Welcome to Donald Margulies’ “Shipwrecked!,” a 19th-century adventure story loosely based on a historical figure and clearly influenced by Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens and Darwin. The rummy sing-along is the handiwork of director Brian Clowdus, who stages this carnival-style “entertainment” about a maritime hero and his incredible tale of diving for pearls, riding astride giant sea turtles and falling in love with a beautiful aborigine.

And the raindrops, well, that’s just another unscripted detail on a typical night at Serenbe Playhouse, where Clowdus’ resident ensemble is winding up its second season of site-specific performances with “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougement (As Told by Himself).” While the show is designed with low-tech sound effects made with ordinary objects, Nature frequently adds commentary of her own in the form of thunder, birdsongs, Georgia heat or mosquitoes.

Nothing if not charming, “Shipwrecked!” is inventively staged, frequently beautiful, occasionally magical and, by the end of the night, a tad too long for its own good. Framed by the simple sheds that normally hold the baked goods, flowers and vegetables of the Serenbe farmers’ market and starring Atlanta actor Mark Kincaid (at left) in the role of the rogue storyteller, it continues through August 27.

“Shipwrecked!” is a classical romance that invites us to imagine a clash between Ovid and Jules Verne. But only a vagabond wit like Louis de Rougement could invent flying wombats, ride on the back of giant turtles and live to tell the tale in a blaze of celebrity and ignominy.

Kincaid begins the piece with some of the finest detail work I’ve ever seen him muster, and he dominates the show. “Shipwrecked!” also features the sparrow-throated Minka Wiltz, the nimble Will Shuler and the quick-changing trio of Michael Kutner, Renita James and Patrick Donohue — all five in a variety of roles.

As good as Kincaid is, he loses energy as we sail through chapter after chapter. With a face of pure rubber and a piercing, angelic voice that rings in the night, Wiltz is a marvelously expressive performer. She plays de Rougement’s mother, his salty sea captain and the exotic aboriginal beauty who enchants and ultimately marries him. Shuler, who also serves as music director for Serenbe’s musicals and cabaret series, is a performer whose spirits never flag; his take on de Rougement’s loyal, shaggy dog, Bruno, is a delightful romp all on its own and underscores how this giddy comedy could work as a show for families and children (perhaps with a bit of  a trim).

Alas, Saturday night’s performance was delayed by technical problems. Eventually the show went on, under the footlights, no worse for the wear but without the sophisticated lighting cues that normally add to Margulies’ meditation on truth, time and love. Like the pearls that the sea-goers plop into pickle jars, the story heaps one fantastic image on top of another, from a man-eating octopus to cannibalistic islanders. This is de Rougement’s playhouse of the imagination.

As a study of soul-mating and the comings and goings of a seasick heart, “Shipwrecked!” evinces images of great emotional sweep. A peripatetic, homesick soul says goodbye to his wife. Then, like a lost sailor come back from his watery slumber, he causes his old mother to think she is hallucinating, or dead. Tears, saltwater, rain. Joy, sorrow, rapture. It all comes together in a couple of hours of almost pure liquid magic.

I would even go so far as to say it’s the best musical in Aurora’s history — except that I didn’t catch “Singin’ in the Rain,” the 2010 season opener, which by all accounts made quite a splash. I see in the program, though, that Anne Towns is the director behind both ventures, so I have to believe she has something to do with the magic. Inaugurating Aurora’s 16th season and running through September 4, “A Chorus Line” is a revelation of how a small, savvy and determined theater can produce a grand-scale musical that gets nearly everything right.

A big show that requires its movers to stretch their muscles, its actors to dig deep into their souls and its singers to situate their phrases nimbly around frenetic kicks and leaps and narrative montages, “A Chorus Line” is about a group of dancers desperate to get hired. Arriving at the cusp of “the ‘Me’ Decade” and based on the original company’s real-life stories, it pushed buttons about ageism and objectification (a fancy word for “tits and ass”) and about sexual discovery and relationships. It somehow crystallized that famous period of rebellion, in the 1960s and early ’70s, against power structures, parents and the status quo.

