother who can’t distinguish between her twin sons. After that comes After the Revolution (previews begin Oct. 21), about a granddaughter who idolizes her blacklisted grandfather until “history reveals a shocking truth,” and Adam Bock’s A Small Fire (previews begin Dec. 10), about a female contractor who starts losing her grip.

Atlantic Theater Company looks set to bounce back from a mediocre season when it reunites with playwright Lucy Thurber (Scarcity) for her Bottom of the World (Sept. 14) and two Harold Pinter plays, The Collection and A Kind of Alaska (Nov. 21).

In addition to their Broadway productions, Manhattan Theater Club will also be producing Spirit Control (Oct. 26) Off-Broadway. The drama, by Beau Willimon (Farragut North) follows an air-traffic controller who must talk a passenger through an emergency landing after the pilot suffers a heart attack. Primary Stages will bring In Transit (Sept. 21), a musical about commuting via subway in new York City in which the seven performers “create every note with their own voices,” to 59E59 Theaters; The Roundabout’s Off-Broadway offerings include the commissioned The Language Archive (Oct. 17), about a linguist struggling to find the words to save his career and marriage, and Tigers Be Still (Oct. 6), directed by Sam Gold (who directed Circle Mirror Transformation), about the misadventures of substitute art teacher Sherry, played by Halley Feiffer. And The New Group will present dark comedy Blood From a Stone (TBA), about a working-class Connecticut family. Oh, and Signature Theatre Company is reviving something called Angels in America (Oct. 28). Not that it matters; it’s practically sold out through the 2011 closing date.