Theater

All in the Timing A couple of fresh additions to the theatrical sights that Kansas Citians can experience only at UMKC's theater department: an aphasiac Trotsky with an ax in his head, a trio of typing monkeys tasked with banging out Hamlet, and the dissolution and reconstruction of language itself. All this — here's the proverbial and more — await you when director Gary Holcombe guides his talented young charges through the six short plays that make up David Ives' death-of-English comedy All in the Timing. It's a show, we hear, that's not to be missed, even if Holcombe is doing it only because the production rights to Equus were yanked from him in the wake of that show's London triumph and Broadway revival. Which means, in a roundabout way, that we have Harry Potter's dick to thank for this. Through Oct. 28 at UMKC's Grant Hall Theatre, 5228 Charlotte, 816-235-6222. (Alan Scherstuhl)

Children of Eden It takes a village to stage the book of Genesis, even if it's the cheery, less-blood-and-more-covenant musical theater Genesis whipped up by Broadway darling Stephen Schwartz, composer of Wicked. Center Stage Productions has wrangled a good-sized mob to fill the ranks of the chosen people and their tormentors. Excitingly enough, five different performers are credited with the role of "Snake." Bittersweet but still brimming with biblical-by-way-of-Broadway uplift, it's the greatest hits of flood-era monotheism: the Garden of Eden, Noah and the ark and other tales you may recall from Sunday school felt boards or Highway 61 Revisited. Through Oct. 28 at the Lewis and Shirley White Theatre at the Jewish Community Campus, 5801 W. 115th St. in Overland Park, 913-327-8000. (Alan Scherstuhl)