Where do you start to talk about dancing legend Chita Rivera? Rivera is more than a performer, she’s a national treasure who can sell a song, a dance, a story with the best of them.

Probably best known for her portrayal of Anita in the Broadway incarnation of West Side Story, Rivera’s career offers a trip down the memory lane of musical comedy. She is onstage in the world premiere of Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life at the Old Globe

Theatre through Oct. 30. The show is set for a Broadway opening in December.

This is a joyous autobiographical jaunt through both Rivera’s life and the golden age of the American musical. Supported by a splendid cast of 10 and an 11-piece orchestra, Rivera dances, talks, sings and completely enthralls her audience.

The irrepressible Chita (baptized Dolores Conchita Fuguero de Rivero) showed pizzazz and inexhaustible energy early on, delightfully illustrated here in “Dancing on the Kitchen Table,” a song written for the show by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

Chita got a scholarship to George Balanchine’s American Ballet School, but deserted ballet soon after when at 17 she accompanied a friend who wanted to audition for the road company of Call Me Madam. Chita got the job instead, becoming a “gypsy” (chorus member in a road show), a job description she identifies with to this day.

She later appeared in major shows such as Guys and Dolls, Can-Can and Mr. Wonderful (with Sammy Davis, Jr.), as well as a flop or two – like Seventh Heaven, in which she played a hooker (the show ran 44 days).

Her life changed in 1957 when playing Anita in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story made her a star. Several hits followed, including Bye Bye Birdie (with Dick Van Dyke), Sweet Charity, Chicago, The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman. To date, she has received eight Tony nominations and won twice (for the last two shows named).

Only Julie Harris (with 10) has received more nominations. Wonderfully directed and choreographed by old friend and fellow dancer Graciela Daniele, with terrific set design by Loy Arcenas and lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, this show had the

opening night crowd on its feet after some 25 spirited, sexy, fabulous numbers.

At 72, Rivera doesn’t kick as high as she once did, nor risk injury with the fancier moves. But she commands a stage like few others and charms with self-deprecating humor and honesty. She doesn’t dish, for example, but does admit to homicidal thoughts when Rita Moreno won the Oscar for West Side Story.

She gives all the credit for her success to her pantheon of terrific choreographers, which includes Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro, Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins. “Robbins defined me as a dancer,” she says.

In 2002 Rivera received a Kennedy Center honor at the White House. We see her looking resplendent in black with a red satin full-length coat and admitting to jitters: “I was so nervous, I asked the chief of staff to bring me a drink. All I could think of was ‘Omigod!’”

Much more could be said about Rivera, but only one thing need be said about this show: Don’t miss it.

Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life runs through Oct. 30 at the Old Globe Theatre. Shows Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For tickets, call (619) 23-GLOBE or visit www.oldglobe.org.

Toronto hairdresser Novelette (playwright Trey Anthony), of Caribbean background, finds hair a great diagnostic tool for black women.

“I can tell what’s going on in a woman’s life just by touching her hair,” she says. “A woman’s joy, hurt, pain, disappointment – it’s all in the hair. Why do you think it’s kinky?”

The San Diego Repertory Theatre presents the U.S. premiere of Anthony’s ‘da KINK in my HAIR through Oct. 16. The original Toronto production was so successful that the run was extended to 14 weeks.

‘da KINK in my HAIR is a celebration of black women’s lives, told in monologue and song by eight enormously talented women, most of whom play dual roles. The poignancy of the bluesy “I Got a Kink in My Hair,” chronicles the sweet love and sour betrayal of Shawnette (Lisa H. Payton) by a man who “loved the kink in my hair” until he finished medical school, at which point he found a “more appropriate” (and better educated) honey. Old widow Miss Enid (Satori Shakoor), gray of hair and stooped of gait, has just discovered “that tingly feeling” with neighbor Charlie. And then there’s young Stacey Anne (d’bi.young), whose harrowing story of child sexual abuse will break your heart. This show is heartfelt and true, funny and sweet, sad and hopeful.

