Kiss Bessemer Goodbye (El Beso del Adis) continues in repertory through May 23 at the Gramercy Arts Theater, 138 East 27th Street, Manhattan; (212) 225-9920, repertorio.org.

Good Ol Girls continues through April 11 at the Steinberg Center for Theater, 111 West 46th Street, Manhattan; (212) 352-3101, theatermania.com.

Substantial excerpts from three pieces -- "Jerry and Tom" by Rick Cleveland, whose credits include such TV gems as "Mad Men" and "Six Feet Under"; "Hidden in This Picture" by Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter and playwright who created TV's "West Wing"; "Washed Up on the Potomac" by Lynn Rosen -- have been mushed together to create an uninterrupted, roughly 100-minute show.

If, as parts of one play fade in and out of another, a sturdy connective thread emerged, a fully consistent theme that pulled things more or less together, the net effect wouldn't be quite so jarring. Instead, it's akin to channel surfing.

That this collision of three separate worlds proceeds in seamless fashion, thanks to Jason Loewith's well-timed direction and Neil Patel's classy, cleverly adaptable scenic design (projected images are used with particular flair), does not make the material any more compatible. And, although a potent cast gives the whole thing a good shot, it's still hard not to think that a vibrant staging of one, unabridged play would have made for a more rewarding experience.

Filling up the lion's share of the production is "Jerry and Tom." The title characters are just a couple of working class guys who master a slightly off-beat profession -- hit man -- and manage to retain wholesome family values in the process.

Cleveland's Chicago-centered black comedy hits its targets easily. He may not be the first writer to make matter-of-fact killers oddly funny, but he certainly knows how to do it with a wicked little twist of the knife. It's not tough to see where he's going with his plot, though, and the F-word-larded dialogue starts to sound rather forced after a while.

Vasili Bogazianos gives a note-perfect performance as the long-experienced executioner Tom, who wouldn't think of switching jobs to, say, real estate -- "too [freaking] cutthroat for me." Luke Robertson is effective as the nervous, determined Jerry. John Ramsey puts a distinctive spin on multiple roles, especially Vic, the mobster with a "grassy knoll" in his past and a terrible toupee on his head.

"Hidden in This Picture," inspired by a story about the making of the Alan Alda-directed "Sweet Liberty," takes place in an outdoor workplace, an upstate New York farm area that, somehow, is supposed to suggest Guam in a war movie. A determined director named Robert waits for his last, great shot, which he has painstakingly rehearsed and precisely timed to a sunset so that nothing could go wrong.

It's an amusing set-up, and Sorkin shoots some telling arrows at the movie biz, the struggle between art ("Yale Drama crap") and costs, etc. The chunk of his play included here has such a frantic energy and wry dialogue that you can almost feel the actors wishing they could sink their chops into the full play.

Joseph Wycoff has quite a romp as Robert. His nicely nuanced portrayal is matched by Garrett Neergaard's as the screenwriter Jeff. Ramsey (Reuben) and Amy Hohn (Christine) provide colorful supporting work.

Hohn also gives an assured performance as Ruth, one of the quirky proofreaders who live with the threat of staff reductions and the nagging memory of a missing employee in "Washed Up on the Potomac," the one play in this hodgepodge that offers a traditional work environment. Neergaard, as Carl, is a lively presence. Katie Jefferies gets good mileage from the role of vapid Tina.

Rosen's dialogue has some amusing, oddball flourishes that wouldn't be out of place on "The Office." And, at a time when a stubborn recession keeps nipping and ripping at our heels, there's certainly extra resonance in the scenes involving the upper management type, Deb (Kate Buddeke), who has a particularly creepy way of bearing bad news. But the plot doesn't really go anywhere interesting, despite a side trip to peek at a possible crime.

In the end, for all of the stylish acting and visual appeal of the production, the payoff in humor and insight is pretty slim. And for all of the potential in the basic concept behind the show, it feels as if someone, somewhere just never got it worked out all the way.

Quick! Which professional theater company in Seattle presents more premieres of new work than any comparable theater in the country?

If you didn't guess Seattle Children's Theatre, you're not alone.

Although it sells more than 200,000 tickets a year, a common impression of SCT in its own backyard is of a community theater that puts on kiddie shows for toddlers and tykes.

Richard Bendix, a former president of SCT's Board of Trustees, recalls attending a meeting of Eastside business leaders last year at which SCT managing director Tim Jennings was the guest speaker.

"Virtually no one in the audience realized SCT is a professional theater like Seattle Rep or ACT or Intiman," said Bendix, a HomeStreet Bank senior vice president who currently heads the theater's Audience Development Council. "I was amazed."

