“Beyond Karaoke” began in a tiny California town as a locally written musical in which all the accompaniment came from a Utah County karaoke company.

The owner of that company, curious to see how his product was being used, flew out to see the show, liked what he saw, and recognized it as an opportunity to sell more of his karaoke CDs. If a show ABOUT karaoke singing that USES karaoke music is popular with audiences, you’re sitting on a goldmine!

Unfortunately, “Beyond Karaoke” is not a very good show, its script sounding an awful lot like something that began in a tiny California town as a locally written musical. The fact that the show has now become, quite unabashedly, nothing more than an advertising tool just makes its lack of entertainment value all the more jarring. (If it were really good, we might not mind the 500 karaoke ads that greet us when we buy tickets, visit the lobby and open the printed program.)

The show is about a failing airport bar run by the unbelievably un-hip Bryce (Chad Hardy) and his sardonic sister Tammy (Jennifer Pope). In an effort to boost business, their employee, Randy (M. Casey Reeves) suggests introducing karaoke singing. Tammy is all for it — “It’s the ‘in’ thing!” she declares, untruthfully — and convinces Bryce to go along.

Karaoke helps a bit, but not much, so the three decide to do the singing themselves, hoping the customers will follow. This leads to their doing a full show, complete with costumes and impersonations of the people whose songs they’re singing. Semi-flighty waitress Lisa (Heidi Taylor), a former professional singer, is hesitant to help out for trite reasons that come out later.

Basically, the plot exists as a means of allowing four actors to do impressions of everyone from Sonny and Cher to Elvis. They do this pretty well — and, in fact, the foursome is undeniably committed to the occasionally ridiculous things the script calls on them to do, clearly making the most of the situation.

Despite the program’s assertion that SCERA’s production is the Utah premiere (or “premier,” as they spell it), that distinction actually goes to the Valley Center Playhouse, which did the show earlier this year. (Reeves and Pope appeared in that version, too.) The small Lindon theater was actually better-suited for the show, as the intimate feel helps the audience assume the part of bar patrons who sing along with the karaoke (which is encouraged). The SCERA is too large to allow that kind of immediacy, and much of the jollity seems forced.

I know some rewriting has been done between the Lindon production and this one, that Lindon’s had some changes to John Driscoll’s original script, and that Driscoll has since unchanged some of the changes and added some things of his own. Frankly, the Lindon version — whether it was the product of John Driscoll or the local cast — was better. I remember two specific jokes that were funny in that one whose punch lines have been changed to where they are no longer funny. Also, a concluding scene that wraps the whole thing up has been cut, taking any sense of cohesiveness with it, so that the show now ends with the big karaoke medley. But, since the show’s purpose is to promote a karaoke company, why not end that way? All those characters and their plotlines, however feeble they may be, are just going to get in the way of selling CDs.

“The Pajama Game” is an “old-fashioned” (i.e., sexist) musical about love in the workplace, a relic from a bygone era in which sexual harassment was cute and funny.

It takes place at a Midwest pajama factory mired in conflict. The workers, led by a philandering union president (Steve Phillips) and a tough-talking employee named Babe Williams (Teri Cowan), want a 7 1/2-cent raise. Blustery boss Hasler (Neal Barth) and his new superintendent Sid Sorokin (Gary Neilson) don’t want to give it. You can see where the conflict would come in.

It’s complicated by the fact that Sid and Babe fall in love with each other, despite being on opposite sides of the battle. After a 105-minute first act so sluggish it feels like an eternity, the inevitable happens, and Sid has to choose between his loyalty to the company and his love for Babe. You can guess what happens, since there’s still a second act in which to sort things out.

It was a hit on Broadway in 1954, and some of its charms remain, particularly in the tuneful score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross that includes “Hey There” and “Hernando’s Hideaway.”

Most of what must have been appealing 46 years ago, though, has decomposed with time. Married men who hit on all the women at work are not considered charming anymore, nor is it generally acceptable to depict the women as swooning airheads who are susceptible to every masculine advance that comes their way.

Furthermore, while the show has several fine songs, it also has a disproportionate number that are completely unrelated to the action. Most musicals have one or two of those, of course, but this one has many. You don’t mind them when they’re peppy, pretty or exciting, but most of these just ARE: They exist, but they don’t do anything.

Neilson and Cowan are very good as Sid and Babe. Neilson is a great old-time musical performer, with a stocky build and a voice that is melodious but still very manly, and Cowan gives her character much more life than she deserves. Also worthy of note is the hilarious, bird-legged Annette Wright as feisty secretary Mabel.

As an artifact from a different time in American theater, the show may hold some interest. But even if you happen to be a fan of the show, this slow-paced, mostly forgettable production of it is unlikely to bowl you over.

Mary English’s magnificent set design, all wooden and ancient-looking, makes one nearly giddy with anticipation that Pioneer Theatre Company’s production of “King Lear” will be equally impressive. But, O cruel fate! Most of the acting is as wooden as the set, turning this very human tragedy into a pastiche of scenes and events.

It’s a rather odd situation, but we can easily divide the performers into two groups: the ones who seem like they are portraying real characters with real emotions, and the ones who, rather than speaking lines, always seem to be just delivering speeches, completely detached from everyone around them.

The former group can be counted on one hand: Lear (an authoritative William Leach), Kent (the always-reliable Max Robinson), Gloucester (Richard Mathews, old and sympathetic), Edgar (a focused and multi-faceted John Leonard Thompson) and Edmund (the sneeringly sinister Jonathan Hammond).

The story: English King Lear, aging and arrogant, seeks to divide his kingdom among his three daughters before he dies. First, though, he wants their public pronouncements of how much they love him. Goneril (Alison Edwards) and Regan (Joyce Cohen), both cartoonishly conniving without any apparent motive, do some flowery speechifying and fool their proud old man. The honest-hearted Cordelia (Krista Hoeppner), however, merely speaks the truth: She loves Lear like any daughter would love her dad.

Enraged that Cordelia has not worshipped him the way her sisters did, Lear takes away her dowry and banishes her. The king of France (Ward L. Wright) still marries her, and they are a fitting couple, as Wright over-acts (thank goodness he only gets a couple scenes), and Hoeppner is melodramatic and weepy, treating every line she speaks as though it were the Gettysburg Address.

Meanwhile, Gloucester’s illegitimate son Edmund, living up to the title of “bastard” in every possible sense, plots to fool his father into thinking his good son, Edgar, is against him. He succeeds, and Gloucester rejects Edgar and embraces Edmund, which is exactly the opposite of what he should do.

Thus we have the parallel stories of Lear and Gloucester, both having foolishly cast off the child who loved them most and living to regret their mistakes. In the hands of a synergistic cast and director, the play can exude, even in its many tragic turns, warmth and intimacy, even hope. There is much to be said about unwavering loyalty and forgiveness.

But here, led by Charles Morey, the characters talk to each other a lot, yet rarely connect. Even the many deaths come off bad, usually involving an unconvincing stab, a campy “I am slain!,” and a slump to the ground.

The few great performances really are great — from the deliciously evil Edmund to the feeble Gloucester — and they almost carry the show. But not quite. The whole story seems hollow, the characters empty, and the show is, to paraphrase another Shakespeare play, full of sound and fury and signifying very little.

The idea of forcing the ultra-British “Pirates of Penzance” into a “Star Wars”-style space setting seems like a case of changing something just for the sake of changing it. (People do it all the time with Shakespeare, setting “Hamlet” in a prison camp, or “Taming of the Shrew” in a button factory, or whatever.)

But while UVSC’s production does indeed seem strained at times — calling a sword a “light saber” once, and then forgetting to change the other “sword” references, for example — it all seems OK when you realize that whatever Gilbert and Sullivan were satirizing, it has little relevance now, and the show exists today mainly as a silly trifle full of fun rhymes and catchy tunes. Why not mess around with it? This ain’t exactly Shakespeare, after all.

The story is of a pirate apprentice named Frederic (Mark Stringham) who, on his 21st birthday, has completed his indentured servitude and is free to join civilized society. This dismays his soft-hearted pirate friends, led by their Pirate King (Jaelan Petrie), but they let him go, sending his nanny, Ruth (Courtney Young), with him.

Soon Frederic happens upon a group of lovely young ladies, and he falls in love with the skinniest one, Mabel (Brittany Wiscombe). His pirate buddies come along and, in a matter of seconds, fall in love with the other girls. They are the daughters of a Major General (Aaron DeJesus), who uses The Force to convince the pirates that he’s an orphan — someone to be pitied, not someone to leave lonely by stealing his daughters. (This is a rare instance of the “Star Wars” thing actually working.) When the pirates find out he’s not really an orphan, though, that’s when the fun begins!