Picking every wound he can find and playing psychotherapist is choreographer-director Zach (played by Anthony Rodriguez), who will ultimately confront some of his own personal baggage in the form of a washed-up dancer wearing a wisp of a red dress (Pamela Gold as Cassie). Rodriguez, the Aurora’s producing artistic director, is newly slimmed up here; he also feels newly minted as a performer, and is very good as the jerk who may in fact have a tiny speck of decency left in his tight-fisted little heart.

"A Chorus Line" dancers bare their souls: Brance Cornelius, Pamela Gold, Courtney Godwin and David Rossetti. (Photo by Chris Bartelski)

But the essence of “A Chorus Line” is in the lineup, in the imperfections and vulnerabilities of the harried and perspiring troupers who put their souls out on a limb every night, waiting for the buzz saw and the adoration. It’s a terrible way to make a living, and yet it’s the only way to make a living. This is what they do for love.

If you want to be a Zach, you can easily find the weak links in this 25-member company. But life is always bumpy and lumpy and out of key, poised for awkwardness and unintentional laughs. It is also about finding courage and bravery in moments of humiliation and defeat. “A Chorus Line” is about glimmers of tenderness in a cutthroat world. Good audiences know that.

And so do good directors. Towns chooses to emphasize her performers’ strengths. Anthony Owen (as Bobby Mills) has brilliant attitude, wearing his character’s dismissiveness like a badge of honor. Courtney Godwin (as Val Clark) has raw energy and charisma and captures the determination of a person who refuses to be rendered invisible (“Dance: 10; Looks: 3”). Marissa Druzbanski packs sassy punch as Diana Morales, who feels absolutely “Nothing” in her improvisation classes and dares to call out her teacher on the BS. Greg Kamp (Mark Anthony) is lovely as the clueless chap who is disabused of his naivete in the confession booth and seems somehow exhilarated that it wasn’t gonorrhea after all. I could go on and on. Let’s just say that this company consistently exudes vitality and spunk, clarity and truth.

Gold’s solo (at left) is a tour de force, anguish and tension uncoiled in a swirl of passion and desire. She burrows right down to Cassie’s soul. David Rossetti is gifted beyond the sum of his dancing-singing-acting components. He finds grace and poignance in a sense of quiet and reserve, and his Paul San Marco will bring tears to your eyes.

I have always loved the way Marvin Hamlisch’s score packs what sound like breakthrough moments of a disco heart (“The Music and the Mirror”); it’s so ’70s and electric and woozy. Music Director Ann-Carol Pence and her eight-piece band dig it too, virtually dancing with the groovy vibes, the lilting romance, the brassy locomotion of the music. No scrimping and saving on this orchestra. Jen MacQueen’s choreography is wonderfully executed by this young and energetic ensemble of swans, hoofers, tappers and strutters. I hope they all get it; I hope you’ll all see it.

Well, it looks like it’s going to take a moment for Clowdus to pull himself together. Word is that the jury was especially impressed by “The Ugly Duckling,” which the director situated on a pond hidden amidst the rolling green pastures and overgrown wildflower meadows that give the bucolic Serenbe community its verdant sheen. One committee member said the drive from Atlanta to the southside hamlet on a warm July afternoon read like the first sentence of the Hans Christian Andersen classic about the little outcast duck: “It was lovely summer weather in the country, and the golden corn, the green oats, and the haystacks piled up in the meadows looked beautiful.” Another was overjoyed to hear a chorus of live Serenbe ducks quacking in the background during the performance.

OK, it looks as if Serenbe Playhouse has taken the stage. Five, four, three, two, one … We’re live, folks.

* * *

Rose Shields as a Swan, Andrew Crigler as the Ugly Duckling, Emma Kate Jackson as a Swan. (Photos by Loran Hygema)

You will forgive this self-indulgent little reverie, dear reader, if you are lucky enough to make a visit to Serenbe Playhouse this year. The year-old theater is already making a splash for its use of the latently theatrical natural environment of the Chattahoochee Hills township it calls home. Last season, Clowdus inaugurated Serenbe Playhouse with a delightful site-specific production of Kipling’s “The Jungle Book,” which unfolded around a treehouse deep in the forest, featuring Lady Gaga-style choreography and jungle creatures planted discreetly along a magical path. The current world-premiere production will run through August 28.