If that were an isolated incident it might not be so anecdotally instructive. But Jennings, who arrived at SCT last year from Canada, corroborates Bendix's account and admits it is more the norm than the exception. Whenever he speaks to civic groups and private organizations, Jennings says a large majority in each audience -- upwards of 80 percent, he estimates -- is unaware that SCT employs Equity actors, that its theater building is the largest in Seattle, and that it is generally considered one of the best children's theaters on the planet.

As one who viewed SCT from afar for most of his career, Jennings said, "Seattle Children's Theatre has always been seen as a guiding light in the creation of productions for young audiences."

Yet, as it begins its 35th season, the perception persists, at least among the uninitiated in Seattle, that SCT is something other than major league.

It's not for lack of effort. SCT stages a full slate of productions at its complex in the shadow of the Space Needle at Seattle Center. It has a robust marketing and public relations program. It networks via Twitter and Facebook. It does direct mail and it connects with every school system in the region.

Part of the problem is that thousands of communities across the country have children's theaters, Jennings said. Very few of them are professional. Most are community- or school-based organizations operated by volunteers without substantial resources. Small wonder that the term "children's theater" elicits images of dancing dinosaurs and fuzzy costumes.

To be sure, some SCT shows cater to the very young. This season's second production, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," features lots of physical comedy and is considered suitable for ages 3 and up.

But much of SCT's programming is far more complex, and sophisticated enough to play on any stage in Seattle. Case in point: the opening production of the 2009-10 season, "Mysterious Gifts: Theatre of Iran," recommended for ages 10 and up.

Conceived by Iranian performer/director Yaser Khaseb, "Mysterious Gifts" starts with an easy appetizer -- a sampling of Iranian folk dance. But the next two pieces, using puppetry and movement to splendid artistic effect, are intellectually challenging.

Reviewing the production for Seattleschild.com, Cheryl Murfin wrote: "Honestly, I have never seen anything like 'Mysterious Gifts: Theatre of Iran.' My 10-year-old son and I were mesmerized and enthralled by the depth of storytelling possible without words, through the power of movement."

On SCT's Facebook page Aimee Windmiller-Wood gushed: "This is the most powerful, moving piece I have seen in a long time!"

It's not the sort of reaction one hears after a performance by, say, the Wiggles. And it's sweet salve to Linda Hartzell, SCT's indefatigable artistic director since 1984.

Hartzell went to Iran to persuade Khaseb to stage the U.S. premiere of "Mysterious Gifts" in Seattle. It is the first in a series of SCT productions Hartzell has dubbed "Connecting Stories."

"We chose to travel to Iran and work with Iranian artists because Iran has the most sophisticated theater tradition in the Middle East," Hartzell said. " 'Connecting Stories' is about forging personal relationships that reach across national and cultural boundaries."

Hartzell isn't so sure SCT is largely unknown or lightly regarded in Seattle. For a quarter-century she has seen thousands of families embrace theater for the first time by attending a Children's Theatre production. Still, it troubles her that thousands of other families don't attend live theater.

"I feel strongly that art should be a part of a child's education," Hartzell said, "a part of their developmental process. It makes them better human beings if they have art in their lives."

The mission, as Hartzell sees it, is to make theater accessible. She says her own father was reluctant to go to the theater because he thought it was elitist and highfalutin.

"We will make you part of the family," Hartzell promised, "and you don't have to get dressed up. You're going to experience this with other people in the community."

Something that Hartzell doesn't do readily is boast. It takes some doing to get her to say, "In the theater world in the United States, we are very well respected."

Ya think? In 2004, Time magazine ranked SCT second only to the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis.

CTC and SCT are clearly the Big Two of children's theater in this country. Five years ago they partnered in creating Plays for Young Audiences, a central clearinghouse of scripts written for young audiences that are available to theater companies and schools.

The Minneapolis theater has a bigger budget, but Jennings says SCT actually tends to commission more new work -- more than 100 plays so far. Recently Jennings was looking at the season schedules of the dozens of children's theaters that belong to Theatre Communications Group, a national theater-support organization, and discovered all but two were producing plays that originated in Seattle.

It's this nationally significant impact that Jennings and Bendix hope Seattle learns to appreciate more, not so much for the bragging rights but for what it ultimately might mean to the next generation, and the ones that follow.

"If you expose people to great art," said Jennings, "it tends to inspire them to do great things."

Sometimes, and maybe especially in these times, people need a good laugh.

Even Alfred Hitchcock -- master of mystery, savant in suspense -- knew tickling the funny bone was an effective plot device.

"In the mystery and suspense genre," Hitchcock once told Francois Truffaut, "a tongue-in-cheek approach is indispensable."

In "Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps," playing through Oct. 24 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, it's inescapable. There's enough hilarity in 100 minutes of cloak-and-daggery to keep Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, health care, swine flu and Matt Hasselbeck's ribcage off our minds for, well, at least a hundred minutes.

And to think that when British director Maria Aitken first read the script, she threw it across the room.

"I said, 'How do you possibly tell that story with four people?' " Aitken recalled last week.