It’s a daft little show, directed by D. Terry Petrie, with Doc Taylor directing the music and Kathie Debenham taking care of the often-elaborate, always-amusing choreography. The show starts out slowly, with too much exaggerated unison movement, but it eventually grows into itself.

Everyone performs with aplomb, but a few stand out. Stringham and Wiscombe are a handsome stage couple, he with a sweet, strong singing voice and she with an impossibly high (but not operatic) soprano. Jaelan Petrie is great as the Pirate King, too, singing with perhaps better enunciation than anyone, and earning more than a few laughs, too. Young, in the underappreciated role of Ruth, proves herself yet again to be a fine character actress. And DeJesus’s aged Major General — looking like a cross between Obi-Wan Kenobi, the evil emperor and Yoda — is a jolly little fellow, positively Dumbledorian, with a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step. It’s obvious he’s having fun with the show; you will, too, once you get used to it.

The Pleasant Grove Players did “The Foreigner” earlier this year, and it was apparently so successful that they’ve brought the show around the corner to the Little London Dinner Theater, where it’s being performed through Nov. 11.

The director, Howard Little, and every cast member but one are the same as in the earlier production.

It’s a frequently performed play from the mid-’80s that is somewhere between all-out farce and droll character-based comedy. A painfully shy man named Charlie (Thane Bingham) is dragged to rural Georgia on a military-training trip with Australian buddy Froggy LeSueur (DeShawn Smith). Froggy leaves Charlie at his friend Betty Meeks’s (Donna Bingham) fishing lodge, where, in order to keep Charlie from having to make conversation with strangers, he tells Betty that Charlie speaks no English. Therefore, no one will bother talking to him, and if they do, he won’t have to answer.

Also, however, no one’s afraid to talk in front of him, and he winds up learning some secrets he shouldn’t have. Former debutante Catherine Simms (Tracy Fielding), for example, is pregnant by her fiance, the supposedly saintly Rev. David Lee (Jason Boren). David, however, has nefarious doings in the works with local moron Owen Musser (Dennis Purdie). Catherine’s little brother, the dim-witted Ellard (Chad Bowler, the only cast member not in the Pleasant Grove Players production), has no secrets — except that maybe he’s smarter than everyone gives him credit for.

It’s a funny, laid-back play whose rather startling climax — it involves the Klan! — is easier to take because we’ve been coaxed into the situation casually.

The program mentions that Thane Bingham is a preschool teacher in real life, and it shows. His delivery as Charlie is soft-voiced and exaggerated, as if he were telling a story. He’s much more believable as the gobbledegook-speaking “foreigner,” where he really cuts loose.

Charlie is supposed to be British, but the story has been changed here to make him an American who’s been living in London. If Bingham can’t or prefers not to do the British accent, it’s probably better not to try — but the dialogue should be altered, too. As it is, there are several lines that sound odd being spoken with an American accent — words like “shan’t” and “fellow,” and lines like “I shall miss them terribly” scream BRITISH.

Donna Bingham is great at the widow Meeks, nailing the dialect perfectly and exuding grandmotherly charm in her frumpy housedresses and droopy stockings. The rest of the main cast, too, is enthusiastic and funny, not always mining the depths of the characters, but definitely having fun with them.

Ruth Hale is a crazy, forgetful old woman. Also, she’s starring in “The Curious Savage.”

Relax! It’s a joke. Please, put down the phone.

Though suffering from a slow start, “The Curious Savage” works up to be a pretty entertaining comedy, with a surprisingly touching finale. In it, wealthy widow Ethel Savage (Ruth Hale on Thursdays and Fridays; Maureen Eastwood the other nights) has been committed to a mental institution by her children, who are angry that she wants to leave all her money to charity rather than give it to them. Their reasoning is that anyone who would just GIVE all that money away can’t be sane. When she announces she’s forgotten where she put all the money, well, that’s the last straw.

The children are fatuous senator Titus (Richard Lossee; double-cast with Brent Whitlock), pompous judge Samuel (Daryl Tucker), and money-marrying socialite Lily Belle (Kathleen O’Reilly-Nutt). All three roles are excellently played with grand hoity-toity absurdity.

Sharing space at the nut house is the typical lot of lovable crazies. There’s Florence (Sherry Brian; double-cast with Tracy Whitlock), ostensibly the most normal but with an air of sadness about her that Brian plays with perfect dignified tragedy; Hannibal (Paul Hill), a violinist who can’t play the violin; Fairy May (Kim Wares), a wacky, plain-looking gal; Jeffrey (Nathan Wright), a man scarred emotionally — and, he thinks, physically — by the war; and Mrs. Paddy (Kathy Llewellyn), a rumpled woman who paints seascapes and never speaks except to name the things she hates.

They’re a fun bunch, and while it may seem we don’t get to know them beyond the superficial level, you’ll realize that’s not true when the poignant, non-sappy final moments arrive.

Wares is a bit over-the-top as Fairy May, an unceasingly ball of loopy energy with no varying degrees of loopiness. It’s like arbitrarily choosing the speed of 50 mph for your car and then always driving that speed: Sometimes it’s too much; other times, it’s exactly right.

Carrie Hill plays the sympathetic nurse Miss Wilhelmina, and Larson Holyoak is the sympathetic Dr. Emmett. No “Cuckoo’s Nest” Nurse Ratchet here, fortunately.

And then there’s Ruth Hale. She’s 92 years old, and at this point rarely plays the lead in shows at either of the Utah theaters that bear her name. She doesn’t get around too well anymore, and memorizing lines is difficult. On opening night, she drew a blank a few times, and damaged a few more punch lines by not getting them out quickly enough (timing is everything, as you know).

But the fact is, when she nails it, she really nails it. She can be fantastic to watch — acerbic and feisty, her old blue eyes twinkling with energy, or conveying sadness at the situation, her sweet grandmotherly voice cracking out subtle put-downs and sarcastic observations the way my own late Grandma Merrifield used to do (and probably still does, assuming a sense of humor is allowed in heaven).

Ruth Hale is sweet and endearing. Also, she’s starring in “The Curious Savage.” Go see it.

I’ve seen “Forever Plaid” what, maybe a thousand times now, and darned if the production at Thanksgiving Point isn’t just about the most charming.

In case you haven’t seen Utah’s second-most often produced play (after “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”), here’s the deal: In 1964, a fictitious up-and-coming male harmony group called The Plaids were killed in a car accident. Now, 36 years later, they are allowed to come back from the other side to do the one big concert they never got to do in life. “Forever Plaid” is that concert, and we are the lucky audience.

They sing the songs they knew then, of course — a couple dozen pop hits from the ’50s and early ’60s. (Contrary to what the program says, “Forever Plaid” did NOT “make famous the songs ‘Three Coins in the Fountain,’ ‘Moments to Remember’ and ‘Catch a Falling Star.'” Those songs, like all the songs in this show, existed long before “Forever Plaid” debuted off-Broadway in 1989.)

The four guys are Jinx (Josh Meurer), who gets nosebleeds on the high notes; Smudge (Erik Christensen), a nervous, bespectacled fellow who keeps getting “left” and “right” mixed up; Frankie (Benjamin Mason), the most confident of the four; and Sparky (Derek T. Call), the goofy, rosy-cheeked clown.

It is Sparky who develops the most personality; the other three, while extremely charismatic, only hint at their individual character traits. Besides, the music does most of the talking anyway.

The humor is in 1) Sparky’s horsing around, 2) the fact that it’s been 34 years and sometimes they forget the dance steps or come in too early on a song, and 3) the eternal truth that four guys dressed in dinner jackets moving in unison is automatically funny. (It really is: The choreography, which Call and KT Riggs adapted from a production Call was in at Hale Center Theater Orem two years ago, is often very funny, and the fact that all four guys are making the same silly hand motions at once just makes it funnier.)

The singing and harmonies are superb, and the banter with the audience between songs is generally enjoyable. Even if you’re too young to feel nostalgia for songs like “Cry” and “Heart and Soul,” it’s hard not to be entertained by a zippy little show like this.

At the titular eatery in “Riot at Flo’s Cafe,” you can order up a slice of life just as easily as a slice of pie.

The new play, by Villa Playhouse owner W. Bill Brown Jr., is debuting at the Little Brown Theatre in Springville, where the cozy setting makes the semi-autobiographical story all the more intimate. Even though it may never completely grab your attention or affections, it’s certainly a quaint glimpse into 1950s small-town life — sort of a “Happy Days” meets “Our Town” kind of thing.

