Before Harry Potter, there was The Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West. And even before that, the Wicked Witch was born Elphaba (Donna Vivino), a little girl like any other but for that unfortunate green tinge to her skin.

Quick-witted and spunky, Elphaba quickly learns what Kermit the Frog knows: It’s not easy being green. But she doesn’t get much chance to feel sorry for herself, because her wheelchair-bound sister Nessarose (Amanda Rose) gets all the attention and care.

In fact, the only reason Elphaba is sent to school at “old Shiz” is to take care of Nessa. Imagine her consternation when Madame Morrible (Myra Lucretia Taylor) splits them up and assigns Elphaba to room with the pretty, popular and (God help us) blonde Galinda (Katie Rose Clarke), with whom she has nothing whatever in common. Will they become friends, rivals, enemies, all three?

You know the answer. But if you’d like to see it (or see it again), know that Wicked is back at Civic Theatre, this time for a longer stay (through Aug. 30), under the auspices of Broadway San Diego.

Based on the Gregory Maguire novel, Wicked has everything that sells tickets: glitzy costumes, sets that move every which way (almost constantly), flying monkeys, a “floating” Glinda (she changes the spelling midway through the show), Stephen Schwartz’s loud, bouncy songs, fun if overdrawn characters and a sweet be-who-you-are message. That’s why it’s one of the most successful musicals of all time, breaking box-office records nationwide wherever it’s played.

Winnie Holzman’s book provides some great lines. Try this: “The truth is not a thing of fact or reason; the truth is just what everyone agrees on.” And how about “Where I’m from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren’t true. We call it history.”

The downside of this lickety-split show is that the pace doesn’t give you much chance to stop and reflect. On the other hand, the cast is so good and you’re so busy looking that you probably won’t notice you’re in that seat for nearly three hours.

In Wicked (think of it as Wizard of Oz, the prequel), blonde Glinda learns that sometimes that isn’t enough; the Wizard learns that you can fool all of the people most of the time; and Elphaba finds that there is someone for her, after all.

It’s fun, noisy, frantic of pace and beloved to much of the theatergoing world. Wicked plays through Sunday, Aug. 30 at Civic Theatre. Plan accordingly. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday at 2 p.m.; Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. For tickets, call 619-570-1100 or Ticketmaster at 800-982-2787.

Wordplay – exquisite, punny, corny and satirical – is playwright David Ives’ forté, and so is his cockeyed take on existential themes.

Six pieces from Time Flies, a collection of Ives’ short plays, are onstage through Sunday, Aug. 16, at New Village Arts Theatre, directed by Joshua Everett Johnson.

New Village Arts thus establishes its first Summer Comedy Festival, replacing its too costly Shakespeare in the Park series. Playing on off nights in repertory with Time Flies are Sure Thing (also by Ives) and Prom Night by local playwright Emily Reit.

Time Flies – also the title of the first piece – is a consideration of the transitory nature of life and love as seen through the eyes of “lowly mayflies” Horace (Tim Parker) and May (Rachel Robinson). It’s love at first sight until they settle in to watch a TV special with David Attenborough (Wendy Waddell) and find out that their lifespan is 24 hours. Their frantic “carpe diem” response is a hoot.

In my favorite, Soap Opera, a Maypole washing machine repairman (Adam Brick) must choose between his love for his perfect washing machine (Rachael VanWormer) and the imperfect Mabel (Rachel Robinson), with the perpetual jelly stain on her blouse. Johnson also does a hilarious turn as a snooty restaurant maitre d’ who does not want to seat man and machine.

The Mystery at Twicknam Vickarage is a send-up of British parlor mysteries, complete with crazy plot twists and outrageous accents.

In Degas C’est Moi, the very ordinary Ed (Joshua Everett Johnson) decides to become the extraordinary impressionist artist Edgar Degas, with less than gratifying results.

Two other pieces are less successful: Enigma Variations, a déjà vu piece about a patient (well, two: VanWormer and Waddell) and her doctor (well, two: Johnson and Brick), mirroring each other; and Captive Audience, which posits that the TV is alive and watching us.

On off-nights, Mark Stephan directs Sure Thing and Prom Night. In Sure Thing, (from the Ives collection All in the Timing), a man (Tanner Weston) spies a girl (Kristie Kahlweiss) in a café and tries to find the right pick-up line. With each failure, a bell dings, time rewinds and he tries a different tack until finally it appears they will go off to an assignation. (If this plot sounds familiar, know that Sure Thing was written years before the film Groundhog Day.)

Next up is Emily Reit’s Prom Night, an absurdist romp that gives two actors with great comic timing (Ruff Yeager and Karson St. John) a chance to show off, and the audience a chance to guffaw at the torments visited on daughter Rachel (Kahlweiss) and date Jeff (Weston) by these parents from hell.

Ives’ sense of the absurd is akin to that in Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” cartoons. The combination of Ives’ wacky viewpoint and Reit’s wigged-out meditation on parents, augmented by smart direction and a talented and versatile cast, make for two evenings of perfect summer entertainment.

Time Flies plays through Sunday, Aug. 16, at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. Plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinées Saturday at 3 and Sunday at 2 p.m.

For tickets, call 760-433-3245 or visit www.newvillagearts.org.

You can’t get much more trashy than turning tricks in a trailer behind a sheet curtain while your 15-year-old daughter (Bonnie Alexander) sits on the couch, watching TV.

But that’s been Lisa’s life for years, one she accepts with no visible emotion.

Today she shares the couch with the john’s friend Clint (Scott Andrew Amiotte) when the sound effects begin.

“She fakes it,” Lisa says.

Clint takes a fancy to Lisa and the next we know, they are married and joyriding from one cheap motel to another. Lisa’s job is to procure women to satiate Clint’s prodigious appetite and later to kill them with the gun he has provided. Only an occasional anonymous phone call to the police describing the location of the bodies betrays Lisa’s discomfort with this arrangement.

Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, is a sordid tale of a sociopath and the teenager he convinced to take both his abuse and the eventual rap. InnerMission Productions presents The Glory of Living through Sunday, Aug. 14, at 8Teen Center in North Park. Carla Nell directs.

In the second act, Lisa has admitted everything and is on Death Row. Her court-appointed attorney Carl (David Kelso) is trying to come up with a possible winning appeal strategy, but gets little help from Lisa. He cannot understand, any more than we can, how on earth Lisa allowed herself to get into this fix.

This play is not for all tastes, but for the adventurous there are rewards in the form of fine performances. The 18-year-old Alexander, a Grossmont High graduate, is astonishing in this difficult role. Kelso offers the humanizing influence in attorney Carl. Amiotte offers one scary presence as Clint, whose violence is barely beneath the surface. The rest of the cast give fine supporting performances as well.

Carla Nell loves to dig into the dark underside of human behavior. This is about as dark as I’ve seen lately.

The Glory of Living plays through Aug. 14, 2009 at 8Teen Center, 3925 Ohio Street. Final shows through Sunday, Aug. 14, at 8 p.m. For tickets, call 619-245-4958 or visit www.innermissionproductions.org.