After 34 years, Cynthia Levin's little-theater-that-does just keeps doing it. Even as it urges Kansas City theatergoers into the future, the Unicorn is reliable as gravity, steady as the Marching Cobras, the one theater in town dedicated to professional productions of new, challenging work. This past year, the Unicorn scarred us with The Pillow Man, dished Hollywood dirt with Orson's Shadow, and — in the sober, inventive dramas Iron Kisses and Rabbit Hole — demonstrated yet again that nothing in the culture can move us like serious plays about what life is actually like. And then there were the musicals: With La Cage Aux Folles, The Great American Trailer Park Musical and a revival of Crowns, the Unicorn not only put onstage the people that other theaters won't but also let them boogie. Only Nickel and Dimed, an adaptation of Barbara Ehrenreich's account of working-class tourism, failed to move, and even that wasn't a bad way to spend your time. Better the company turn socioeconomic screeds into plays than do more Mel Brooks adaptations.