This year, Clowdus and choreographer Joanna Brooks employ Andersen’s tale of the tortured Ugly Duckling as a springboard for a feathery fantasia performed on a cross-shaped pier submerged just a few inches underwater. For this adaptation, audience members bring blankets and lawn chairs and sit on a grassy lakeside slope, where they watch the actors waddle, somersault and skip into view from the opposite bank. Inspired by the stoic manners, formal storytelling and austere beauty of Japan, Clowdus and costume designer Brandon R. McWilliams dress the narrator (the elegant and articulate Dasie Thames) in a kimono, the ducks in body-hugging sheaths and the wild swans in burgundy obis. Composer Chip Epsten contributes an evocative score of lovely string music that’s by turns somber and joyful.

Playwright Rachel Teagle infuses her telling with lots of funny business, contemporary references and a streamlined trajectory of the journey of the Ugly Duckling (Andrew Crigler). Ugly encounters a gaggle of wild geese led by a showman named Captain Hooks, who claims to be the “loosest goose this side of the ’Hootch” (Will Shuler). Among Hooks’ entourage is a funny-talking Canadian named Alberta (Emma Jackson). Instead of spending time in the home of an old peasant woman with a hen and pussycat, Ugly is adopted by a snarky Cat (Ben Isabel) and Chicken (Jessica Miesel), loosely based on celebutantes Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Riffing on Hollywood’s penchant for odd baby names, the fashion terrors christen the duckling “Bookcase.” Naturally, they read him the riot act.

Clowdus has said he was moved to do this piece by the national conversation around bullying. Indeed, there is much talk here about Ugly “going through a phase,” something he’ll “grow out of.” Such are the code phrases that society uses to dismiss budding homosexual behavior. In the opening sequence, the narrator instructs us that nature is a mirror of life; when the water grows still, we can see our shapes in it. This story, then, is a reflection of the evanescence of life, a forever-shifting kaleidoscope of vanity, narcissism, shadows, light, trickery, transformation.

Some of the best work here is by Miesel. Teapot-shaped and primly expressive, she plays both the cluckish Mama Duck and the intimidating, easy-to-ruffle Chicken. In one funny moment, perhaps ad-libbed, her Chicken turns its tush up to the audience and clucks, “Does this outfit make my butt look big?” The moment when Mama Duck finally gives birth to her long-awaited hatchlings is particularly charming. The giddy chicks announce their arrival in a giddy burst of cartwheels, dips and quacks.

Crigler’s Ugly Duckling — called Ted and sometimes TUD (The Ugly Duckling) by his mocking sibs Bill (Isabel) and Waddles (Rose Shields) — uses spasmodic tics to summon the vocabulary of an odd bird who can never fit in. Most of the time, Ted is an adorable mess. After so much struggle and defeat, he discovers his true self and triumphs in a wild-swan pas de trois. The show ends so happily that even the kimono-wearing narrator breaks down and joins in the fun, after first protesting that she really shouldn’t. So Japanese.

In staging theater on a canvas of water, sky and land, Serenbe Playhouse finds surprise and whimsy at every turn. Like any theatrical endeavor, it’s a marriage of artistry and administration. What makes it unique is the persistence of Nature. The payoff is in the unexpected. But aside from occasional flashes of diva behavior in the guise of sudden thunderstorms, soaring temperatures and buzzing insects, Nature is a generous and accommodating collaborator. Clowdus can’t tame her, but he sure is wise to claim her. At the end of the day, I just wish that Serenbe’s resident ensemble of ducks could waddle down and take a bow. These sleek gleeks quacked magically and never missed a cue.

Thirty years after encountering this gorgeously baroque passage from “Antony and Cleopatra” as an undergraduate, I still get drunk hearing it. It’s a Jessye Norman aria, or a softly pornographic Caravaggio painting, told in verse. It’s the Western male rendered powerless by an African sex goddess. It anticipates Keats’ “To Autumn” — and Elizabeth Bishop summoning Marianne Moore across the “cut-glass epergnes” of the East River (“Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore”).