It’s the fall of 1956, and Tilly (Dana Campbell; double-cast with MinD Jensen) is running the cafe while mom Flo (Anne Jackson) is visiting a sick relative. The local sheriff, Zeke (Scott Tarbet), is a jovial teddy-bear of a guy, and he and local steel worker Bob (Mike Huffaker) eat breakfast there every morning.

Other regulars include Eloise (Joan Shippen) and Bonnie (Arlene McGregor), who play gin rummy with Flo and talk about whatever’s going on in town.

Usually, “whatever’s going on in town” is absolutely nothing. But suddenly, things have gone crazy. Flo has a pinball machine in the cafe, and food prizes are given out for high scores, making it a sort of gambling. As such, no one under 18 is allowed to play. But town delinquent James Bracken (Michael Roberts; double-cast with Ben Phelan) takes a break from abusing his eager-for-abuse girlfriend Liz (Kathryn Ruzicka) one day just long enough to lie about his age and play a game.

His busy-body mother, the shrill, strutting, over-gesturing Mildred Bracken (Susan Phelan) is furious at this “den of iniquity” (she’s one of those moms who doesn’t like to admit her son’s a cretin) and has Flo arrested for allowing it.

Though James is more oafish (“dumb broad” is what he calls Liz) and his mother more unreasonable than even the strangest people we meet in real life, the characters are generally realistic in their quiet, dull little lives. (Jeff Carter as soft-spoken, stumbling cook Blaine is particularly endearing, and he plays the physical comedy well without overdoing it.) Even the “huge” crisis of Flo receiving a citation never seems like a life-or-death thing, but in this town, that kind of event passes for mayhem.

“This town” is nebulous. We know playwright Bill Brown’s mother ran a cafe in Provo in the 1950s, but Provo is never mentioned. It could be Anytown, U.S.A. — except for one sarcastic reference in which a character is called “Bishop” for giving up coffee.

The script could use some streamlining, as the characters often summarize events we already know about, and other times give us information we don’t need. The manner of establishing backstory is odd, too: Characters ask each other no fewer than seven questions, all in the first act, that begin “How long has it been…?” (How long has Blaine worked here, how long has the sheriff been coming here, how long since Flo’s divorce, etc.)

In all, “Riot at Flo’s Cafe” is a pleasant, simple play with a happy ending and general good-naturedness throughout — much like the decade it represents.

In the new J.T. Rogers play “White People,” three of the title characters tell their stories in monologue form, addressing the audience directly, each speaking for a few minutes then freezing in black-outs as the next person tells some more of his or her story.

The idea is that each of them is racist in one way or another, but not in the cross-burning, redneck fashion that is obvious. Their racism is subtle. It’s the kind of racism, the play wants us to believe, that we all have within us, somewhere, whether we recognize it as racism or not. (Don’t worry, the play will tell us what’s racism and what isn’t. Pretty much everything is.)

A play this politically correct is almost foreordained to be mired in pretentiousness. One character, a businessman named Martin Bahmueller (played with unblinking intensity by Joe Welsch), runs a tight ship. He believes people should speak and dress properly, and that when one of his African-American employees speaks in what we called “Ebonics” a few years ago, that person is going to be a “burger-flipper for life.”

Is that a racial thing? This is a businessman, whose customers expect professionalism. Is it racist to expect your employees to speak proper English? The play would have us believe that to even suggest that Ebonics is not a valid way of speaking is already racist, and that forcing your employees to abandon it is even worse. If you disagree with this, well, you must have some latent racism in you, too.

At center stage is New York college professor Alan Harris (Kurt Proctor, speaking in David Mamet-style pauses and interruptions), who has a brilliant black woman in his class who he thinks betrays her intelligence by smacking her gum and speaking in hip-hop slang. A group of young black men attacked him and his wife, possibly injuring his unborn baby; now, he has anger that he doesn’t know how to direct.

Finally, there’s Southerner Mara Lynn Doddson (a marvelously unkempt Mary Parker Williams), whose young boy is autistic and is being treated by Dr. Singh, an Indian “with a dot on his head.” She’s frustrated because she was Homecoming Queen in high school, yet her life has gone nowhere. Meanwhile, all these foreigners have managed to move ahead of her. Where’s the justice in that?

The play generally avoids preachiness, opting instead to shock us with horrible tales of violence and hatred, asking us to identify the sources of racism. Whether it’s jealousy, misdirected anger or breeding, the idea is that racism is everywhere, and we have to admit that before we can conquer it. By finding racism where it probably isn’t, the play does itself a disservice. Nonetheless, the message is powerful, and the acting is as vibrant and compelling as anything you’ll see.

Part maudlin Neil Simon comedy, part semi-entertaining sitcom, BYU’s new “Sy’s Girl” stretches at comedy, as well as at themes of reality and happiness, but ultimately falls just short of reaching them.

Moira (Jessica Mockett) is a 20-year-old college girl with a perfect boyfriend: Sy (Luke Drake), a handsome, sensitive, romantic fellow who is five years older than she and who doesn’t exist. She made him up when she was 12, and they’ve been “together” ever since.

Her roommate and best friend, Uber-feminist Delia (Rebecca Connerley), plays Rhoda to her Mary in their little sitcom house, complaining with world-weary sardonicism about the banalities of life. “I don’t mind guys in theory,” she says. “I just don’t like them in my personal space.” Cue laugh track.

Delia encourages Moira’s delusions, even though it means she avoids dating real guys. She defends Sy, saying that Moira was a “functioning adult who made a decision that made her happy.” A good point, except that Moira was 12 when she created Sy, and her childhood fantasy has now taken over her life.

Problems arise when Delia’s cousin, Quinn (Rick Murdock), playing the part of Generic Guy, comes over for dinner. In a highly unlikely sequence of events, Delia immediately tells Quinn all about Moira’s imaginary friend — something few people know about, yet Delia blabs it in five minutes. But Moira is more irked when her sitcom-standard Meddling Parents (Ruthanne Lay and F. Oscar Wright) drop by and wind up inviting Quinn — whom Moira doesn’t care much for, what with him being real and all — to Thanksgiving dinner.

Moira falls for Quinn, and Sy gets jealous. Moira has to face reality. That’s when it turns from a sitcom into a made-for-TV domestic melodrama, with people yelling things along the lines of, “You were never there for me!” and “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It’s a fine idea for a play, but it’s amazing that this thing, written by undergraduate Natalie Prado, went through BYU’s Writers/Directors/Actors Workshop and came out with so many holes still intact. Delia is a psychology major, yet staunchly supports Moira’s clearly unhealthy obsession. Moira’s parents, one two-dimensionally shrill and the other bumblingly soft-spoken, sneak into her apartment on a regular basis and read her diary — and then justify it by saying Moira never opens up to them.

Furthermore, the whole thing lacks emotional build, with Moira seeming to make the same decision several times before the play finally ends.

There are some good lines, and some clever, subtle observations about life, mixed in with all the jokey-silly stuff. Despite her character’s flaws and contradictions, Connerley is successful at conveying the likably grumpy Delia as somewhat real. Mockett is kind of stuck as Moira — who spends most of the play in a fantasy world — but does what she can to make her seem as real as possible. Similarly, Murdock does what he can with the puzzlingly non-descript Quinn.

Drake’s excellent scenes are the sincerely suave Sy are the play’s highlights, and are used sparingly. It’s easy to see why Moira has clung to him for eight years. But even Sy’s character breaks down after a while, when his jealousy gets the best of him and he starts to act like a normal, non-perfect guy. Is this really what Moira would imagine? The psychological implications touched on throughout the play are neat, but nothing is ever done with them. All you can do is wait until the end, when everything turns out happy and the closing credits roll.

The great musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” what with its dark comedy and campy-creepy ending (very different from the movie version), is not performed very often in these parts. So the Off Broadway Theatre in Salt Lake City is to be applauded for bringing the tuneful treat to the stage in the first place.

Seymour Krelborn (Eric Jensen) is a skid-row loser who works for Mr. Mushnick (Zac Zumbrunnen) in his greasy flower shop. His co-worker, the lovely Audrey (Alexis Owen), suffers from low self-esteem (a common problem on Skid Row) and dates sadistic dentist Orin Scrivello (Mike Brown). Everything looks bad for everyone.

