Cygnet Theatre closes out its six-year run at the Rolando site near SDSU with a repeat of its first show there – John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a weird and raucous rock musical about a little boy named Hansel Schmidt who longs to escape his inattentive mother and the strictures of life behind the Berlin Wall.

As a teen, Hansel meets an African American soldier, who agrees to take Hansel to the States with him, but can only do so if Hansel agrees to be his wife.

A botched sex change operation later (the “angry inch”), Hansel takes his mother’s name – Hedwig – and finds herself in a Junction City, Kansas trailer park, divorced and alone.

But Hedwig (Matthew Tyler) is a talented (if “internationally ignored”) songwriter, and when she sees singer Tommy Speck, son of a general, she sees possibilities. Hedwig engineers a meeting, renames him Tommy Gnosis, starts writing songs and grooming him to be a star. True to form, when Tommy makes it big (appearing at SDSU’s Open Air Theatre), he too abandons Hedwig.

It’s a sad story: Hedwig is just looking for her “other half,” and a little kindness, love and, yes, fame along the way. She marries Yitzak (SDSU MFA student Katie Alexander) and performs on her own with Yitzak and the Angry Inch band. There’s a glimmer of hope at the end.

Cygnet originally intended to run both Rolando and Old Town theaters, but the economic situation changed that plan, and they decided instead to sublease the Rolando space until their own lease runs out next year.

Hedwig is an excursion into Rocky Horror Show-like strangeness, with high-energy (and high decibel) instrumentals provided by Erik Enstad, Andrew Hoffman, Michael Alfera and Zach Pyke.

Tyler is an angry Hedwig, but still has a nice way with the ballads. Alexander shows great singing chops and fine acting ability in the androgynous role of Yitzak, who takes almost as much abuse from Hedwig as Hedwig has absorbed from the world at large.

Ear-splitting rock music isn’t everyone’s bag, but if you groove on noise, this is the show for you.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch plays through Sunday, Aug. 9, at Cygnet Rolando Theatre. Shows Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 6 and 10 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m. For tickets, call 619-337-1525 or visit www.cygnettheatre.com.

Every parent knows this truth: The best way to get a kid to do something is to forbid it.

Matt (Steve Limones) and Luisa (Courtney Evans) are next-door neighbors. Matt’s father Hucklebee (John Rosen) and Luisa’s dad Bellomy (Antonio “T.J.” Johnson) think the kids would be a good match, so they’ve erected a wall (Joyelle Cabato) between the houses and manufactured a “feud” between the families. It has worked like a charm, though by the look of things Matt and Luisa didn’t need the proscription to bring them together.

That’s the simple premise of the record-breaking Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical The Fantasticks, playing through Sunday, July 26, at Lamb’s Players Theatre. Deborah Gilmour Smyth directs.

The Fantasticks is narrated by the dashing and mysterious El Gallo (Mauricio Mendoza), a Zorro type who acts as facilitator and sings the unforgettable hit “Try to Remember.” El Gallo also proposes a sure-fire means of cementing Matt and Luisa’s romance: a staged abduction starring himself and two itinerant actors, Henry (Robert Smyth) – an aged and forgetful Shakespearean – and Mortimer (Bryan Barbarin), “the guy who dies” on cue, at hilarious great length.

But the excitement and thrill of young love must eventually confront reality, as the romance of moonlight gives way to the harsh glare of the sun (“What at night seems oh, so scenic/may be cynic in the light”). Influenced by El Gallo, Matt succumbs to the world’s siren call and goes off to see the “shining” world. (“He’s liable to find a couple of surprises there,” El Gallo tells us.)

This longest-running musical of all time (42 years in New York) is based on Edmond Rostand’s Les Romanesques, but includes elements of other classics: Romeo and Juliet, the Roman myth of Pyramus and Thisbe and Donizetti’s opera The Elixir of Love.

Limones and Evans are completely captivating as Matt and Luisa, combining fine voices with great chemistry. Rosen and Johnson are likewise a winning duo as the dads.

Mendoza looks great and is a fine actor. My only quibble is the voice – which has to assay the universally known “Try to Remember” almost right off the bat – isn’t as strong and forceful as it might be.

Smyth and Barbarin are hilarious as actors-on-the-cheap who live out of their costume and props trunk.

Resident set designer Mike Buckley had it easy this time – the show is written for a minimalist set and a small stage. Buckley’s black background with variously sized white dots serves nicely.

Lamb’s has re-imagined the beloved show, meaning some of the musical numbers have acquired contempo sound and rhythmic structures. Elements of jazz, reggae, even hip-hop have been tossed in – which may surprise longtime fans of the show, but fear not – they detract not a whit from the cleverness of the lyrics or the dramatic thrust of the plot.

If you’ve never seen this show, here’s your chance. If you have, I don’t need to convince you to see it again.

The Fantasticks plays through Sunday, July 26, at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado. Shows Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinées Saturday at 4 and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619-437-0600 or visit www.lambsplayers.org.

Anyone who went to Catholic school will identify with 12-year-old Rudy Pazinski (Ian Brininstool).

A bright, high-spirited kid with a gift for imitation (Ed Sullivan is a specialty), Rudy is more interested in entertaining his classmates than in memorizing the catechism (he really believes God put us here to have fun, and wonders why more people – especially his family – aren’t having any). It’s opinions like this (and his disinclination to memorize all those words) which more often than not keep him after school with Sister Clarissa (Lynne Griffin) and the dreaded wooden ruler.

Rudy lives in a crowded Buffalo apartment with parents Ellen (Courtney Corey) and Chet (Matt Thompson) and three siblings – 16-year-old Annie (Abbey Howe), 15-year-old Eddie (James Patterson) and the mentally challenged Georgie (Thor Sigurdsson).

Dear old dad runs the tavern downstairs. He drinks a little, seems in a perpetual bad mood and never manages to remember to bring home the spaghetti for Friday dinner. Poor mom has to deal with this in addition to caring for the kids.

It’s Tom Dudzick’s Over the Tavern, an affectionate, semi-autobiographical look at family life and Catholic school in 1959 Buffalo, playing through July 12 at North Coast Repertory Theatre. David Ellenstein directs.

Over the Tavern debuted in Buffalo in 1994, became the sleeper hit of the year and has since become a staple of regional theater. Small wonder: Dudzick, sometimes called the Catholic Neil Simon, has created recognizable, human and most engaging characters. If the script seems a tad redundant and a bit too long for this non-Catholic, the terrific cast and high production values more than make up for it.

Take the perfect casting. Griffin, reliable as always, combines humanity with both toughness and humor in her portrayal of Sister Clarissa. Thompson and Corey are excellent as the harried but obviously loving parents, whose late-night polka in the living room provides a charming moment of magic.

But the kids are the real revelation: every one of them is terrific. Brininstool gets well-deserved star billing for a spectacular performance as the kid who asks all the wrong questions. But that is not to slight Howe’s sensitive take on Annie’s pangs of puberty or Patterson’s touching attempt to reconcile his body’s messages with Sister’s teaching. And Sigurdsson never breaks character in the thankless role of the basically aphasic Georgie.

Marty Burnett has come up with another remarkably complex set – three rooms, a hall and a door leading to the bar downstairs, all on that small North Coast stage. Especially appreciated: those awful sea-green kitchen cabinets. He’s a genius.

Though the Pazinski clan isn’t your “Father Knows Best” family (Rudy asks plaintively one night, “Why can’t you be like on TV?”), you know these folks and can’t help engaging with them.

Over the Tavern plays through Sunday, July 12, at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Shows Wednesday and Sunday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinées Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 858-481-1055 or visit www.northcoastrep.org.