Normally, we are required to wait until Act 2, Scene 2 of the long-winded, three-hour tragedy to hear this shimmering meditation. We have to flit from Alexandria to Rome to Alexandria to Messina and back again to Rome. (Insert the winded breathing of a fleet-footed messenger boy here.) Thankfully, this is not how it plays in Amlin Gray’s new adaptation of the Bard’s immortal tale, which opened over the weekend at Georgia Shakespeare. Directed by John Dillon and running in repertory with “The Tempest,” Gray’s “Antony and Cleopatra” will run through July 22 at the theater on the Oglethorpe University campus.

Gray’s restructuring smartly plucks Enobarbus’ narration from deep within the text, juxtaposing it with a diaphanous bedroom scene and captivating us early on, even if it doesn’t quite rescue us from the longueurs of the 44-scene epic.

Richard Garner, Georgia Shakespeare’s producing artistic director, has always been a man in love with spectacle and design — if not, as he has told me, with the structure of “Antony and Cleopatra.” This season so far, his theater given us a Caliban who looks like one of Michelangelo’s doomed, gnashing figures from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Now Georgia Shakespeare’s designers are referencing everything from Ingres to Morris Lapidus.

While Cleopatra (the regal Tess Malis Kincaid) struts around in gold cobra headdresses, flowing sheaths and a ’70s-style Elizabeth Taylor hairdo that is a little bit bouffant and a lotta cascading curls, costume designer Sydney Roberts imagines Octavius (Joe Knezevich) and his boys in the red, gold and white Neoclassical finery of Napoleon’s Caesar-centric France. Set designer Kat Conley, for her part, pictures these colliding ancient worlds as an all-purpose pair of curvaceous twin staircases straight out of Lapidus’ Art Deco Miami. Cleopatra at the Fontainebleau? May sound like a mess. But it kinda works.

Responsible in seasons past for elegant, elegiac treatments of “Coriolanus,” “Hamlet” and the “Antony and Cleopatra” prequel, “Julius Caesar,” Dillon here delivers opulent tragedy laced with occasional glimmers of comedy. The scene in which Cleo lacerates the messenger who brings disagreeable news from Rome is a humdinger, as is the eleventh-hour business involving an asp bearer (Scott Warren) who speaks of the “pleasures of the worm” with the accent of a James Bond villain. He seems to have wandered in from another play. But so what? He’s very funny.

In a couple of brief sequences that seem to occur on the edge of a hallucination, Carolyn Cook conjures a soothsayer in lugubrious veils and dark-circled eyes. She is quietly spellbinding. Knezevich is remarkable as the charismatic emperor who weeps when his sister, Octavia (the lovely Ann Marie Gideon), decamps with Antony (Chris Kayser). Appearing on the battlefield in bolts of scarlet fabric, Knezevich looks every inch the warrior god, complete in his sartorial apotheosis. Knezevich may fit the age profile of Octavius (Julius Caesar’s hand-picked protégé) and Kayser that of Antony, but you can’t help but wonder if there might have been more fireworks between the titular lovers had the casting been reserved. Kayser is OK as Antony, but I’m not really feeling it. Dillon also might have done a better job of coaxing audible lines from some of the younger performers.

As a woman of infinite variety and insatiable lust, Kincaid gives a smartly drawn performance. Would “Antony and Cleopatra” be a stronger play if we had some inkling what this creature was like when the mask came off? Probably. But psychological introspection is work better left to the novelist. Cleopatra is a female character of singular, incandescent brightness. She is Rome’s death kiss.

As an attempt to streamline a flawed and meandering story, this production takes off like a rocket to the moon. By that definition, it is virtually guaranteed to sputter out. But when Enobarbus (the eloquent Allan Edwards) describes the African queen’s burnished throne burning on the water, and the flat surface of the stage beacons and sparkles like the Nile, we are moved to some place outside space and time. Such pretty, pretty words — that’s all this is, really. But for a minute or two, it is enough.