Then Seymour finds a weird plant he’s never seen before, which he dubs “Audrey II.” By accident, he discovers that what makes the flytrap-style plant thrive is blood. The plant grows, customers flock to see it, they buy flowers, everybody’s happy.

That’s when Audrey II (voiced by Logan Black), now almost filling the room, starts talking and demanding real food — flesh, to be specific. Fortunately, that awful Orin Scrivello sorta deserves the fate of being killed and fed to a plant, and before you know it, Audrey II is REALLY thriving, Seymour’s really famous, and the question becomes: How far will he go?

It’s all narrated and facilitated by a doo-wopping Greek chorus (Rochelle Barton, Sophia Valdez, Amber Woody), befitting the show’s loosely adapted Greek tragedy plot structure.

If you haven’t seen the show, don’t let the over-analysis of its deeper points scare you; it’s meant to be a comedy, and it’s a funny one. It was written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who later did the songs for Disney’s “Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and part of “Aladdin,” and the same quality of humor exists in this earlier work.

Eric Jensen, who is known for being one of the best comic actors in these parts, full of verbal and physical agility and energy, seems oddly subdued as Seymour. It’s almost as if having a script (he’s a member of OBT’s Quick Wits improv group) makes him feel reined it. On opening night, he often seemed just about to really cut loose — and then he’d pull himself back again. Hopefully he’s worked into the role and made it his own — while still staying true to the script, of course — by now.

Alexis Owen’s Audrey is wonderful, with just the right blend of platinum-blond ditziness and sympathetic humanity. The back-up trio aids and abets the goings-on very nicely, too, though their silk-scarf clowning detracts from Audrey’s poignantly funny “Somewhere That’s Green” song.

Like I said, any chance to see this fun, interesting play is welcome. OBT has the talent on the stage; it’s just a matter of making it all work for the show — which I have every confidence they’ll have done by the time you get to seeing it.

This is pretty much what vaudeville was like” is what someone said to me, speaking in favor of Provo Theatre Company’s “The Mystery of Irma Vep.”

“You’ll notice vaudeville isn’t around anymore,” I replied.

“The Mystery of Irma Vep,” written by Charles Ludlam in the ’80s as a campy tribute to the old-style melodramas, has a delicious Halloween atmosphere complete with werewolves, vampires, and dark, stormy nights.

The comedy conceit is that five of the show’s seven actors are unable to perform, leaving Marvin Payne and Chris Brower — two venerable and very bearded actors — to play all the parts. (The five non-existent actors are even listed in the program, along with fake biographies.)

So there are numerous jokes based on the premise that men dressed as women are funny (especially if one of them is Marvin Payne), and on the actors’ stumbling through the roles they don’t normally play, making quick costume changes and killing time when they’re left alone on stage.

The story takes place at Mandacrest, an old Victorian mansion. Lady Irma Vep has died, and her husband, the “Hamlet”-quoting Lord Edgar (Brower), has recently married diva actress Lady Enid (Payne). There are secrets in the house, though, known by the maid, Jane (Brower) and the Scottish groundskeeper Nicodemus (Payne). Irma and Edgar once had a son, for example, who apparently got carried off by a wolf. Then there’s the mysterious nature of the painting of Irma that sits over the fireplace….

Brower and Payne play all the parts with great focus and energy, with Brower tending to be more frantic and Payne coming across as steady and unflappable. (His high-falutin’ Lady Enid is hysterical, as is the indecipherable Scottish accent he uses for Nicodemus.)

The show has two significant problems, both of which stem from Charles Ludlam’s script as well as J. Scott Bronson’s directing. One is the middle sequence, in which Lord Edgar goes to Egypt to find clues about vampires, et al. The sequence has a few laughs, but not many, and it feels very long. Compounding the infraction is the eventual realization that the entire scene was unnecessary except that it leads to a resolution between Edgar and Enid — a resolution that Ludlam could have figured out a much more efficient way of arriving at.

The other problem is that even though the two actors are supposedly improvising quite a bit to make up for their missing co-stars, it is apparent that most of the play was written so that no more than two characters are ever supposed to appear onstage together anyway. They also seem to know the other parts amazingly well, considering they’ve never played them before tonight. (One or two foul-ups, followed by references to “not having watched this part during rehearsal,” doesn’t excuse this.)

Men dressed as women are funny, but for how long? Two actors playing several roles is enjoyable, but for how long? Broad, melodramatic acting is entertaining, but for how long? The silly acting style may be accurate for the theatrical time period being represented, but it also ensures that none of the characters are very deep — which makes it hard to care what happens to them for the entire length of the play, which results in the play feeling too long.

Nonetheless, the giggly-creepy Halloween atmosphere can’t be beat, and the show definitely provides laughs, especially in its first half. Payne and Brower are good at what they do, and their combined charisma (even when it’s distributed over seven characters) adds a lot to this family-friendly seasonal treat.

The Desert Star Playhouse may have spent the summer being renovated but don’t worry: None of the jokes have been updated at all.

The theater’s latest offering, “Hexed Files: The Spoof Is out There,” is the same blend of endearing silliness, broad satire and groan-inducing puns that fans have come to expect from the family-friendly Desert Star.

The show is specifically a parody of “The X-Files,” and while prior knowledge of the TV series enriches the comedy experience, it’s not vital. The parody stays fairly focused, too, with only a few passing riffs on other pop-culture icons. (“Saturday’s Warrior” gets a good ribbing.)

FBI Agent Munster (Steven Fehr) is investigating a UFO crash, accompanied by his skeptical partner, Agent Skunky (Julie Ann Christensen), while the evil Lollipop Man (Paul Thomas Murphy, doing Charlton Heston) tries to stop them. Anonymous informant Strep Throat (Scott Holman, who also directed) gives Munster tips whenever he can, and Air Force pilot Major Cleveland (Gayle Hayes Castleton), who saw the spacecraft, helps, too.

Turns out the UFO was for real, and cartoonish aliens named Zazoo (Kathleen Richardson) and Woof (Nicholas D. Bruun), led by their blustery leader, Zazoo’s father Commander Zork (Ben E. Millet, who scripted), are marooned on earth.

As usual, Holman and Murphy stand out — particularly Holman, who has emerged as the theater’s best bit-part actor, milking every line he gets for all it’s worth, and ad-libbing plenty. Murphy, in a larger role, gives the Lollipop Man a sort of pompous buffoonery, saying something menacing and then falling over backward in his chair, for example.

‘It’s a strong cast all the way through, though: One of Desert Star’s best assets has always been having small ensembles with no weak links. Some jokes fall flat (punctuating them with trills on the piano does not help, by the way); others are weak but worth smiling at; and some hit you right in the face. It starts out slow, but once it gets going, “Hexed Files” is riotously funny, full of gently anarchic humor and tense scenes that end with the cast erupting into jaunty song-and-dance numbers.

Charles Dickens had “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” only half-written when he died in 1870. Since then, people who wonder about that sort of thing have wondered how the story was going to turn out.

In the mid-1980s, Rupert Holmes wrote a Broadway musical based on the incomplete story, in which a Victorian England theater troupe at a rowdy music hall portrays the story and then — here’s the gimmick — allows the audience to choose whom they think the murderer is. There are seven possible endings to the show, and the way the audience votes is really the ending they perform.

“The Mystery of Edwin Drood” is as much about the 19th-century English music hall scene as it is a retelling of Dickens’s half-finished (and, frankly, half-interesting) story. It’s a play-within-a-play, as all the cast members play British actors who are performing “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” William Cartwright (Max Robinson) is the “chairman,” or MC, who speaks to the audience, narrates the story, and interrupts the show to crack one-liners. Cast members frequently break character (well, they break out of their “Edwin Drood” characters into their Victorian England actor characters) and sing songs wholly unrelated to the plot of the show. (One fellow even sings a song about how his character is so minor, one wonders why Dickens even included him.)

The story is of Edwin Drood (Alice M. Vienneau — in the music-hall days, male impersonators were all the rage), betrothed to Rosa Bud (Marie Danvers), whom he has known all his life. His uncle, John Jasper (Robert Gallagher), who has an opium-induced Jekyll-and-Hyde thing going, is jealous, as he has always wanted Rosa for himself. Foreigner Neville Landless (Jonathan Hammond) wants her, too, though, and if the prime suspect when Edwin suddenly goes missing after a terrible rainstorm.

That’s about as much as Dickens wrote. The rest, comprising most of the second act, is the chairman and fellow cast members talking to the audience, getting our take on what happened, and then performing whichever ending we voted for, complete with a couple more songs tailored to fit the particular culprit.

