The rollicking comedy “Once in a Lifetime” by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman was a harsh satirical send-up of Hollywood when first produced in 1930. Today it has lost some of its satirical bite, but it’s still funny – not to mention a huge challenge to directors and actors because it has big sets, lots of set changes, and a huge cast of outlandish characters who enter and exit the stage in controlled chaos.

Buddy Holly rocks. He rocked Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1959, and he’s rocking the stage at Tacoma Little Theatre in 2009 in “Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story” starring Ryan Coleman and directed by Brett Carr.

How can you not love Winnie the Pooh? He’s cute, cuddly, and all he wants is honey – lots and lots of honey.

“On Golden Pond” at Tacoma Little Theatre is a very realistic and touching play that invites audience members into the lives of Norman and Ethel Thayer as we summer with them at their lakeside home. We are left glad to be alive and happy to know the Thayer family. Plus, as lovable but crotchety old men go, none are more lovable than Norman Thayer, played here by Clark Maffitt in his homecoming debut after four years away from the Tacoma area.

On the one hand, the Lakewood Playhouse performance of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical “Into the Woods” is a well-acted and especially well-directed parody of all the major children’s fairy tales skillfully woven together into one silly yet sophisticated story. On the other hand, it is a dark and twisted tale of temptation, greed and human frailty that calls to mind another Sondheim dark fantasy, “Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

Theatergoers in the South Sound have some wonderfully original and entertaining performances to look forward to this year, the most unusual of which may be “Glorious!,” a musical about the worst singer in the world, at Tacoma Musical Playhouse.

The British farce “Run for Your Wife” playing at Encore! Theater in Gig Harbor would be hysterically funny if it were not for two big problems – one of which cannot be excused.