Now in its third 7 Stages production since 1987, “Mr. Universe” finds Grimsley, an Atlanta playwright and novelist who teaches at Emory University, perched on the shoulders of Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers. The show runs through June 19.

The silent Muscle Man (Brian Kirchner) is a beautiful, narcissistic freak with the barbed-wire impulse of O’Connor’s Hazel Motes. Ministering angel Vick (Doyle Reynolds) is a yearning mother hen not unlike McCullers’ John Singer. Judy (Don Finney) is a lonely, scheming, drug-dealing drag queen who might have been dreamed up by the young John Waters or Orson Welles. Katy Jume (Tara Ochs) is the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold and a very trashy mouth. Juel Laurie (Yvonne Singh) reads like a precursor to one of August Wilson’s noble clowns, or that great playwright’s ancient Aunt Ester.

“Mr. Universe” is not a perfect play, but it is haunting and enigmatic — a rich, simmering stew that is as poignant as it is pungent. Too bad, then, that director Del Hamilton’s flat, uneven production never finds the music or exploits the potential of the material.

Rather than drawing a narrow bead, designer Faye Allen’s set scatters the action from one corner of the stage to the other. While you kind of admire the dour, listless, real-time feeling of the pacing, the show lacks energy, never finds a tone and relies on Syl Spann’s tentative saxophone playing to set a mood. Some evocative snippets of incidental music might help, but there’s nary a sound designer in sight.

As sweet as Doyle Reynolds’ Vick may be, there’s a one-note quality to the character that seems a bit unformed at first, then relies too much on sentimentality. On the other hand, without speaking a word, Kirchner’s Muscle Man summons oceans of fear, terror and manipulation. We are never quite sure of this cunning character’s motives, but we have reason to doubt his sincerity. Though Ochs is hysterical and Singh is touching, too often we feel that this is a ship without a captain.

And yet the slow voyage does have its payoffs.

Finney, Atlanta’s own Charles Busch and Divine rolled into one, is in astonishing form here, a hissing and degenerate camp spectacle with the vim of an old Hollywood back-stabber. Alone in her boudoir, among her Judy Garland posters and wigs, Judy’s turn on the phone with the police, followed by her surreptitious drug use, is a master class in calibration — over the top, then understated.

“Mr. Universe” has a place in Atlanta theatrical history alongside the work of Pearl Cleage, Sandra Deer and Steve Murray. While the city’s mainstream theaters were playing it safe in the 1980s, theaters like 7 Stages and Actor’s Express pushed boundaries and buttons. But for a play that oozes atmosphere and mystery, this production sure feels static and bland. Without Finney, there wouldn’t be much reason to recommend it.

“It Sucks to Me,” “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” “The Internet Is for Porn.” Terribly un-PC yet laced with kernels of truth, these are some of the songs from the delightful show that upset the 2004 Tony Awards, beating “Wicked” for best new musical. With concept, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and a book by Jeff Whitty, “Q” has enjoyed a circuitous, track-jumping ride from off-Broadway to Broadway and back. (It’s now running off-Broadway at New World Stages.) It has played Las Vegas, toured the globe and survived the death of Gary Coleman, who is a character in the play.

Recently, rights to the raucousness were released to regional playhouses such as Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre, where it opened over the weekend in a freshly imagined, marvelously sung production directed by Heidi Cline McKerley. The madness continues through July 3.

An “Avenue Q” fan since I first heard “What Do You Do With a BA in English?,” I’ve seen the chamber-size piece get lost in the palatial spread of Broadway’s John Golden Theatre, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre and the Cobb Energy Centre. I’ve been leaning forward too long, so it’s good to relax and put my telescope button on pause. Set designers Moriah and Isabel Curley-Clay erect a charming block of city tenements — scenery that affords a bird’s-eye view of Trekkie Monster’s porn-strewn lair and folds out, like a Murphy bed, to place us in the steamy boudoir of Princeton (Nick Arapoglou) and Kate Monster (Mary Nye Bennett). There’s also plenty of random cuteness; that miniature overstuffed armchair in Rod’s cubbyhole is a-DORE-able.