Pioneer Theatre Company’s production is top-notch, as usual, with astounding sets and costumes, fine vocal performances, and professionalism all the way through. The problem is that the show they’re doing simply isn’t very good, based on a shaky foundation and written as if Holmes wasn’t sure whether he wanted to tell the Edwin Drood story or the English music-hall era story. Dickens’s story was a generic mystery at best, and completing it for him doesn’t help it much.

The show keeps falling back on the novel’s incomplete nature, as if pointing out how unusual the show is will somehow make up for it being difficult to follow and frequently uninteresting. (“Yeah, there’s nothing happening here — but our story has no ENDING, for crying out loud! Look how original we are for even DOING this show!”) It’s not enough to be daring and different; you have to be good, too. And this mediocre staging of Dickens’s mediocre story is, well, mediocre.

The Compleat Works of Wllm. Shkspr (Abridged),” opening UVSC’s theater season, is exactly what the title says: All of Shakespeare’s plays crammed into one 2-hour show, acted by three extremely energetic young men (Brett Merritt, Jason Purdy, David Patrick Nugent).

The script allows for — even calls for — improvisation and adaptation. As such, the question is, How do we make OUR production different from others?

This one, directed by Randall King, tries a few unusual things that generally work. All 16 Shakespeare comedies are crammed into one story (since their plots are so similar anyway), illustrated by a loopy slide show in which photos of cast members, along with stock footage of Saddam Hussein and an undiapered baby, among other things, help with the narrative. (When reference is made to “mischievous fairies,” we see a picture of the Village People.)

The first 20 minutes are devoted to “Romeo and Juliet,” with Purdy playing Juliet (he plays all the female parts, and is hysterically trashy as all of them) and Nugent playing everyone else. Merritt narrates, saying — as befitting the show’s absurd, British-style wit — “Since it would be impossible to perform ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with just three actors, we have decided to do it with two.”

This part, while funny, feels long — especially with it coming right at the start of the show, leaving the audience to wonder if ALL the plays are going to be 20 minutes long. The second-act “Hamlet” adaptation also drags a bit.

Elsewhere, “Titus Andronicus” is turned into a cooking show; “Othello” is a rap; “Macbeth” is in full Scottish brogue and regalia; and all the history plays are turned into a football game.

One problem with the production is that some things aren’t completely “sold.” That is, the show develops the ideas, but doesn’t fully commit itself to them. One senses that the “Othello” rap could be even MORE urban and hip-hop, and that “Macbeth” could be even MORE Scottish.

No prior knowledge of Shakespeare is required to enjoy the show, though it certainly doesn’t hurt. Most of the time is spent on “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet,” which most people are familiar with anyway.

All three actors are abundantly talented, and in a show with no shortage of trips and pratfalls, they handle the physical comedy remarkably well. Some individual characterization would help the between-plays banter go over better — as it is, all three seem more or less interchangeable — but all are as manic, likable and wacky as the show itself.

The Grand Theatre’s production of “Oklahoma!” (emphasis Rodgers and Hammerstein’s, not mine) is a nostalgic look back — not at 1907 Oklahoma, when the play takes place, but at 1943 Broadway, when the play debuted.

“They don’t make ’em like that anymore” is the sort of thing one says after watching “Oklahoma!” or any of its compatriots (“Brigadoon,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Anything Goes,” etc.). Whether the dearth of such simply written, broadly acted, lightly plotted shows in the year 2000 is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your tastes, but whatever they are, there’s no denying this production of “Oklahoma!” is a faithful, old-fashioned one with exactly the same energy and charm that must have delighted audience 57 years ago.

The plot is actually the same as many teen-oriented films of the ’80s and ’90s: Two stubborn young folks won’t admit they’re in love with each other and wind up going to The Big Dance (a “box social” in this case) with someone else in order to make the other one jealous.

Curly (Daniel Beck) is a cocky, blandly charming cowboy (you sorta like him, but he has no personality) who loves Laurey (Kimberly Allen-Tolman), an equally obstinate farm girl. Laurey is also loved by the oily, pornography-loving, loner farm-hand Jud Fry (David Hunsaker, who is none of those things in real life but does a great job portraying them here), who takes her to the box social despite the fact that she is afraid of being alone with him (and rightfully so). Curly goes with the imbecilic Gertie Cummings (Toni Davis Butler).

Meanwhile, Laurey’s friend Ado Annie (JJ Neward) is a gal who “cain’t say no,” which apparently was a charming attribute in the ’40s. She also cain’t decide between her real love, Will Parker (Darin Hathaway), or traveling salesman Ali Hakim (Andre Hicken). Ali claims to be Persian, and occasionally speaks with an accent. However, he is as Caucasian as people get; the production is unclear on whether he’s actually supposed to be Persian, or whether that’s just what he says to impress women.

The score includes several classics, including “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “People Will Say We’re in Love” and the peppy title song. Jayne Luke’s choreography is vibrant and fun, and expertly performed, particularly in Laury’s dream sequence (featuring talented dancers Amy Lives and Jake Strait).

If you’re not a fan of old-school musicals, “Oklahoma!” is not likely to appeal to you. It was ground-breaking in its day; now, it seems quaint and inconsequential. But the Grand Theatre’s production is marked by strong singing voices, excellent dancing and an admirable enthusiasm for the source material. Nostalgia — whether for turn-of-the-century frontier society or mid-’40s musical theater — is what makes the show a sentimental pleasure.

“How does one acquire a personality?” asks the hopelessly dull Brit Charlie Baker (Devin Asay) at the beginning of the Villa Playhouse’s funny production of “The Foreigner.”

And while no answer is ever really given (unless it’s “lie about who you are until people start liking you”), by play’s end, Charlie has indeed acquired a personality — and the audience has had a grand time watching him and the colorful surrounding characters go through the change together.

Set in a rural Georgia bed-and-breakfast, Charlie is in America for a few days while his Army friend Froggy LeSueur (Dane Allred) runs maneuvers. In order to keep the very shy Charlie from having to converse with anyone while he’s there, Froggy tells the owner, widow Betty Meeks (Midge Johnson), that Charlie doesn’t speak English.

This little lie changes everything. The cutely overwrought Betty is lifted out of her doldrums by interacting with a real-live foreigner. Catherine Simms (Angela Otteson), a former debutante about to enter a depressing marriage with devilish preacher David Lee (Brian McFadyen), can confide all her problems in the silent, supposedly uncomprehending Charlie. Catherine’s dunderheaded brother Ellard (Nate Mathews) starts feeling smart when he’s able to “teach” Charlie some English. And the aforementioned Reverend David, in cahoots with outright low-life Owen Musser (Niels Adair), can feel safe discussing his evil designs in front of the foreigner.

The idea is farcical, but Larry Shue’s script is more sharp-tongued and even a little dark (when we learn what David and Owen are REALLY up to) than your typical door-slamming, men-dressing-as-women farce. Despite the suspenseful finale, however, the play remains guileless and charming throughout, an earnest comedy with actors performing gracefully. Director Kathleen Nutt has guided them away from mugging and more toward honest characterization. (There’s still a little bit of over-goofiness, but not much.)

Catherine, for example, starts out almost too sarcastic and bitter (“You two up for a game of Scrabble later?” she spits at her dim-witted brother and mute Charlie). But once we learn her story, we feel much more sympathetically toward her — a tribute to Nutt’s directing and Otteson’s acting.

Asay is great as Charlie, slowly coming out of his shell as he pretends to learn English and win the hearts of those around him. The rest of the cast balances out, too, from the flustered antics of old-lady Betty Meeks to the raging idiocy of Owen Musser.

Kudos also to those responsible for the fantastic set (Bill Brown, Victor Karcich, Kathy Tramundanas, Andy Snyder and Kathleen Nutt), which looks every bit like a rural fishing lodge (by way of Deseret Industries) and which adds to the overall professionalism of this very funny, entertaining show.

“The Foreigner,” being performed at the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley, successfully mixes elements of farce, pathos and social commentary, causing the audience to laugh hysterically one minute and recoil in horror the next.

We find ourselves at a little bed-and-breakfast in rural Tilghman County, Ga. British (or perhaps Australian) military man Froggy LeSuer (Jim Gastelum) is there to train with the American troops, and he has brought along his shy, dull friend Charlie (Andrew Barrus). Charlie is, by his own admission, “shatteringly, profoundly boring,” and his wife back home thinks so, too: To alleviate her boredom, she’s sleeping around.

