War Games

6/29-7/3
The American Revolution and its most beloved — and, in one case, besmirched — characters make up the latest offering from Commedia Sans Arte at Just Off Broadway. A troupe of comic actors and street performers with Renaissance Festival credentials, Commedia Sans Arte’s show In a Minute, Men! combines sketches, songs and “general silliness” into something it calls a “Vaudeville-oleo.”

Artistic director Chris Johnson promises a corrective tweaking of Paul Revere, whose midnight ride, as written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wasn’t exactly based on fact, and new revelations about Benedict Arnold. “There’s more to him than just ‘boo-hiss,'” Johnson says. Though women are sparsely represented in Revolutionary War history, the troupe found at least one of interest: war activist and playwright Mercy Otis Warren. “And everything’s set around Boston, the hub to the Revolution like Berkeley was to the ’60s,” Johnson adds.

Performances are at 8 nightly through Saturday, July 3, in the J.O.B. space at 3051 Central. Tickets are $10. For more information, call 913-371-4995. — Steve Walker

String Us Along

7/3-7/31
Crown Center (2450 Grand) debuts its July Puppet Show Series at noon and 2 p.m. Saturday with a Mother Goose-themed performance by Piccadilly Productions. The series continues with a different show at the same time each week for the rest of the month. Admission is free; call 816-274-8444 for more information. — Annie Fischer

Labelmates

FRI 7/2
It used to be that when two bands were on the same label, they also were on the same trip, sonically speaking. Not so with Cheating Kay and Pixel Panda, which share the locally based record label House of Tears Sound. Cheating Kay, a four-piece transplanted from Columbia, plays subdued folk-rock mixed with shades of dream pop and electronica. On the other side of the House of Tears Sound is the six-piece Pixel Panda, the spazcore, shrieking freak-out to Cheating Kay’s more restrained musings. Both play Friday with the Rogers at the Pyro Room, 1809 Grand. For details, call 816-221-7976. — Michael Vennard

Back in Black

FRI 7/2
The Little Sisters of Hoboken have returned for Meshuggah-Nuns!, Dan Goggin’s fifth installment of Nunsense. This time the nuns are aboard the U.S.S. Golden Delicious with the seasick cast of Fiddler on the Roof. With the ship’s scheduled entertainers too ill to perform, the habit-clad showgirls step in with cheesy numbers such as “If I Were a Catholic.” The show opens at 8 p.m. Friday and runs through August 15 at the American Heartland Theater (2450 Grand, 816-842-9999). Tickets are $15 to $29. — Fischer