To reflect the incandescent personalities that dwell on Avenue Q, puppet craftsman Russ Walko has assembled a motley crew of hand and rod puppets stitched in day-glo fur and fleece. Nicky (Jeff McKerley, plus one of actress Jill Hames’ arms) has a tiny red soul patch. Rod (J.C. Long) is all blushing pink plush. Lucy the Slut (Hames) is a shock of bright orange and flaming red. (Since Broadway designer Rick Lyon’s puppets reportedly cost up to $10,000 a pop, you have to admire Horizon for not cutting corners here.)

While the original template calls for sweet, idealistic Kate and scheming whore Lucy to be played by the same actress, McKerley uses two different performers, a choice that clarifies matters while sacrificing the universal notion that our primal dark side is forever at war with the light. (You have to love Hames’ sultry-voiced Lucy, though.) Arapoglou and Leslie W. Bellar (Christmas Eve) are both first rate, delivering brightly polished performances that are as good as you’ll find anywhere. As the daffy Asian-American therapist engaged to out-of-work Jewish comedian Brian (Matt Nitchie), Bellar fully understands the comedy of her frequently exasperated cross-cultural character, who is always confusing her “R”s and “L”s (“The More You Ruv Someone”). With Christmas Eve as her muse, designer Anna Jenny’s costumes reach a giddy high point of kimono-clash-tic excess.

"Avenue Q" photos courtesy of Horizon Theatre

Casting the Fezziwigian Spencer G. Stephens as the pint-size Coleman, whose bum luck has landed him as the “super” of Avenue Q, makes for good silly fun. Jeff McKerley, an actor known for taking his comic shenanigans to outrageous extremes, does a decent job as Rod’s crush, Nicky. McKerley also plays one of the Teletubby-style Bad Idea Bears alongside Hames, and the two make quite a pair. However, some of the casting choices can be a bit confusing and awkward. Sometimes Trekkie is played by McKerley, and sometimes Long provides the voice. With a personality this indelible, you need a single spokesperson. Having Hames provide the “second arm” of Nicky seems superfluous and tacked on; though it isn’t necessarily the actor’s fault, you can see the trouper straining to keep up with McKerley, who happens to be a good bit taller.

Other poses look forced and unnatural, too. When Arapoglou’s Princeton is trying to slouch in bed and shoot the breeze — at least I think that’s what he’s doing — he’s all elbows. On the acting side, Long seems to have to work too hard to find the swish of musical-theater lover Rod, who sings about having a girlfriend in Canada (how convenient) and has one of the most shocking lines in the show.

A couple of other probs: It sure takes a long time for Kate’s pivotal coin to drop from the top of the Empire State Building, and it’s hard to make much connection between Bradley Bergeron’s poorly conceived videos and the action.

These are fairly minor quibbles, however. Whitty (“Bring It On: The Musical”) and Lopez (“The Book of Mormon”) are some of the smartest young writers in the biz, and I hold “Avenue Q” in highest esteem. So it’s lovely to see it handled so well on a smaller scale. Maybe it will be a Monster hit.

Welcome to “Pageant: The Musical Comedy Beauty Contest!,” a giddy, pastel-colored send-up of pageant culture, the cosmetics industry and regional stereotypes. Parading its coiffed and manicured self around the 14th Street Playhouse through October 24, this throwaway bit of nonsense is about six gorgeous women vying for the title of Miss Glamouresse. (Lest you haven’t guessed already, the main gag is drag.)

With music by Albert Evans and book and lyrics by director Bill Russell and co-author Frank Kelly, “Pageant” boasts a bevy of good performances and enough laughs to fill a plus-size Glamouresse makeup case, but it’s not going to win any crown for smart writing or the breadth or depth of its material. (Glamouresse, by the way, is the name of the fictional beauty products company that sponsors the fictional pageant, and promoting those cosmetics — from “lip snack” to a device that vacuums up messy face powder spills — is a running joke.)

Except for an outburst from sunny Miss Great Plains (Dustin Lewis), whose oral essay on the rape of the land becomes a deep and personally felt feminist rant, the piece purposefully brooks no interest in speaking to the social or political issues of our time. For better or worse, it mostly steers clear of the bawdy humor and sexual innuendo normally associated with this variety of camp. “Pageant” is more silly and one-dimensional than subversively smart or offensive.