There is Patsy (Karen Robinson), who buries her 8-year-old son, who was shot by police. There is also the tall and slim type-A Sherelle (Tanya Tatum), tired of always taking care of everyone, who asks, “Would it be OK if I just fell apart sometime?” And there is Sharmaine (Ashanti Johnson), the Emmy-winning TV star, whose mother always said, “You’re too black to wear red.”

With these spectacular eight women (pared down from the original cast of 18, including musicians), Anthony profiles the lives of black women. Though some of the stories are downers, ‘da KINK in my HAIR is a celebration of life. The songs (by e’Marcus Harper) are sexy, poignant, bluesy, bouncy; the emotions raw, universal, out there. In dialogue, song and dance, this show will have you tapping, clapping, laughing and sometimes weeping right along with the characters.

There is talk of a New York run for this show. Anthony will remain Novelette at least through the Rep run, but if it goes on, a bigger-name performer will step in. Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey have been invited to see it. It’s that good.

Don’t miss this must-see show.

‘da KINK in my HAIR plays through Oct.16 at San Diego Repertory Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 7:00 p.m.; 2:00 p.m. matinees on Oct. 9 and 26. For tickets, call (619) 544-1000 or visit www.sandiegorep.com.

Anyone who’s been around the theater awhile knows not to name that Shakespeare play about the Scottish king in a theater. Lore has it that naming the play is a curse inviting disaster to the production. So many real-life disasters have, in fact, accompanied productions of Macbeth that it is commonly referred to in the trade as “the

Scottish play.”

Playwright Lee Blessing, the most produced playwright at La Jolla Playhouse (except for the Bard), thought this was a plot idea too good to pass up. The result is the world premiere of a playwright-described “broad comedy” about the mishaps attendant upon one production of the play… so many that a pre-show announcement warns of dangerous-looking “accidents” to come.

The theater is the Northernmost Shakespeare Festival in upper-peninsula Michigan. Theater founder Alex McConnell (John C. Vennema) wants to do the play; townspeople have been asking, and it’s the only unperformed work in the canon. Artistic director Billy Neil – as fey, swishy and superstitious as they come – threatens to quit if it is programmed. Alex and young Turk director Jack Bonner (Jere Burns) decide they will do it anyway. Billy stomps off (but decides to stay around to watch the disaster he is sure will ensue), and the plot is set.

Sound like a sitcom? Unfortunately, it plays like one as well. Characters stereotypical to an extreme (though in some cases fun to watch); situations goofy and laid on way too thick; pacing reminiscent of, well, a sitcom.

The problems begin with Billy’s huffy exit – he trips a gofer rushing in with a drink for Alex – and don’t let up until the lights go out.

But the real disaster is Alex’s casting “coup”: he signs film idol Path Sanderson (Erik Heger) to play Macbeth. Path is gorgeous, and will doubtless sell tons of tickets. There’s only one minor problem: he’s never read the play, and has taken the job on the assumption that Macbeth is a handsome hero, and that playing him will burnish his image. His shocked observation (having at last read the script) that “this Macbeth guy is a real douche bag of a hero… my wife, like, kicks my ass for, like, basically the whole play” is one of the better moments.

Path has his own ideas about how the plot should go and, unfortunately, the financial clout to get his way, leading to more silliness.

If pratfalls and slapstick aren’t your thing, Blessing gives us some good characters to watch. There’s something irresistibly wicked about Billy (just out of orneriness) casting Alex’s three wives as the witches, and the beginning of their first scene together is

delicious: sitting as far apart as possible, each facing determinedly away from the others, not speaking.

And director Melia Bensussen has found three wonderful actresses: Susan Knight as volatile and vicious redhead Maud Meckley; Rebecca Wisocky’s wacky new-agey therapist Zita Virago; and Bridget Regan’s short-skirted sexy young thing, Eden Hunt. All are types, but wonderfully drawn and played to the hilt.

It’s not that The Scottish Play isn’t funny in spots, or well mounted. It’s just that Blessing (forever in my pantheon of great playwrights for A Walk in the Woods and Two Rooms) can do so much better.

The Scottish Play runs through Oct. 23 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. Shows Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 7:00 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For tickets, call (858) 550-1010 or visit lajollaplayhouse.com.