Stage Capsule Reviews

Amelia Bedelia Over the course of thirty Amelia Bedelia books, author Peggy Parish put her titular housekeeper in the employ of various dotty families. The domestic’s most notable trait is her literal, concrete take on the world; she’s the kind of person who, when told to strike a match, hits one with a hammer. For Theatre for Young America’s production, playwright Karen Abbot has melded a few of Amelia’s adventures into one hourlong tale that director Evan Gamsu says plays like classic farce. Working for a couple with an infant and an eye toward a wealthy acquaintance’s estate, Amelia, played by Ashlea Christopher, will no doubt complicate matters. Through Nov. 20 at the City Stage at Union Station, 30 W. Pershing, 816-460-2020.

The Diary of Anne Frank The two-year-old Poke In the Eye Productions is challenging audiences with director Therese Riley’s take on Wendy Kesselman’s 1997 adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, which a Curtain Up reviewer found superior to the 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. To the story of Frank, the inspirational heroine whose familiy hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic, this version adds newly discovered diary entries and accounts from Holocaust survivors that are brutal yet stirring. Nov. 19 and 20 at Corinth Dance Center Studios, 4047 Somerset Dr. in Prairie Village, 913-383-1900.

Picnic William Inge unleashed one of the sexiest male characters ever put onstage with Hal, a handsome drifter whose carnality rattles a small town not unlike Inge’s native Independence, Kansas (where, in fact, the 1954 movie version of Picnic was filmed). Inge was famously tortured by his homosexuality, so perhaps Hal was the template for the man he never was or had. A good part of the town’s female population certainly responds, including the straight-laced spinster librarian, whose psychosexual meltdown late in the play advances the argument to act on one’s animal instincts. Through Nov. 27 at the Olathe Community Theater, 500 East Loula, 913-782-2990.

Proposals If the bloom’s been off Neil Simon’s rose of late, theater departments like that of Johnson County Community College find worth in staging a recent work like Proposals. The show is one of those nostalgic memory plays (set circa 1953) whose characters include a Type A-type convalescing from a heart attack, a dimwitted model and — the standard Simon cliché — an aspiring writer. Simon’s worlds seldom include black people, so it’s potentially troubling that the show’s narrator is Clemma, a black housekeeper. But because she’s played by Lynn King, an actor of sterling integrity, there’s reason to celebrate (other than the fact that the show is free). Through Nov. 21 at the Polsky Theatre of the Carlsen Center, 12345 College Blvd. in Overland Park, 913-469-8500 ext. 3132

The Ritz Cracker Suite The Martin City Melodrama & Vaudeville Company thumbs its nose at Tchaikovsky with its spoof of his Christmas perennial, “The Nutcracker.” Brimming with parodies of both holiday standards and classic compositions, the show twists familiar images such as the nubile nutcrackers by seasoning the chorus line with a couple of Mouseketeers and tweaks the ballet’s most famous sequence with something called “The Dance of the Sugar Prune Fairies.” Director Jeanne Beechwood has made a couple of interesting casting choices: Marcie Ramirez and David Reyes, who have given compelling performances at, respectively, Quality Hill Playhouse and the Unicorn. Through Jan. 2 at Martin City Melodrama & Vaudeville Co., Metcalf South Shopping Center, 9601 Metcalf in Overland Park, 913-642-7576.

Sanders Family Christmas There’s nothing blatantly off-putting about the 27 songs that season this show. It’s that time of year, and the onslaught is upon us. In fact, it may be the perfect show for the locals who ensured that Kansas and Missouri remained red states. Democrats still licking their wounds and/or people of non-Christian denominations may feel, though, a little like a Christmas goose being force-fed something unpalatable, because the show’s religiosity is laid on with a trowel. Still, Sarah Crawford is entertaining as the family’s tin-eared black sheep. She could have mugged throughout but skirts the temptation every time. Through Jan. 2 at the American Heartland Theatre, 2450 Grand, 816-842-9999.

The Tall Tale of Pecos Bill If the image of cowboys sitting around a campfire conjures up only the flatulence scene from Blazing Saddles, Theater for Young America offers a corrective with a slice of Western folklore dating back to those late-night poetry jams. Directed by Val Mackey, the show features Paul Orwick as the titular legend, whose résumé includes throwing a lasso around the Big Dipper and creating the Mojave Desert by regurgitating a heap of quicksand. In a salute to that ancient theatrical genre in which cowboys appeared in vaudeville shows, the production also features original compositions by Kansas City’s Cheryl Benge. Through Nov. 19 at Theater for Young America, 5909 Johnson Dr. in Mission, 913-831-2131.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Creatures are indeed stirring at the Coterie this holiday season in Lowell Swortzell’s biographical play about the creation of the classic poem and its author, Clement Clark Moore. Rumor has it that, despite penning such jolly lines as “His eyes, how they twinkled; his dimples how merry,” Moore was actually a dour academic. (One Vassar professor confidently doubts that Moore even wrote it.) Plowing forward anyway, the Coterie’s show finds the author, played by Tom Woodward, on Christmas Eve circa 1822, surrounded by the family that inspired his tale. Nov. 16 through Dec. 30 at the Coterie, 2450 Grand, 816-474-6552.