It’s all about personalities — the bigger, the better. Styled, shellacked and fluffed within an inch of their lives, these contestants run through talent numbers involving roller skates and accordions (Nick Morrett as Miss Industrial Northeast), “Hee Haw”-worthy ventriloquism (Greg Bosworth as Miss Deep South) and an interpretive dance on the seven stages of life that suggests Courtney Love trapped in a recurring Japanese Noh nightmare (Ben Isabel as Miss West Coast). Emceed by the extraordinarily effervescent Frankie Cavalier (Geoffrey Brown), who maintains his self-congratulating smile long after the bubble of his laugh line has burst, “Pageant” uses a panel of audience-member “judges” to pick its nightly winner.

Chances are you’ll find Miss Deep South to be the prettiest, Miss West Coast the most catatonic and Miss Bible Belt (Bernard D. Jones, above) the sassiest. Morrett’s take on the zaftig Latina (and another role that we don’t want to spoil here) is very funny, and the actor seems more relaxed and confident here than ever I’ve seen him. I also admire the way Isabel finds the truth of his space-cadet character and never lets her go.

But the real screamer here is Miss Texas (Brian Clowdus, at left), a hard-looking redhead of the Joan Crawford school, whose galumphing tap dance routine is one of the funniest bits of tomfoolery I’ve seen onstage this year. Even when she’s standing still and uttering nary a word, she’s pistol-whipping her competition with laser-sharp eyes. This statuesque man-killer doesn’t ooze sarcasm, but there’s a knowing look, a slight arching of the brow, that signals total warfare with every withering glance. Don’t mess with Texas! (Clowdus also caught our attention recently at the Serenbe Playhouse.)

Lewis, who doubles as costume designer and over-the-title producer, has a delightful time dolling up the girls with over-the-top outfits, but BJ Garmon’s sets (mostly billowing fabrics) aren’t all that impressive. From start to photo-finish, this drolly shallow “Pageant” zings along on its own dingy formula. But like lipstick and mascara, its gimmicks are purely cosmetic and have all the staying power of cheap hairspray. Poof.

“John & Jen” — the Andrew Lippa-Tom Greenwald musical and second production of Serenbe Playhouse’s inaugural season — is the story of a woman who loses her brother in Vietnam, then tries to re-create him in the likeness of her son. In a smart conceit, the two-person, chamber-size piece requires the same performer to play the brother and son (both called John), a decision that emphasizes the mirroring aspect of the story and requires the actor to repeat himself without appearing to repeat himself.

Brian Clowdus, who plays John and John, knows a thing or three about wearing more than one hat. Working on his master’s in theater at the University of South Carolina, the Amherst College honor grad got it into his head that the bucolic Chattahoochee Hills community of Serenbe (32 miles south of downtown Atlanta) needed its own theater company. So he started one — creating a board, raising money and enlisting his South Carolina classmates as designers, carpenters, musicians and directors.

The result is a festival-like experience, where children can see a morning production of “The Jungle Book,” staged beside a treehouse deep in the woods, and adults can sip cocktails while watching a contemporary play in the town courtyard. If the work weren’t so good, it would be tempting to dismiss this ambitious endeavor as a stroke of youthful naiveté, as ephemeral, perhaps, as the theater’s mascot: a firefly.

But the Alabama-born Clowdus says he wants to put down roots, so let’s hope his project flourishes like the organic tomatoes and green beans that are now in season on the community’s sustainable farms. Such humble beginnings have born fruit before: 25 years ago, Georgia Shakespeare started in a tent on the grounds of Oglethorpe University; today it’s a top-notch classical theater company. Wouldn’t it be nice if Atlanta had its own nearby version of Spoleto, which started in an idyllic Umbrian village in Italy, or Jacob’s Pillow, which began as a dance retreat in the Berkshires?

