If you missed the bus to Avenue Q in San Diego, you have another chance. The Jeff Whitty/Robert Lopez/Jeff Marx adult puppet musical is at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles through Oct. 14.

Jason Moore directs the same excellent touring cast in the adventures of bright-eyed college graduate Princeton (Robert McClure) and his newfound friends on Avenue Q.

The closest thing to a perfectly constructed musical since West Side Story, Avenue Q offers engaging characters, great songs, an extremely talented cast and the cleverest concept and execution on the boards anywhere – not to mention the seamless coordination of puppet, puppeteer and human characters.

Where else will you find song titles like “What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?” Who hasn’t thought “It Sucks To Be Me” or “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist?” And – be honest now – haven’t you once in a while, just now and then, engaged in “Schadenfreude?” And then there’s Internet porn junkie Trekkie Monster (Christian Anderson) with a musical assertion that I sometimes suspect is true: “The Internet is for Porn.”

There’s puppet friendship between slacker Nicky (Christian Anderson) and his uptight gay Republican roomie Rod (Robert McClure), puppet romance between Kate Monster (Kelli Sawyer) and Princeton and, yes, even puppet sex.

Avenue Q is both x-rated and charming, raunchy and romantic, using puppets to zero in on truths humans often don’t want to face.

If you haven’t been to the Q (Avenue Q, that is), don’t pass up this opportunity to meet Princeton and the gang.

Avenue Q plays through Oct. 14, 2007, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Shows Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 6:30 p.m.; matinees Saturday at 2 and Sunday at 1 p.m. For tickets call (213) 682-2772 or visit www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.

“Tonight is all about leavin’ and followin’ your dreams,” announces Angela (Kellli Maguire) at the beginning of Ted Swindley’s Honky Tonk Angels, playing through Oct. 7 at North Coast Repertory Theatre. David Ellenstein directs.

Angela, queen of the double-wide trailers, is getting tired of dealing with ironing, six kids and a husband named Bubba who ignores her, so when Bubba cancels a date in favor of a tractor pull, Angela decides it’s time to go off in search of her dream. “I want to go to a big city where there’s lots of places to make music,” she says.

Bleach blonde Sue Ellen (Merideth Kaye Clark), a sassy double divorcee originally from small-town Texas, doesn’t want to deal with her octopus of a boss in Los Angeles any more; she waves goodbye to her mother and heads for Nashville herself.

Darlene (Jenni-Lynn McMillin), young and innocent, needs to get away from her father, turned mean since her mother died. Though timid and hesitant, she also finally makes the move.

All three meet on the bus to “Music City, USA” and decide to seek work as a trio.

Okay, the stereotypes are plastered on a little thick: Angela’s Bubba and her ever-present bag of fried pork rinds; Sue Ellen’s concern with fingernails; Darlene’s mean daddy. To be honest, Honky Tonk Angels pales in comparison with Swindley’s earlier, more cohesive jukebox musical Always....Patsy Cline, and it shares the characteristics of the genre with shows like Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys: long on music and short on plot. But it’s the 30 songs you’re in the audience for, and they are treated well by this trio.

Clark can belt out a song like “Cleopatra, Queen of Denial” with the best of them; Maguire is terrific, especially on “Harper Valley PTA” and the poignant “Almost Persuaded.” My favorite is McMillin, whose plaintive rendition of “Ode to Billy Joe” will break your heart.

A fine four-piece band provides great backup. In the second act, they even get to be onstage and provide hilarity with their rendition of “Trashy Women” (“I like my women a little on the trashy side”).

Country/western isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if it’s yours, put on your boots and too much makeup and get down with The Honky Tonk Angels.

The Honky Tonk Angels plays through Oct. 7, 2007, at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m,.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.; select Wednesdays at 7 p.m.; select Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. For tickets call (858) 481-1055 or visit www.northcoastrep.org.

Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks tests the assertion that there’s more truth in dance than in conversation. Richard Alfieri’s two-character piece plays through Sept. 23 at the Broadway Theater in Vista, directed by Randall Hickman.

Lily (Joan Westmoreland), acerbic Florida widow of a Southern Baptist minister, is 68 – or 72 if you insist on accuracy (“If you say your age out loud, your face hears it,” she contends). According to her much younger new dance teacher Michael Minetti, she is also “a tight-assed old biddy.”

That comment prompts Lily to pick up the phone to ask the dance school for a new teacher. But gay New York transplant Michael stays his execution by lying about being the sole support of his sick wife.

So here we are, sharp-tongued tight ass and brash gay dance teacher with loose lips. Both characters are lonely, both grieving, both less than absolutely truthful.

It’s not too difficult to predict where Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is going. Richard Alfieri has structured his script in a relentlessly repetitive manner: Lily and Michael get into a verbal beef, leading to a climax, leading to a sob story from one or the other. Repeat. And repeat again.

But the play has shown legs on the community theater circuit and will likely continue to do so because of its ability to communicate on an emotional level with audiences, especially those d’un certain âge.

It does, however, demand a pair of strong actors, and this production has them. Westmoreland, a local theater staple for years, is great with starch, even better when she smiles and relaxes into a dance. She’s got the attitude, the costumes and the moves that show there’s a dance in the old dame yet.

Likewise, Davis seems born for this part. After all, he wisecracks his way through a drawing before each show. Here, he doesn’t even seem to be acting. His dancing’s not half bad, either.

Tickets for Six Dance Lessons have sold so well that a Wednesday evening show has been added.

On a related note, Off-Broadway Theater, the company’s new children’s facility, has just opened a sold-out run of Kipling’s Jungle Book. This new venue will provide year-round theater for North County kids.

Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks plays through Sept. 23, 2007 at Broadway Theater in Vista. Shows Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call (760) 806-7905 or visit www.broadwayvista.com.