What: “Daughter of the Regiment” by Gaetano Donizetti

Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher has adapted or written many horror and mystery stories for the stage, including “Murder by Poe” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” He also wrote the play based on the immensely popular “Tuesdays With Morrie.”

Morrie Schwartz’s wisecracking saves “Tuesdays With Morrie” from being maudlin. But the play now being performed at Lakewood Playhouse is still a tearjerker.

I’ve seen “Nunsense” before but never like this. This performance is not only rolling-in-the-aisles funny and deliciously irreverent, it rocks.

Three years ago, Harlequin Productions put on a performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that was the most elaborate and outrageously funny Shakespeare comedy I had ever seen. I would not have believed they could match that performance, but they have with their current show, “As You Like It.”

“Curtains” at Tacoma Musical Playhouse is a murder-mystery musical comedy that played to mixed reviews on Broadway as recently as 2007. It garnered major awards, but also was panned by a number of critics.

“Carl Sagan’s Contact” at Centerstage is the world premiere of an exciting new musical based on Sagan’s novel, with book by Centerstage artistic director Alan Bryce, music by Peter Sipos, and lyrics by Amy Engelhardt. It is directed by Bryce.

There are two things that make murder mysteries – especially of the British variety – insanely popular: complex and surprising plot structures and oddball characters. Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” at Lakewood Playhouse has both in spades.

Olympia Little Theatre has updated Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners “The Importance of Being Earnest” to the swinging England of 1968, the era of such popular British films as “Georgy Girl” and “Alfie.” This play, performed in the round, has much of the flavor of those films. Other than a florid manner of speaking, which may have been the height of fashion among pretentious Brits in 1895 but which seems stilted today, the update seems perfectly fitted to the affectations and love of fashion in Wilde’s comedy.

New Tacoma Little Theatre artistic director Scott Campbell promised a season of comedy, and the revamped 91-year-old theater is starting the new season with a laugh-out-loud glance back at the ’60s, Neil Simon’s “The Star-Spangled Girl.”

“Mating Dance of the Werewolf” by Mark Stein is unlike anything seen on Puget Sound stages. It is a beautiful, moody, hilarious love story, and it’s a murder mystery/comedy about one of the rarest creatures in literature or entertainment – a female werewolf.

In its second season the ManeStage Theatre Company in Sumner seems to have matured a bit. That’s not to say that its current show, “Honk,” is for mature audiences, but rather that the professionalism of this decidedly amateur theater company has been kicked up a notch since I saw last year’s “Bye Bye Birdie.”

I’ve been writing this column since January 2004. And in that time I’ve seen about one play a week – sometimes more. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly in community theater. But mostly it’s been good. Fans of theater in the South Sound are blessed with some of the best theater to be found in any comparable area anywhere in the country.

“Disney’s Beauty and the Beast” is a show ideally suited for big stages with lots of money for props, sets, costumes and lighting. It should probably not even be attempted by small community theaters, but Paradise Theatre in Gig Harbor does it justice despite a few unfortunate performances.

Seems like the more original and creative your work is, the less publicity it gets in Tacoma, in the dance world at least. Contemporary dance is famous for its low profile, but last night’s stellar performance by two local choreographers and their multimedia artist teams hit new heights of invisibility. Yet the evening of professional dance, music, video art, animation and drawing was one of the most exciting in Tacoma this year: by turns hypnotic, frightening, mysterious and exhilarating.