Charlie tells Froggy he doesn’t want to talk to anyone while staying at the inn, so Froggy tells the kind-hearted, feisty old hostess, Betty (Annette Wright), that Charlie can’t speak English, and that everyone should therefore avoid speaking to him altogether. Betty agrees to this, tickled to death to have a foreigner in her midst. (By “foreigner,” they must mean “non-English-speaker,” because Froggy is clearly non-American and is not seen as a novelty.)

We then meet the other characters. Catherine Simms (Randi Harrington-Weekes) is a young lady staying at the inn, engaged to the local preacher David Lee (Jack J. Kenison), who turns out to be a snake. He’s interested in seeing the inn condemned so he and his no-good buddy Owen Musser (Ryan Bowen; double-cast with Bryan P. Jacobs) can buy it and do nefarious things with it. To that end, David finds it essential to keep Catherine from doing anything with her sizable inheritance — which means he has to make sure she keeps thinking her dim brother Ellard (Justin Bruse) is even dumber than he is, lest she give some of the money to him.

Since everyone thinks Charlie can’t speak English, no one has any problem discussing their darkest secrets in his presence. Soon he and he alone knows everything that is going on, and he begins to come out of his shell, slowly “learning” English from Ellard and using his wits to humiliate the bad guys. Charlie turns out to be quite clever, and, to his delight, he eventually develops a personality.

Barrus is excellent as Charlie, keeping him toned-down and prim except when outlandishness is called for. Even then, he gets his best laughs with just a slight look here or a gesture there.

At the other end of the subtlety spectrum is Bruse’s Ellard. Watching his joy at being able to “teach” Charlie some English words is a delight, as Bruse goes from being slow-dumb to energetic-dumb. He bounds around the house, pointing to things and shouting their names for Charlie to repeat. Bruse and Barrus make an able comedy duo.

Also worthy of particular mention is Bowen’s seedy Owen Musser. This character is evil in a serious, non-comedic way, and Bowen plays him as creepy, oily, mean and hateable. Bowen, to his advantage, looks the part: lanky, scraggly and ungraceful, and I honestly don’t remember a recent show in which I’ve despised a character so thoroughly.

And that’s where the aforementioned social commentary comes in. Like a farce, everything is wrapped up neatly and carefully, and there’s a ridiculously happy ending. But unlike a farce, Owen and David’s secret dealings turn out to be much darker and nefarious than one normally expects. It’s nothing that will cause nightmares, but it’s definitely a bit jarring as Owen begins to rant angrily about his plans. (I won’t spoil it for you.)

This is a funny, satisfying play. Everyone gets exactly what they have coming to them. The bad guys are set up beautifully, and then knocked down expertly with Charlie’s playful cunning. The second act is much funnier than the first, as Charlie’s charade comes into full bloom, but the entire play is full of nice moments.

The Actors’ Repertory Theatre Ensemble’s production of “March Tale” at the Castle Theatre presents an enchanting little story — several stories, actually, deftly interwoven — about Shakespeare in love, Shakespeare’s actors in love, and even Queen Elizabeth in love. There are also some strong themes of family devotion and, yes, love’s labor’s lost.

An ailing Queen Elizabeth (Kathryn Laycock Little) calls upon William Shakespeare (Peter Biggs) and his actors, Lord Chamberlain’s Men, to perform “The Merry Wives of Windsor” for her. No problem, except that the only man fat and boisterous enough to play Falstaff is William Kemp (Thom Duncan), who had a falling out with Shakespeare a while back and left the troupe.

Luring him back with flattery and money, the troupe heads to London to perform — much to the dismay of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne (Shawnda Moss), for whom Will does all this work so she can live a comfortable life, but with whom he never has time to enjoy it. (“I don’t think I know any Å’merry wives,'” she says derisively upon hearing which play is being performed.)

But Will cannot be kept from the quill and the stage, and so he endeavors to write a play for Anne, a sequel to “Love’s Labour’s Lost” called “Love’s Labour’s Won.” Never mind that Anne has no interest in plays or theater; she just wants her husband.

Meanwhile, one of the actors, Tom (Jared V. Stull) becomes smitten with Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting Emilia (Shelly T. Graham), who is smitten in return. As it happens, she’s currently importuning the queen for permission not to marry the man to whom she is betrothed, and if Elizabeth would just grant that request, she’d be all set.

As luck would have it, the hot-tempered Kemp injures a young boy who was set to play Lady Anne in “Merry Wives” (remember, even the women’s roles were played by men in those days). Seizing the opportunity, and with the help of gal-pal Cecilia (Melissa Condren), Emilia dresses up as a boy and becomes a woman playing a man playing a woman — and playing opposite her beloved Tom.

That plot device (and a few smaller elements) is similar to the film “Shakespeare in Love”; however, “March Tale” predates that movie by several years, so any connection is either coincidental or plagiaristic on the part of Miramax. (Which it is depends on whom you ask, and I’m not going to get into it.)

Graham and Stull’s romance as Emilia and Tom is intentionally fluffy, though both play their roles with energy and great pleasantness, directed with an eye for light-hearted comedy by J. Scott Bronson. Shakespeare’s relationship with Anne book-ends the whole thing, yet the resolution there is not entirely satisfying. We catch what the outcome is, eventually, but we’re not entirely sure THEY caught it. Biggs is perhaps a bit too understated as Shakespeare, reacting too mildly even when the grossest injustices ar done to him. If it’s because he’s realized it doesn’t really matter, that feeling is not conveyed.

The one to watch is the majestic and beautiful Kathryn Laycock Little as Queen Elizabeth, whose feelings we learn of gradually, granting us great sympathy for the very human monarch. It is this character that gives the play resonance.

Much humor is to be found in Shakespeare’s players, and particularly with the foul, Falstaffian Kemp. (“By St. Lucy’s holy armpits!” he swears, amidst other saint-based profanities.) Thom Duncan is altogether perfect in this role, playing it to the hilt and adding yet another dimension of comic black-heartedness to this uncomplicated but intelligent comedy (and tragedy) of errors.

Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” is a fine piece of Americana, a musical farce with no purpose other than to entertain, with fantastic songs, mistaken identities and general mayhem set aboard a cruise ship.

Payson Community Theatre’s production of it, directed by David C. Dahlquist, has all the full-boar earnestness you’d expect from a community effort, but lacks the punch of what should be a fast-paced comedy. Lines that should be wry or sarcastic are coming out wide-eyed and broad — over-selling the joke, in other words, which is the worst thing you can do to a joke.

In Monday’s performance, there was a noticeable lag in the pacing, too, with far too much silence between lines. Improving that, and the comic timing in general, would help a lot.

Which isn’t to say the show isn’t entertaining, because it certainly is. The plot (which one is encouraged to ignore and just enjoy the show) has Hope Harcourt (Kellie Staheli) sailing to England, where she’s supposed to marry the wealthy Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Gary Thurston), mostly at the request of her dour mother (Ardis Leatham).

While onboard, Hope runs into Billy Crocker (Chris Kaletta), with whom she once had an association. Their romance is rekindled, hampered only by the fact that Billy is using the ticket and passport of Public Enemy No. 1 and as such has to keep in hiding. He’s aided in this by Public Enemy No. 13, Moonface Martin (Ben Jacobs), who is onboard disguised as a priest.

Meanwhile, there’s nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Berty Morgan), who wants to help Billy get Hope, and therefore offers herself to the sweet-natured, naive Sir Evelyn.

The songs really are the highlight here, written in that grand old fashion that doesn’t happen much anymore, full of intricate rhymes and infectious melodies. Molly Mangelson’s choreography is crisp, and the live orchestra sounds great, though it occasionally overpowers the fantastic singing voices of the cast members.

Laura Money, as Moonface’s moll, Bonnie, shows preternatural talent when she takes center stage to sing “Heaven Hop” and “Let’s Step Out” — two songs that are more or less unnecessary, but which give Money a chance to show off her singing, dancing and abundant charisma.

Ben Jacobs is funny as Moonface, a mediocre mobster who wants to solve every problem by killing someone. (I’ve had days like that, too.) And Chris Kaletta, Kellie Staheli and Berty Morgan all perform admirably well in their respective roles.

A little more work on the timing, and this would be a great show. As it stands, it’s good, and well worth watching. “Anything Goes” doesn’t get produced very often, so see this one while you have the chance.

The prospect of making a musical out of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” — a novel that is very decidedly a “chick book,” as they say — may frighten off men who prefer their musicals with a little more pizazz, but it shouldn’t. Hale Centre Theatre’s production of it (the second one, after a very successful premiere run in 1994) is a marvelous piece of work, melodramatic throughout (as befitting the source material), but nonetheless sublime, effective and altogether grand.

