There are moments in Mariemont Players’ 110 In The Shade when genuine theatrical impact shines through the difficulties of staging a Broadway musical of only iffy merit with a cast of 16. It’s presented on a set designed by Dennis Murphy that communicates the play's mood, as well as its time and place — a drought-scourged, worry-scurried prairie village in the 1930s. They deliver a fine musical despite challenges at the Walton Creek Theater, Thursday-Sunday. Through Feb. 1.  

As an anti-traditional, anti-sentimental entertainment, New Stage Collective's 'Striking 12' zips right along. At least it does when the six singer-musicians are making, as they do, some fine and fascinating music. When they set their hands to acting the meager semi-script, the show proves something less than zippy.  

The Santaland Diaries is a the creation of essayist/NPR commentator David Sedaris and author/director Joe Mantello. In most productions Mrs. Jocelyn Dunbar (a character) fills up the less effective, less amusing second act of The Santaland Diaries, a pair of solo-playlets that have become, over the last decade, a welcome antidote to the saccharine shock of other Christmas entertainments. NET first presented the show in 2001 and has revived it most seasons since. Thursday-Saturday. Through Dec. 19.  

Actress/author/ambassador Clare Boothe Luce simply called Manhattan women of wealth "The Women" and said she wrote her acid-tongued 1936 comedy to get the scabrous bunch of them out of her mind. Blessed be university theaters with mobs of actresses who can tackle such scripts and succeed with them. What contemporary theater company could meet a payroll with 25 players in the cast?  

Manhattan women of wealth but no particular purpose: Stephen Sondheim called them 'the ladies who lunch' and saluted their hardihood as 'dinosaurs surviving the crunch.' Actress/author/ambassador Clare Boothe Luce called them simply The Women and said she wrote her acid-tongued 1936 comedy to get the scabrous bunch of them out of her mind. NKU's 'The Women' features a mob of actresses who are vain, vapid ego-monstrosities but nonetheless entertaining to watch in this easy period production with splendid dress. Tuesday-Sunday through Dec. 14.  

'Tis the season, and those jolly holiday elves at New Edgecliff Theatre have arranged for us to revisit Mrs. Jocelyn Dunbar of haute suburbia. She comes complete with a $1.98 blonde wig and a razor tongue, telling her merry tales of an overachieving older son, an underachieving younger son, a flame-tattooed, drug-devoted daughter, a crack-damaged infant grandson and, of course, her philandering husband and his holiday surprise to the Dunbar household: a screeching, mini-skirted, 22-year-old souvenir of his wartime romping in Vietnam.   

This is neither the last nor the least of Arthur Miller's plays — although it arrived later (1968) and is certainly a lesser effort than the two seminal plays that elevate him to the very pinnacle of American playwriting. Now Blue Chips Players are airing out the piece in a sometimes rambling, mostly vigorous, ever contentious production that's not unlike beating the dust out of an old carpet. Through Nov. 23 at the Madisonville Arts Center.  

"The Price" is neither the last nor the least of Arthur Miller's plays, although it arrived later (1968) and is certainly a lesser effort than the two seminal plays that elevate him to the very pinnacle of American playwriting. Now through Nov. 23 at the Madisonville Arts Center, four Blue Chips Players are airing out the piece in a sometimes rambling, mostly vigorous, ever contentious production that's not unlike beating the dust out of an old carpet.   

David Rambo's 1999 play takes a savage, albeit occasionally comic, look at industrialized Christianity and at mega-churches that operate less on a foundation of faith than on the rock-solid egos of their heaven-hawking pastors.  

Its universality, its simplicity and its immediacy are among the good reasons why, in 1938, Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" won him the second of his three Pulitzer Prizes.