Astronomer and professor Anna (Seema Sueko) lectures about the mysteries of the universe, asking students to consider why planets spin, how many universes there are and the existence of black holes (“If a black hole is truly black, and if it really is a hole, how can we be sure it’s there?”).

Anna’s self-absorbed life is busy, stimulating, even chaotic as she tries to handle her job, the moodiness of teenage daughter Jennifer (Bibi Valderrama) and her relationship with live-in lover and budding opera singer Daniel (Tom Andrew).

One night, communication problems with Jen and an argument with Daniel cause her to storm out of the house; minutes later, a traffic accident leaves her with a brain injury and robs her of her means of livelihood and, indeed, selfhood: words. She is aphasic, “Anna Aphasia” as she comes to call herself, unable to access the words that have made her who she is.

Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company presents Susan Yankowitz’s Night Sky through Sept. 21 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Forum Studio Theatre. Siobhan Sullivan directs on David F. Weiner’s splendid set featuring Anna’s living room flanked by two “stairways to the stars” – multilevel steps and platforms connected by a middle platform, where the various scenes play out. Overhead the stars twinkle.

Sueko anchors the show with a heartbreaking performance as Anna, struggling to break through her silent shell. Frustration, longing, disappointment play over her face as she is forced back to the beginning to learn words and associations. Still, there is humor as she calls a computer a “confuser,” names love “glue” and describes her situation as “elephants on tongue.” And there is actual joy when she gets something right. But the road is long and slow.

Meanwhile, Daniel is forced into dual unfamiliar roles: father, trying to teach the bewildered Jen how to talk to her mother; and caretaker, which demands more of him than he feels able to give, especially when she berates him for acting as interpreter for a journalist who wants to write a story about her. Andrew captures the touchy situation of the caregiver, looking for the line that must not be crossed between enough help and too much.

Valderrama portrays a typical teenager well enough, but needs to slow down: she talks too fast not only for her mother but for this audience member.

Also in Anna’s life are the patient speech therapist (Nicole Gabriella Scipione), another aphasia victim (Brian Mackey) and Anna’s colleague Bill (Justin Snavely).

Scipione and Mackey are convincing in their functional rather than dramatic roles; Snavely’s Bill may induce a few guilt pangs, representing friends who postpone visiting out of fear of not knowing what to say.

Statistics tell us that about one million people in the United States are afflicted with aphasia. Yankowitz wrote Night Sky at the request of director Joseph Chaikin, who has continued to work after a stroke rendered him aphasic in 1984. Chaikin also suggested the central character be an astronomer.

Anyone who has known someone with a long-term problem such as aphasia, dementia or Alzheimer’s will identify with the hopes, fears and frustrations of Yankowitz’s characters. Night Sky reminds us both “what a piece of work is man” and how close we all are to falling into a black hole that could rob us of ourselves.

Mo’olelo scores with this thoughtful piece.

Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company’s production of Night Sky plays through Sept. 21 at the Mandell Weiss Forum Studio Theatre. Shows Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 2:30 p.m. For tickets call 619-342-7395 or visit www.moolelo.net.

Hyperactive motormouth disc jockey Dewey Phillips fell in love with the sound of rhythm and blues and blithely crossed the color line in 1949 when he put “race music” on the air during his Memphis radio show titled “Red, Hot and Blue.”

The move caused shock and consternation to the station owner, but a barrage of requests from the listening and record-buying public quieted his misgivings, leading to Phillips’ near decade-long reign as king of the Memphis radio dial. In the process, a new, crossover form of pop music burst onto the scene: rock ’n’ roll, quickly adopted by white singers like Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

La Jolla Playhouse, in co-production with Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre, presents a toe-tapping new musical: Memphis: The Birth of Rock ’n’ Roll, through Sept. 28 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. The show, with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music and lyrics by David Bryan, is the first local directing effort by Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley.

There’s a lot of music here, but this is not a jukebox musical. All these songs are original, penned by Bryan (keyboardist for Bon Jovi since 1983) in the service of the story: how one man in the Jim Crow South inspired a musical revolution that broadened to a social movement that resulted in Brown v. Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Phillips’ story is fictionalized for dramatic reasons. Phillips was married. Our DJ is bachelor Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball), who one night dares go into the basement bar owned by Delray (J. Bernard Calloway) just because he likes the music. On guard for problem situations, the skeptical Delray asks Huey, “Don’t you notice any difference between you and the rest of us?”

But Huey convinces them he’s just there for the music – at least, until he meets and later falls in love with Delray’s sister, blues singer Felicia (Montego Glover), giving the play a chance to explore the racism of the time.

Memphis has a terrific cast. The linchpin is Kimball, whose Boston Conservatory-trained pipes can rock a tune like “Tear Down the House” or explain his fondness for the blues in “The Music of My Soul.” Kimball (who recently played the head Beatle in the Broadway show Lennon) dominates the stage whenever he’s on it with his characterization of the oddball Huey, whose stream-of-consciousness banter, word inventions like “Hockadoo!” and messy dress puzzle and delight his radio fans.

Felicia is a rather less well drawn role, but Glover’s velvety Sarah Vaughan-like voice is more than welcome, especially on bluesy songs like “Someday” and “Colored Woman.”

Calloway’s Delray is a towering presence with a voice to match. Even smaller parts like James Monroe Inglehart’s Bobby (the radio station janitor who has to read a commercial to the illiterate Huey so he can put it on the air) are wonderfully cast.

The show looks great, with terrific lighting, costumes and choreography. But as usual, the sound level is too high, making the lyrics difficult to comprehend.

Huey’s stubbornness and refusal to play the commercial music game breaks him and Felicia up – she goes to New York to become a star, singing “Love Will Stand When All Else Falls.”

Of course, that’s not true: Huey stays in Memphis, stubbornly marching to his own drummer.

Memphis needs a better closer than it has, and could use supertitles or a lowered sound level, but with a few tweaks this show could have legs. The opening night crowd was crazy about it.

Memphis plays through Sept. 28 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 pm.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m. Matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 858-550-1010 or visit www.lajollaplayhouse.org.

Petruchio and Kate slug it out in Coronado Playhouse’s annual free Shakespeare offering of The Taming of the Shrew, playing through Sept. 28. Keith A. Anderson adapted and directs the play.

Victoria Mature plays “Kate the cursed” with gusto, a pretty good right hook and some great costumes (thanks to Mary Anderson for those), while Peter Shaner’s Petruchio (the guy every woman loves to hate) perseveres in his infuriating “training” methods for the pot of gold from dad Baptista (Eric Hedberg) – and, even more annoyingly, gets a docile wife into the bargain.

Feminists hate this whole premise, but Shakespeare knew a funny situation when he wrote (or borrowed) one, and this is one of the best loved of his comedies.

Four fine performances anchor this show. In addition to Mature and Shaner, Jon Maxwell’s Grumio and Dave Rivas’ Tranio are terrific. Jessica Seaman also impresses as Kate’s younger and much more marriageable sister Bianca.

A pre-show musicale features several songs from Kiss Me, Kate, Cole Porter’s musical comedy version of the play, sung with varying success by cast members in modern dress. My favorite was Mature’s version of “I Hate Men.”

The Taming of the Shrew plays through Sept. 28 at Coronado Playhouse. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are free but reservations are required. Call 619-435-4856 or visit www.coronadoplayhouse.com.