Ignore a little girl and she’s likely to get into all kinds of trouble. Remember Alice?

Dorothy Gale (Hannah Rose Kornfeld), living in Kansas with her Aunt Em (Chris Johnson), Uncle Henry (Martin White) and dog Toto, has dog trouble with mean old neighbor Miss Almira Gultch (T Herman), a dried-up old prune with “friends in high places.” One of those friends has given her a court order to take Toto and send him across the rainbow bridge alone.

But even before they can run away, a tornado picks up Dorothy and Toto and sets them down on the road to the magical land of Oz, where ruby slippers, strange creatures and great adventures await.

In honor of the film’s 50th anniversary, Coronado Playhouse presents the Royal Shakespeare Company version of the 1939 The Wizard of Oz through March 8, directed by Nick Reeves.

Along the yellow brick road, Dorothy makes new friends in Scarecrow (Brandon Alexander), the Tin Woodsman (Gabe Lazard) and the Cowardly Lion (Don Evans). All three join her on the road to the Emerald City, where they hope the Wizard (Mikel Taxer) will provide what they lack – a brain for Scarecrow, a heart for Tinman and courage for the Lion – and then get Dorothy and Toto back to Kansas.

Kudos to the Playhouse for taking on the daunting task of mounting one of the world’s great children’s classics. The show requires many scene changes; Dahlia Barakat and Rosemary King’s clever, easily movable set pieces solved that problem in a basic but perfectly adequate way.

Also required: scaling back the costume requirements to about 100 and the cast to 30, and re-orchestrating Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg’s wonderful score for a seven-piece acoustic orchestra (bravo, Erich Einfalt).

The Playhouse lucked out in the casting department, tapping Kornfeld, an enormously talented ninth-grader who recently arrived from the Bay Area, to play Dorothy. She’s got the looks, the poise and the voice to do it.

My other favorites are Alexander, whose Scarecrow has all the right moves, expressions and inflections (he also plays Hunk); and Johnson, who doubles up very believably as Aunt Em and Glinda.

There’s something for everybody here: if you don’t like talking animals, watch for the swaying Trees; they’re a hoot. And if the story cloys a bit, listen to the wild and crazy lyrics like these, from the Lion: “Though my tail would lash/I would show compash to every underling.”

Kudos to Diana Valero-Olivier for her choreography, especially fun in the “Jitterbug” number. In fact, bravo to the whole production.

The Wizard of Oz plays through Sunday, March 8, at Coronado Playhouse. Shows run Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 619-435-4856 or visit www.coronadoplayhouse.com.

Playwright Eisa Davis asks a lot of her audience in Bulrusher, a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for drama, in its regional premiere through Wednesday, March 1, at New Village Arts Theatre. Kristianne Kurner directs.

Davis has plot strands at odds with themselves, characters who speak in a funny patois and seem to have little reason to interact at all except that she tells them to, and a protagonist who may or may not be a witch but who claims the mystical power of the river.

Bulrusher is set in 1955 in the tiny logging town of Boonville, Calif., where in the 1800s residents made up about 1,300 words of their own to disguise what they were saying. Just why this happened is forever lost in the mists of time, and by now only aging counter-culturists can still speak Boontling.

Bulrusher (Jasmine Allen) has just turned 18. Found as an infant in a basket floating Moses-like down the Navarro River, she does not know her parents (nor her real name), but one of them must have been black. She has been brought up by the taciturn teacher known as Schoolch (Jack Missett). Unlike any teacher I’ve ever met, Schoolch barely says a word and has kept Bulrusher out of school all these years; she has schooled herself with books. Schoolch spends extraordinary amounts of time sipping tea (and barely speaking) in the parlor of the local Madame (Sandra Ellis-Troy).

Not surprisingly, Bulrusher’s special relationship with the river includes the ability to read people’s futures in their bathwater (by which she seems to mean a basin for washing the hands). Bulrusher also serves as Boonville’s unofficial weather forecaster.

Some of the topics in this overstuffed, too-long piece: loneliness (nobody talks to Bulrusher “because she talks hard to people”); racism (the play is set in 1955, and Emmett Till’s murder is mentioned); the psychological violence of interpersonal relationships and mysticism (Bulrusher talks to the river, and it seems to talk back).

Other characters include Logger (Grandison M. Phelps III), the only other black person in town; the hormonally driven Boy (Tim Parker), a wiry, hyperactive young man who announces early on that Bulrusher will be his girlfriend; and Madame, the aforementioned local purveyor of feminine pulchritude, by far the best-written and acted character.

The plot kicks into gear with the arrival of Vera (Asia Nicole Jackson), a black girl from Birmingham (“We lost the war”), in search of her father Logger. Bulrusher picks her up on the road into town in her truck; googly eyes and a gratuitous though short-lived lesbian theme follow. But Vera, about Bulrusher’s age, has her own secret.

Why doesn’t Schoolch talk? Why doesn’t Bulrusher wear a bra? Why does Madame keep threatening to leave? Are Vera and Bulrusher gay? These are just a few of the questions puzzling this observer.

Bulrusher is too long and diffuse, too busy without evident reason. Sometimes it’s just plain incredible. Toward the end, a rush of exposition ties up many loose ends, but seems tacked on. And given the peculiar Boontling patois, the actors need better diction than was evident on opening night.

Even a terrific set by Kurner and Ashley Jenks’ fabulous lighting can’t keep this one from seeming like a slog.

Bulrusher plays through Wednesday, March 1, at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. Shows run Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 760-433-3245 or visit www.newvillagearts.org.

Out on Highway 57, between Frog Level and Smyrna, North Carolina, life is simple. Men are men, women are women, and fishing takes precedence over everything else.

There’s a gas station out there, run by four “pump boys” who fish, sing and flirt with the Cupp sisters who run the Double Cupp Diner next door. And oh yes, occasionally the guys try to fix a car, but never in a hurry. They are, in fact, “Taking It Slow” on the rebuild of the Winnebago now up on blocks out back.

The country/western musical Pump Boys and Dinettes plays through Sunday, Feb. 22, at Avo Playhouse in Vista. David Brannen, who helmed last year’s popular musical Route 66, directs.

Pump Boys and Dinettes isn’t a play as much as a revue, reminding us of a lifestyle that has nearly disappeared from the American scene. Here, where “arms are brown, chests white and necks red,” the jokes are corny and often redneck, the songs country-western in flavor and the characters downhome and real.

The pump boys are L.M. (music director Sean Tamburrino, who also sings and plays piano and accordion); “Lover Boy” and lead guitarist Jackson (David Beaver); bassist Eddie (Bruce Blackwell); rhythm guitarist Jim (Sam Warner) and percussionist Dan (Dan Doerfler).

Over in the diner, the vivacious Cupp sisters Rhetta (Marci Anne Wuebben) and Prudie (Amy Throckmorton) serve up pie (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and typical diner delicacies with a smile and the expectation of “Tips.” Prudie is looking for “The Best Man” and Rhetta, a working mom with two kids, needs a “Vacation” – and can hold a note forever.

This scrappy little show began off Broadway in 1981; months of packed houses sent it to Broadway, where in 1982 it was nominated for a Tony and four Drama Desk awards.

There’s no message here, no profound philosophical discussion or political points being made. Pump Boys and Dinettes is just a foot-stompin’, thigh-slappin’ good time. A fine cast and snappy direction makes this slight but winning show a pleasure to watch.

Pump Boys and Dinettes plays through Sunday, Feb. 22, at Moonlight Stage Productions’ Avo Playhouse. Shows run Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 760-724-2110 or visit www.vistixonline.com.