As the audience files into Dragon Theatre for the opening of its 15th season, a recording of Ethel Merman singing this line, “There’s no people like show people,” can be heard.

It’s an apt way to settle into “Show People,” Paul Weitz’s often funny salute to the people who bring plays and musicals to life.

As the play opens, two actors, Marnie (Monica Cappuccini) and Jerry (Bill Davidovich), who have been married to each other for a long time, are arriving at a beach house owned by Tom (Casey Robbins). He has hired them for the weekend to impersonate his parents in order to impress his live-in girlfriend, Natalie (Sara Renée Morris).

She in turn tries to impress them. For example, she bakes blueberry muffins, but she adds some horseradish, rendering them almost inedible, but everyone else is too polite to say so.

To say much more about the plot as it twists and turns would be to spoil the surprises except to say that little is as it seems on the surface. However, one thing is clear: Despite all the trials and tribulations Marnie and Jerry have gone through over the years, they still love each other and the theater.

Astutely directed by Austin Edgington, all four actors fully inhabit their characters and their shifting relationships while mining both the humorous and the serious moments of the play.

Cappuccini’s performance as Marnie is especially noteworthy. In addition to impeccable comic timing, she relays volumes with her unspoken reactions to various situations and the other characters.

The tall, deep-voiced Davidovich allows Jerry to be something of a ham most of the time, but he can also tone him down to become serious and sincere when necessary. Robbins as Tom and Morris as Natalie are believable.

Kirsten Royston’s two-level set, with lighting by Leonardo Hidalgo, works well in Dragon’s intimate space. The character-appropriate costumes are by Jeff Hamby, the sound by Jesse Scarborough.

This 2006, two-act play runs just over two hours with one intermission. It’s an enjoyable production for the audience and a great way for the company to begin its new season.

“Show People” will continue through March 22 at Dragon Theatre, 2120 Broadway St., Redwood City, through March 22. For tickets and information, call (650) 493-2006 or visit www.dragonproductions.net.

Storytelling becomes a powerful survival tool in “Mr. Burns, a post-electric play,”  presented by American  Conservatory Theater in a co-production with the Guthrie Theater.

Playwright Anne Washburn sets the action in California after meltdowns at nuclear power plants across the country have knocked out the electrical grid, causing massive death and destruction.

As the play opens, a group of survivors is gathered around a campfire trying to reconstruct “Cape Feare,” an iconic episode of TV’s long-running “The Simpsons.” The approach of a stranger puts them in a defensive mode, guns drawn, but he’s just another survivor, and he brings news, none of it good.

The next scene fast-forwards seven years when the band of survivors has become a seven-member theater troupe. They’ve moved into an abandoned warehouse where they rehearse their performance of  “Cape Feare,” making due with limited resources. By now, lines from “The Simpsons” have become valuable currency for which the troupe must compete against others doing the same thing.

The second act is set 75 years later when a theater troupe is staging “Cape Feare,” complete with a mix of popular songs from the era of the Simpsons.

Although the play is filled with pop culture references that can evade some audience members, it’s still enjoyable for the strength of Washburn’s writing and her lyrics for the score by Michael Friedman.

It’s also enjoyable for the outstanding performances that director Mark Rucker elicits from the engaging ensemble cast: Nick Gabriel, Anna Ishida, Kelsey Venter, Ryan Williams French, Charity Jones, Jim Lichtscheidl, Tracey A. Leigh and Andrea Wollenberg. Wollenberg also works with musical director David Möschler as part of the two-person, offstage band.

The set by Ralph Funicello (with lighting by Alexander V. Nichols) becomes ever more fanciful, as do the costumes by Alex Jaeger. The sound is by Jake Rodriguez, the choreography by Amy Anders Corcoran.

Although the play stresses the importance of storytelling, it also honors humankind’s instinct for survival no matter how dire the circumstances.

After closing in San Francisco, the production will move to the Guthrie in Minneapolis.

Irony ultimately rules in “The Convert,” presented in its Bay Area premiere by Marin Theatre Company.

Danai Gurira sets her play in Salisbury, Rhodesia, (present day Harare, Zimbabwe), between 1895 and 1897. A young African woman, Jekesai (Katherine Renee Turner), is taken to the home of Chilford (Jabari Brisport) by her cousin, Tamba (JaBen Early).

Because Tamba’s mother, Mai Tamba (Elizabeth Carter), works there as a maid, Tamba hopes that Jekesai can find refuge from her uncle (L. Peter Callender) who would force her to marry a much older man, whom she despises.

Chilford is an African who has renounced his tribal heritage and become a lay Roman Catholic minister trying to convert other Africans. He changes Jekesai’s name to Ester.  She comes to embrace Catholicism and to join him in his missionary work.