It seems Aitken (who pronounces her first name muh-RYE-uh) has figured it out. Under her clever direction, "The 39 Steps" opened in London in 2006 and continues to amuse West End audiences while another production simultaneously tours the U.K. It killed in Australia and Hong Kong last year. The smash Broadway version is set to conclude its two-year, Tony Award-winning run in January. The play has been performed across Europe, with adaptations in German, Greek and Spanish. A Hebrew version played Tel Aviv.

Based on Hitchcock's 1935 film "The 39 Steps," which was loosely based on a 1915 novel by John Buchan, the play is both homage to Hitchcock's oeuvre and a facetious send-up of the director's favorite tricks. It uses only four actors and precious little set decoration to take the audience on a zany vaudevillian ride with Richard Hannay, a man falsely accused of murdering a spy.

Hannay, played by Ted Deasy, goes on the lam to escape prosecution and solve the mystery of a spy ring known as the 39 Steps. Along the way, he encounters more than a hundred characters, all of them played by Eric Hissom, Scott Parkinson and Claire Brownell. With frequent allusions to Hitchcock films, the four use physical comedy and clever choreography to coax smiles, chuckles and laughs out of theater patrons eager to enjoy an airy confection.

"It's profoundly silly," Aitken said, "and there's probably an appetite for that."

In addressing why the show is playing to packed houses, Seattle Rep artistic director Jerry Manning said timing is everything.

"It's a great way to start off the season," he said, "rather than with something deep and heavy and brooding. Sometimes we just need a sugar rush."

The show running here, a co-production of Seattle Rep and the La Jolla Playhouse, constitutes the start of a U.S. tour for a play that Aitken calls "the little engine that could."

Unable to attend the La Jolla opening in August, Aitken made it to Seattle for the first several performances and pronounced its execution by her lieutenants "a most perfect, scrupulous job." An accomplished actor in her own right, she revels in the four performers "working really hard to make magic" of Patrick Barlow's adaptation of an idea conceived by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon.

Aitken also sees something soothing and eminently relatable in a theater piece that seems to be running on a tight budget.

"There are so many trillion-dollar sets on stages today," she said, "that people are very charmed that this play makes something out of nothing. Everything is done by the actors' bodies and these split-second changes of costume."

The concept of a "small" production succeeding in troubling economic times is timely, too. By mounting a co-production instead of staging something it would have had to do on its own, Seattle Rep and La Jolla each save considerable sums at a time when independent theaters are struggling.

Manning says it's a prime reason why the Rep took Neil Simon's "Hay Fever" off its schedule when the rights to co-produce "The 39 Steps" became available. (La Jolla did the same with "The Hudsucker Proxy.") The downside, locally, is that a national touring show such as this one militates against Seattle actors.

Manning said that when a theater brings in a play that was cast elsewhere -- this production was built and cast in La Jolla -- it's not a good thing for Seattle actors, who likely had no opportunity to audition for the production.

"This season is way askew," he said of how much Seattle Rep work will be going to local performers. "I wouldn't conceal that. Last season, by far and away, most of our contracts were to Seattle actors."

Manning believes things will balance out in the long run.

"It's hard times out there," he said, "and we're being extremely cautious about our expenses."

True enough, it's no laughing matter, unless you're watching Maria Aitken's treatment of "The 39 Steps."

"It's just fun for the sake of having fun," Manning said. "It pulls out every theatrical trick in the book, and it does it at an extraordinarily high level of craft."

Of course, "Fledermaus" doesn't sell itself. You've still got to fuel it with plenty of vocal and theatrical finesse. On Wednesday night, Peabody Opera Theatre's economical new production offered enough of those requirements to deliver a winning performance. (Wednesday's cast sings tonight, with a different lineup on Saturday.)

Lindsay Thompson, as the ambitious chambermaid Adele, stood out for her gleaming tone, prismatic phrasing and assured acting; the soprano sounded entirely ready for her close-up. As Alfredo, the Italian tenor who slips into something more comfortable and more complicated, William Davenport looked every bit the part and sang with brio. Stephen Campbell, as Eisenstein, lacked tonal heft, but delivered abundant charm.

The other solo singing proved variable, the acting uniformly engaging; Michael Rainbow, as the flustered lawyer, revealed an affinity for comic shtick. The chorus made a vibrant sound. Nicholas Fichter did an amusing turn in the speaking role of the drunken jailer.

Roger Brunyate's stage direction ensured a brisk pace, but he had his singers tossing a few too many glasses and bottles around. In the pit, Hajime Teri Murai conducted the mostly tight orchestra with admirable alertness to the distinctive Viennese lilt of the score.

"Die Fledermaus" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday at the Peabody Institute, 17 E. Mount Vernon Place. Tickets are $10 to $25. Call 410-234-4800 or go to peabody.jhu.edu.