They were just kids, really, coming of age in small-town Texas during the Depression, looking for escape, excitement and fame.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow met in Dallas, fell in love instantly and soon found what they were looking for, becoming headline fodder by robbing banks, grocery stores and gas stations. Clyde’s brother Buck (Claybourne Elder) and his horrified wife Blanche (Melissa van der Schyff) also got involved.

For a while, the public found them romantic heroes, Robin Hoods stealing from the banks that had screwed over the people in those desperate economic times. But they lost their cachet when the killing started, and a dozen deaths later, in 1934, their string of crimes ended in a hail of police bullets when they were 23 and 25 years old.

La Jolla Playhouse presents the world premiere of Broadway hopeful Bonnie & Clyde through Sunday, Dec. 20, at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. Jeff Calhoun directs and handles the musical staging.

Book author Ivan Manchell doesn’t rehash the 1967 film’s romanticized view of these young desperadoes, but rather chooses to consider the psychology of the pair and the effects of their actions on those close to them, relying on three memoirs: those by Bonnie’s widowed mother Emma, Blanche and Clyde’s younger sister Marie.

A book by cop Ted Hinton (Chris Peluso) led Mandell to posit unrequited love between himself and former classmate Bonnie – without verification, but based on a line that made it sound likely.

In addition to boredom and the desire for notoriety, Clyde had a goal of revenge on the Texas prison system, said to have been formulated at a young age when he was incarcerated for petty crimes and endured repeated rape by his cellmate (finally fracturing the offender’s skull with a pipe).

But it’s the families who really suffer here. Emma (the redoubtable Mare Winningham) barely recognizes her daughter, the A student who wrote poetry, asking in a plaintive song, “When did the devil take my girl away?” Clyde’s father Henry sorrowfully tells the cops he understands their need to kill Clyde, but that he can’t help them do it. The religious Blanche, after several desperate attempts to keep Buck from involvement in his brother’s exploits, eventually goes along – and pays the price.

Interestingly enough, family was important enough that their crime spree was geographically circular, so Bonnie could come back to visit her mother – and that’s how the cops found them.

Composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll and Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel) and lyricist Don Black (a Tony winner for Sunset Boulevard) tell the story with ragtime, gospel, blues and folk music sounds, including some particularly lovely duet, trio and quartet writing.

Tobin Ost’s set design is minimalist but functional and appropriate to the dramatic situation: wooden slats that can be raised or lowered to suggest spaciousness or its opposite, suggestions of bars for the prison scenes, a desk for an office, all wonderfully lit for dramatic effect by Michael Gilliam.

Vocally, the men fare better than the women. All the men (and especially Peluso) have rich, round voices that are a pleasure to hear. Osnes and van der Schyff have fine voices as well, but their piercing upper registers are more difficult to listen to.

Kudos to the sound techs for exercising restraint in the miking, for once giving us a musical that doesn’t blast the eardrums.

Bonnie & Clyde needs a few tweaks before it goes on. It’s too long, and the easiest fix would be to eliminate the reprises. “The Long Arm of the Law” and “The World Will Remember Us” are good songs but don’t need two reprises each; “God’s Arms Are Always Open” probably could be dropped entirely without losing anything important. But the necessary elements for a winner are in place.

Bonnie & Clyde plays through Sunday, Dec. 20, at La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday through Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. For tickets, call 858-550-1010 or visit www.lajollaplayhouse.org.

That mossy green ol’ Grinch (Jeff Skowron) is back in town, glowering at the Whos down in Whoville getting ready for the Christmas holidays. Soon he will tie antlers on his poor dog Max (Logan Lipton) and force him to help in the Grinch’s nefarious plan to keep Christmas from coming.

The homegrown annual classic Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas is in its 12th incarnation at the Old Globe Theatre through Sunday, Dec. 27. Benjamin Endsley Klein directs a particularly experienced cast, including 14 returnees.

One is Martin Van Treuren as Old Max, who tells the story in flashback, describing that wonderful, awful year when his owner, the mean greenie, tried and failed to steal Christmas.

But oh, my, it’s a wonderful ride, helped immeasurably by this year’s new Grinch (Jeff Skowron, who understudied the role on Broadway) and little Cindy-Lou Who, a double-cast role played by Anna Bahen the night I saw it.

Skowron skulks around the stage like a big hairy Scrooge, fuming at the whole idea of giving and sharing and joy – until that fateful night when he’s stolen all the gifts and even the Christmas tree from Whoville. Before he and Max can escape, Cindy-Lou comes downstairs asking him to be “Santa For a Day,” in a heart-melting song with some tricky interval jumps that nine-year-old Bahen nails.

Even a Grinch couldn’t resist that, and his heart which was “two sizes too small” grows three sizes in a few minutes.

Mel Marvin’s charming songs (especially the Grinch’s vaudeville-inspired “One Of a Kind”) keep toes tapping and occasionally eyes brimming; the orchestra is better than ever, and everybody leaves smiling and humming.

What more can you ask?

Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas plays through Sunday, Dec. 27, at the Old Globe Theatre. Shows Tuesday through Sunday at 7 p.m.; weekends variable, generally at 11 a.m., 2:30 and 7 p.m. For tickets, call 619-23-GLOBE or visit www.TheOldGlobe.org.