Only time can reveal the future. For now, we have “John & Jen,” terrifically performed by Clowdus and Atlanta actress Christy Baggett and supported by an excellent three-piece band directed by William Shuler (who also performs in “The Jungle Book” and the upcoming “Shakespeare’s R&J”). Kimi Maeda’s set — a series of wooden piers built around Serenbe’s courtyard fountain — provides a simple, uncluttered stage with several playing areas, while April J. Brown’s costumes are light and lineny. Andrew Carson’s scrapbook-style video designs are a little obvious, but they reflect the idea of projecting one’s ego onto another.

A sort of “Next to Normal” lite, “John & Jen” (with music by Lippa, lyrics by Greenwald and book by Lippa and Greenwald) doesn’t so much dig deeply into the heavy-freighted psychological issues it exposes as dance around them. Following in the footsteps of a father who has probably abused him, John marches off to Vietnam, while hippie-chick Jen and her boyfriend flee to Canada. John and Jen’s troubling goodbye will come to haunt the elder sibling, who evolves into a smothering mother who has trouble letting go.

Though Act One ends somewhat abruptly (“A Hero Dies”) and the parallels between the two story arcs seem more self-consciously arty than authentic, the music is affecting — referencing classic jingles (“Think Big”), Stephen Sondheim (“Dear God”) and occasionally putting Lippa on a par with Adam Guettel, William Finn, Jason Robert Brown and other contemporary luminaries of musical theater.

As director, Clowdus imparts a physical vocabulary that plays up John’s youthful pluck and Jen’s cloistered personality. A natural ham, he uses his boyish charm, expressiveness and energy to delightful comic effect. Baggett — a lovely actress who seems to have been overlooked by intown directors, or at least rarely given a starring role — wears a more introspective mien. Jen’s birthday gift to her dead brother (“Just Like You”) and 11th-hour epiphany (“That Was My Way”) are heartbreaking.

“John & Jen” is too predictable to be a perfect piece of literature. But it’s a beautiful musical treatment of delayed grief and the indelible imprint of blood ties, which can neither be washed clean nor wished away. And it’s a strong choice, artistically and financially, for Serenbe Playhouse. The show compares favorably to work by Atlanta’s well established intown theaters (Actor’s Express being an obvious comparison). The only difference is that it’s performed al fresco, so that the sky and the clouds become part of the drama.

The series also has a new corporate sponsor and is changing its name to reflect that relationship: the Atlanta Broadway Series becomes the Gas South Broadway Series. The four-show program will open this fall with “Cirque Dreams Holidaze” (Nov. 30-Dec. 5, photo below), followed by “Oklahoma!” (Jan. 6-9), “The Wizard of Oz” (Feb. 3-6) and “A Chorus Line” (March 17-20). Presenter Jim Howland says the recent production of “Fiddler on the Roof” starring Harvey Fierstein was a real crowd-pleaser and helped set the tone for next season.

“This is an audience that seems to respond well to the gold standard of Broadway,” says Howland. The Ohio-based executive will manage the Cobb series while co-presenter Broadway Across America-Atlanta will focus on the previously announced Fox Theatre season. This mainstream sensibility probably means you won’t be seeing any raunchy puppet sex at the venue in the near future, but check out my AJC review of “Avenue Q” (top photo) here. 

Georgia Shakespeare’s 25th season will begin with a world premiere: “Prophets,” a multimedia work by longtime company member Brad Sherrill, which delves into the Old Testament texts of Isaiah and Jeremiah.

From March 24 through 28, Sherrill will perform “Prophets” in repertory with his first one-man Bible-based show, “The Gospel of John,”  which he has performed more than 500 times since 2001 at churches and theaters, from off-Broadway’s Lamb’s Theatre to Westminster Cathedral. 

I am sorry to say that I have never seen “Gospel,” but the YouTube clips (and this) are pretty wonderful. You can see how Sherrill’s grasp of Shakespearean rhythm transforms the words into liquid music.

As we reported earlier, Georgia Shakes has found the financing for Shake at the Lake, which returns to Piedmont Park on May 5-9. And its summer repertory will begin June 9 with “Shrew: The Musical.” It’s nice to see the Oglethorpe University-based theater programming new work and transforming  itself  from a summer festival to a year-round producer.