The play opens at the Lowood School for Girls, where young orphan Jane Eyre (Alanna Cottam) is put because no one else wants her. As she sings the very pretty “Passionate Goodness” song, we see her age, first to 14 (Cara Paulsen), then to 21 (Jennie Whitlock), where she remains for the duration of the play.

Things turn a bit “Secret Garden”-y (there’s even a song about someone’s eyes, like in “SG”) when she gets a job at a musty old mansion as a governess for illegitimate young Adele (Jenessa Bowen), ward of the mysteriously depressed Edward Rochester (Mark Gollaher). The house has secrets, as does Rochester, but these and other mysteries (like who the “Richard Mason” character is) are downplayed, giving emphasis instead to the inevitable romance between Jane and Rochester.

By intermission, nothing terribly exciting has happened yet, plot-wise (well, except for a devil-coiffed crazy woman who emerges from the attic long enough to set Rochester’s bed on fire, but you can’t really count that). This is typical of, ahem, “chick plays” (I’m sorry, but there doesn’t seem to be a politically correct term that expresses the thought nearly so well): heavy on romance, light on plot. Keep those questions understated. Introduce a possible love triangle. Let the characters pour their hearts out to us, but not to each other.

I’m not criticizing this genre of storytelling; I’m merely reporting how it is. And the fact that such dilly-dallying with the narrative doesn’t usually appeal to me any more than, say, reading a Charlotte Bronte novel does, speaks volumes about this play’s accessibility and emotional center. Gollaher and Whitlock give their characters such life, realism and heart that it’s impossible not to be sucked in to their story, no matter how little a “story” there actually is.

By the middle of the second act, when things are revealed and events finally occur, we’re right there with them, feeling the passion and longing that hang on the play like a London fog.

The songs, by Patricia York (who also scripted) and Jerry Williams are top-notch, too, particularly the love ballads. (The peppy songs don’t fare as well, though they’re nothing to be ashamed of.) If there were a soundtrack, I would buy it; if there were sheet music, I would learn the songs on the piano.

It’s that kind of show — the kind you want to remember, the kind that sticks with you. Even for its genre, it gets a little slow-moving here and there — especially with would-be missionary St. John (Brandon Cecala) near the end — and you may find yourself squirming a bit once you pass the 2 1/2-hour mark. (There’s also a bit of a goof with a scene that begins with a character commenting on how early in the morning it is, but ends, three songs later, with Jane declaring it’s past 9 and time to put Adele to bed.) But hang in there, and soak up some very well-played emotion in this beautiful, non-sappy love story.

Ah, merry indeed are the wives of Windsor in the Actors’ Repertory Theatre Ensemble’s production of the Shakespearean goof-fest now playing at the Castle Theatre. Merry also are the husbands, the suitors, the fat knights and the oddball supporting characters who work as an ensemble to make “Merry Wives of Windsor” a delightful treat to watch.

The main plot surrounds Sir John Falstaff (Ward L. Wright), the not-terribly-fat “fat knight” who mistakenly believes two married women have the hots for him. Being a debtor as well as a lecher, he seeks to woo these women and make off with their husbands’ money.

When the shrewd women — Mistress Page (Lynne D. Bronson) and Mistress Ford (Emmelyn Thayer) — learn of Falstaff’s plans, they plot to lead him on and then humiliate him in retaliation for his attempted misdeeds. This culminates in a forest scene — marvelous in the Castle’s outdoor setting; this is the first time all night that you notice the sound of the crickets in the surrounding trees — in which people dress as fairies and pinch Falstaff. (It makes sense in the play, sort of.)

Somewhere on the side is a plot involving Page’s beautiful, non-descript daughter Anne (Amy Ashworth), who is in love with the handsome, non-descript Fenton (Shayne N. Bayles). Anne’s mother wants her to marry the hot-tempered but wealthy Dr. Caius (Cristian Bell); her father (Benji Smith) wants her to go with flamboyant moron Abraham Slender (Matt Biedel) for reasons only he could explain.

Director Christopher Clark has obviously worked hard at getting his actors to come through with truly memorable, distinct characters. With only a few exceptions — and those primarily because Shakespeare didn’t give them much to do — everyone makes an impact, regardless of how little or how much stage time they have. Cristian Bell earns the most laughs as Dr. Caius, who shouts everything in an outrageous French accent; Loraine Edwards is an unceasing pepper-pot as Mistress Quickly, who acts as everyone’s go-between and gossip-carrier; even minor character Pistol (Joshua Bingham) lingers in one’s memory due to the rather arbitrary decision to make the character blind, leading to not a few stumblings and badly aimed utterances.

The atmosphere of the play is giddy, like a bunch of high school kids got together and did a show, giving it their all and being absolutely delighted just to be on stage — except that these “kids” are grownups with a ton of experience and great comic ability.

To me, what best exemplifies the show is a moment with Sir Hugh Evans (Joel R. Wallin), a minor character who I can’t even remember existing in the Shakespearean Festival version of the play I saw two months ago. While waiting to duel with Dr. Caius, Evans speaks a soliloquy and then suddenly rips off his shirt, revealing a torso shaped by non-exercise and Doritos, and displaying for all the world to see his pale, floppy bosoms. Here is Wallin being completely dedicated to the part, willing to do whatever it takes to get laughs — yet not seeming desperate for them. Here is an actor willing to strip himself of all dignity (and, I suspect, of all clothing) for the sake of making the character as real and memorable as can be.

The cast in general acts this way, whole-heartedly doing whatever it is they do without a trace of self-consciousness. The result? A funny, fast-paced comedy in which Falstaff comes across as the most normal person of the bunch.

Every time I see Larry Shue’s comedy “The Nerd,” I think, “Wouldn’t this be better as a five-minute ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch, rather than a full-length play?”

This time, while watching it at the Little London Dinner Theater, I realized it’s actually two sketches, not one.

The first sketch is based on the premise of a bored Indiana architect named Willum (Paul Hill) whose friend Axel (Bob Manning, also director) and girlfriend Tansy (MaryAnn Hill) throw him a birthday party, which is crashed by the title character, Rick Steadman (Chad Fulton). The joke? He’s annoying, boorish and stupid, but Willum can’t throw him out. Rick saved his life during Desert Storm and Willum promised he’d always be a friend to him.

Add to that the twist repeated many times in any sitcom starring Lucille Ball — that of the blustery boss (Troy E. Hofheins) showing up for dinner, too, thus jeopardizing the host’s job when he, too, is assaulted by the nerd — and you’ve got yourself an amusing skit. That lasts for an hour.

The second skit is the second act, after Rick has been living with Willum for a week and is wreaking havoc on his life. Unwilling to just evict him, Willum instead agrees to Axel’s plan of making up a crazy evening of “traditional” Terre Haute fun, hoping that Rick will leave on his own when he sees what weirdos these are. (Example: Tansy rushes out of the kitchen and offers, “Boiling hot tar all over your face?”) Of course this also backfires. For an hour.

In short, “The Nerd” is an amusing, farcical show that seeks to do nothing more than entertain. The moral of the story is negligible; this is a play that’s just there for giggles. It provides those giggles, to be sure, and being without substance is certainly OK for a comedy — but if that’s the route you’re going, you need to make it shorter than 2 1/2 hours, which is long for ANY comedy, but especially one that’s not going to add up to anything.

The show would move more swiftly if the actors would pick up the pace a little. On opening night, there was often too much empty space between lines; this will probably be fine-tuned over time, and I bet the show gets five minutes shorter.

Bob Manning is great as Axel, a sarcastic theater critic (hey…!) who gets all the best lines. (“‘Giants take over Atlanta,'” he says, glancing at a newspaper. “I hope that’s the sports section.”) He’s an intellectual balance to the more physical antics of Rick the nerd.

Speaking of whom, Chad Fulton does more with the Rick character than many actors do. He has only one personality trait — “annoying” — yet he avoids going over-the-top and annoying the audience, too. If it’s possible to be “restrained” in the wacky role of Rick, Fulton does it admirably.

Hale Center’s production of Lerner and Loewe’s beloved musical “My Fair Lady” uses minimalist, abstract sets, the gorgeous costumes one expects from this theater, and actors with strong singing voices to tell the curious tale of Eliza Doolittle.

Eliza (Kristine Jorgensen) is a Cockney flower girl in 1912 London. Language snob Professor Henry Higgins (Mark Pulham; normally played in this cast by Cody Hale) makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering (Lynn Beus) that he can train Eliza well enough in grammar and diction to be passed off as a duchess.