Over time, however, the natives begin to rebel against the white English settlers who have repressed them. Violence follows on both sides.

Chancellor (Jefferson A. Russell) warns Chilford that their fellow Africans regard him and other converts as traitors. Chancellor’s fiancee, Prudence (Omoze Idehenre), urges Ester to be her own woman.

Although Ester is presumably the title character, Chilford, too, is a convert, and both become increasingly conflicted between their new faith and their tribal traditions. Tragedy ensues.

Playwright Gurira, who was born in the United States to Zimbabwean parents and reared in Zimbabwe, is a promising young playwright. However, this nearly three-hour play could benefit from judicious pruning to reduce it from three acts and two intermissions to two acts and one intermission.

MTC artistic director Jasson Minadakis directs the outstanding cast, eliciting strong performances from everyone. The simple set is by Nina Ball with lighting by Gabe Maxson. Fumiko Bielefeldt designed the mix of Western and African costumes. The music and sound are by Chris Houston.

Dialect coach Lynne Soffer deserves credit for the accents, which are usually understandable if one listens carefully. Julia Chigamba, a native Zimbabwean, served as cultural consultant and guest vocal artist.

Despite its length, “The Convert” makes for fascinating drama while shedding light on a part of African history that probably is unfamiliar to most Americans.

It will continue through March 15 at Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. For tickets and information, call (415) 388-5208 or visit www.marintheatre.org.

Foothill Music Theatre has taken on a major challenge by staging “Sunday in the Park With George.”

Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics always are tricky. There are design challenges, too, in this 1984 fictionalized account of the creation of French artist Georges Seurat’s monumental painting, translated as “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

The first act in James Lapine’s book for the show takes place between 1884 and 1886, mostly on the island in the Seine near Paris as George (Tyler Bennett) paints his model/mistress, Dot (Katie Nix), other people and their surroundings. Other scenes take place in his studio as he continues to paint.

George is so absorbed in his work that he neglects Dot. Because he’s developing a new technique, his work baffles fellow artists. Even when Dot becomes pregnant with their daughter, Marie, he remains focused on his art, causing Dot to marry a kindly baker, Louis, (Michael Weiland), and go to America with him.

Act 2 takes place 100 years later in an American museum, probably the Art Institute of Chicago, where the painting hangs today. George’s great-grandson, also named George and played by Bennett, is displaying his latest creation, “Chromolume # 7,” a kind of light show, and trying to raise money for the next one during a reception. He’s accompanied by his grandmother, Marie, played by Nix.

Later, he goes to Le Grande Jatte in hopes of finding a new direction for his art.

Seurat experimented with color and light by using only 11 colors, no black. Instead of mixing them on his palette, he applied them in tiny dots so that the eyes would do the fusing. This technique came to be known as pointillism.

Inspired by Seurat, Sondheim orchestrated the work for 11 instruments and emulated pointillism with staccato notes in some songs, especially those George sings while painting. Throughout the score, Sondheim fans will recognize echoes of his earlier “Sweeney Todd” and foreshadowings of “Into the Woods.”

Musical director Dolores Duran-Cefalu, who conducts from the keyboard, uses a scaled-down orchestration for six other musicians, but it works well.

Bennett as George (Sergey Khalikulov appears in some performances) convincingly portrays his prickly personality and sings well.

Although Nix as Dot/Marie looks the part and acts well, she doesn’t blend well with Bennett in songs like the title song, “We Do Not Belong Together” and “Move On.”

Noteworthy in the strong supporting cast is Linda Piccone as his mother in Act 1 and an art critic in Act 2.

Many of the design challenges in this show radiate from the coup d’ theatre that ends Act 1. That’s when the cast and designs gradually move into place to recreate Seurat’s painting. Costume designer Robert Horek and lighting designer Michael Rooney play their parts well, as does scenic designer Bruce McLeod. However, FMT’s Lohman Theatre is perhaps too small to allow the audience to sit back far enough to get to full effect.

The show hasn’t been seen often locally. ACT presented the Bay Area premiere in 1986, followed by TheatreWorks in 1987 and again in 1999.

Patrons who aren’t familiar with the show or who want to learn about the cast are advised to arrive early to read that pertinent information in the lobby. Budget constraints presumably prevent FMT from providing it in the program.

Overall, though, director Milissa Carey, her colleagues (including choreographer Amanda Folena) and the performers have created an enjoyable production.

“Sunday in the Park With George” will continue through March 8 in the Lohman Theatre, Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos. For tickets and information, call (650) 949-7360 or visit www.foothillmusicals.com.