Seeking a better life, Eliza agrees to be the object of the bet, and soon Henry is teaching her to quit dropping the “h” at the beginning of his name and to pronounce it “rain” instead of “rine.”

His plan works, everyone thinks she’s upper-crust, and well-off (but lazy) Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Curt R. Jensen) falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Eliza is incensed to discover that Henry and Pickering consider her nothing more than a guinea pig, a project they worked on to settle a stupid bet between them. Appalled at Henry’s insensitivity, she heads back to her old life.

There is some delightful music in this show, from the toe-tapping “With a Little Bit of Luck” to the sweet “On the Street Where You Live.” Unfortunately, nearly every song goes on too long. They sing and sing and just when you think they’ve stopped, they come up with another verse — or, worse, another repeat of the same verse. (Eliza sings the words “I could have danced all night” approximately 1,000 times in the song of that name.) This slows down the show considerably, especially when we hear pointless songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Lovely?” early on, when we don’t even know what the play is about yet.

Jorgensen is endearing as Eliza — once she’s been refined, that is. As the Cockney version, she’s shrill and one-dimensional, causing one to agree with Henry when he tells her, “Cease this detestable boo-hooing!”

But after Henry has worked his magic on the charcter, Jorgensen gives her gentle beauty and strength. Her chemistry with Mark Pulham, who does a fine job as the persnickety Henry, is minimal, leading me to believe even more strongly that she ends up with the wrong guy in the end, but these two aren’t supposed to be in the same cast anyway. One assumes they both work better with their regular partners.

The supporting cast is generally strong, including Nan McCulloch as Henry’s mother and Fred Derbyshire as Eliza’s father (though Derbyshire often has trouble working up enough breath to get out the lyrics to his songs).

It’s not the best show Hale Center has done this year, nor is it the best production of “My Fair Lady” you could see. But for fans of the show (and of Hale’s informal, family-friendly environment), it’s mostly entertaining.

“Noises Off” is a play about performing a play, a farce that takes place behind the scenes at a farce, and a show in which the show-within-a-show is almost as good as the show itself.

With all that confusion, not to mention the powerful comedic timing required, Michael Frayn’s play is easy to screw up. Fortunately, the Little London Dinner Theater has not screwed it up, but has assembled a production that is impressive and marvelously funny.

The first act comprises a last-minute rehearsal of a farce called “Nothing On.” It’s a fairly standard British farce, full of slamming doors, mistaken identities and men whose pants fall down. The cast we’re watching, though, is painfully unprepared for opening night. Dotty (Lesli Manning), who’s playing the maid in the show, can’t remember her lines to save her life; plus, she’s having an affair with Garry (Brett Merritt), despite being twice his age (and despite Garry’s being just a, you know, who can’t complete a coherent, you know). Brooke (Cassandra Fulton), in the role of the ingenue, keeps losing her contact lens and is mentally out to lunch. Frederick’s (Matt Spencer) wife just left him. Belinda (Laura Hoppe) is more interested in intra-cast gossip, of which there is plenty. And Selsdon (Gentry Thompson) has been acting for 60 years and drinks way too much.

On top of all that, the harried director, Lloyd (Nathan Mitchell), is trying to maintain relationships with both Brooke and his assistant stage manager, Poppy (Sarah Broberg), and poor Tim (Chad Fulton), the stage manager, hasn’t slept in two days.

So we see “Nothing On,” with a lot of interruptions and false starts, and get to know both the play and the actors in it. Act 2 takes us backstage at the play several weeks into the run. Dotty and Garry have had a fight, Lloyd is trying to kiss up to Brooke, and everyone is more intent on resolving personal differences than going out there and doing a show.

Act 3 is from the audience’s perspective again, this time a few more weeks down the road, at a point when Dotty has to be forced onstage and no one gives a damn what happens anymore. Belinda desperately improvises scenes, Garry makes flustered attempts at ad-libbing, and Brooke stubbornly says only the lines she memorized, no matter what.

This is a brilliant play, and the current production very nearly does it justice. Directed by Paul “Wally” Walstad, Act 2 has accurately been called a comedic ballet, and it’s played with jaw-dropping artistry here. The cast works as an ensemble, all cogs in a machine that move at the right moment and swing axes at each other just when it’s funniest.

I hate to single out Brett Merritt twice in a row, but just as he stole Little London’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” last month, he proves himself well-suited to farce this time, too. With an inflection here or an extra hop there, he makes funny lines funnier, and his face-first pratfall in Act 3 is outstanding.

That’s not to diminish the rest of the cast’s achievements, however. Everyone performs with gusto and avoids the deathtrap of seeming to “try” to be funny.

I have issues with Gentry Thompson’s hair, which is so obviously the haircut of a Backstreet Boy and not a 70-year-old actor. And the play’s setting has been moved to the United States, which is fine, but the lines remain distinctly British (for example, Lloyd’s statement that he’ll be sitting in the audience with “a bag of toffies”). Minor quibbles, sure; you can probably get over them. If you don’t mind laughing, it’s a show not to be missed.

We weren’t planning to review “Robin Hood: The Musical,” playing at the Franciscan Center through Saturday.

Since this was the Franciscan Center’s first show, we figured we’d give them a little “honeymoon” period. Chances are, the first production would show signs of being, well, a first production. I figured I’d go see the show, quietly, and if it was particularly good, write a review. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t. No sense giving them bad publicity when they’re just getting on their feet; we’ll let the first show slide and start reviewing them next time.

Then I started getting e-mails and phone calls from people, asking why we hadn’t reviewed the show yet. Additionally, two different people submitted their own glowing reviews. I don’t know if any of these folks were connected with the theater or not, but it piqued my interest. If people were insisting on seeing a review in the paper, well, I’ll give them one. Apparently, I was missing out on a really great show and should have tried harder to see it sooner.

So I went, and here we go.

I like the fact that a new venue for plays has been established. Unfortunately, the Franciscan Center, which used to be the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, is not an ideal spot. The place is still used for worship services, so no attempt has been made to “theaterize” it. It’s un-air-conditioned, and the hard wood benches are extraordinarily uncomfortable (second only to Sundance’s outdoor theater, whose wooden rows have the added bonus of being splintery).

One can get past these factors, as long as the shows aren’t too lengthy. But consider this: Admission is $12 (with $6 tickets for students, seniors and children, and family passes available). That’s more than Hale Center Theater, the Villa Playhouse, or SCERA. Even Provo Theatre Company — which hires professional actors and directors and has padded theater seats and air-conditioning — tops out at $12.50.

So you have to wonder, as good as this show may be, is it worth being the most expensive show in the valley?

They seem to have realized that it’s not. The night I was there, they were letting pretty much everyone in for free, as long as they promised to tell others about the show later. I’m guessing attendance had been low. And no wonder! With so many theater options in this valley, people aren’t going to pay a lot of money unless it’s a theater they trust, or a show they already know they like. While I never thought I’d advocate this, from a marketing standpoint, the Franciscan Center should have started with something like “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” You’d pack in the crowds, show them what you can do, and hopefully convince them to come back next time. “Robin Hood: The Musical” is going to be a hard sell anyway, let alone for an unknown theater, and let alone for $12 a ticket.

Now for the actual play, which I promise I have not been avoiding. The songs, by Karrol Cobb, are jaunty and fun, though the lyrics wander all over the spectrum from clever and rhymed-filled (“I’m not amazed the tariff’s raised — the sheriff’s merely tariff-crazed!”) to overly cute (the song just quoted is called “The Sheriff Raised the Tariff”; there’s also a play on the same-sounding “naughty” and “Nottingham”). Tony Cobb’s script tells the familiar story well enough, with humor and excitement.

The performance itself, sure enough, seems like the first production at a new theater. Everyone speaks too quietly, except for the Sheriff of Nottingham, who yells everything. The singing voices are generally very good; the acting is just OK, nearly every actor saying his lines straight out to the audience.

Kids should find it fun, resembling as it does an animated Disney film.

The cast wins points for enthusiasm. Eric Blood, Jonny Grey Robinson, Leonard Wilkerson and Brittany Hatch, in the lead roles, show promise.

Bottom line: Should you go see it? Not for $12, no. Two-for-one coupons are readily available, and as I said, they seem to be willing to make a deal with you on the admission price anyway. I say, go and support the show by giving them an audience to perform for. (Nothing’s worse than doing a show for no one.) It’s worth your time and at least a few dollars to support up-and-coming local talent.