Laura Miller, Courtney Crouse, and Andrea Moore (center), and Laurie Sutton, Liz J. Millea, and Maeve Martin in Happy Days: A New MusicalIf the goal of Happy Days: A New Musical - making its Midwestern debut at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse - is to have the feel of the 1970s TV series, then playwright (and series creator) Garry Marshall and songwriter Paul Williams are working against each other. The book is reminiscent of the sitcom, with similar character dynamics and situations, but it comes across as a caricature of the TV show - purely wholesome, without the slight edge and hints of rebellion present in its televised incarnation. Williams' songs, meanwhile, don't suggest the series at all; it's as if the tunes were taken from some other 1950s-themed musical, and plopped into an episode of Happy Days without consideration for whether they fit the characters.

Don Denton, Bret Churchill, and Laura Miller in Jack Frost Saves ChristmasThe Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Jack Frost Saves Christmas is the most adorable children's play I've ever seen. Okay, it's also the only children's play I've seen since... well, since I was a child. Still, it brought out the kid in me as I danced and sang along - at the appropriate, invited times, of course - and I wasn't alone; the children in attendance at Saturday's performance, including the two I brought along with me, laughed and danced and shouted exclamations of delight at the play's proceedings.

Janos Horvath, Tristan Tapscott, Bret Churchill, Elizabeth Miller, and Sara Nicks in Go, Dog. Go!Clocking in at just under 50 minutes at the opening matinée, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's (under) 21 Youth Theatre's adaptation of Go, Dog. Go! is a great opportunity for preschool and early school-aged kids to experience their first local-theatre production. (In retrospect, I could've even taken my 20-month-old daughter, along with a Snack Trap and three refills of Cheerios.) The show features a series of simple vignettes plucked from the pages of P.D. Eastman's 1961 children's-book classic about the friendship between six adorable canines. And while the general lack of dialogue or a steady plotline may bore some adults, the rudimentary yet whimsical scenes and characters will likely appeal to the under-10 crowd.

Don Denton, Erin Churchill, Janos Horvath, Liz J. Millea, and Bret Churchill in Miss Nelson Has a Field DayIt's been more than 20 years since I read Harry Allard's series of "Miss Nelson" children's books, but it's hard to forget Viola Swamp, "the meanest substitute teacher in the whole world." Miss Nelson Has a Field Day, currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, features Swamp (Liz J. Millea) as the no-nonsense alter-ego of Miss Nelson, the kindly math teacher at Horace B. Smedley Elementary School. The show is as funny as I remember the books being, and judging from the laughter that was constantly erupting from the audience of mostly elementary-school students at Friday's matinee performance, I wasn't the only one who thought so.

Meghan Gibson and Janos Horvath in Frosty's Magic HatThe story's kind of lame and the songs are kind of blah. But all told, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's family musical Frosty's Magic Hat is a winning, rambunctious treat, the sort of unapologetically silly good time that can cause adults to laugh with even greater vigor and frequency than their pre-teen chaperones.

the Holly Jolly Christmas ensembleNo show that opens with 10 sharply dressed, great-looking, terrifically talented performers dancing a spirited tap number can be all that bad, which is a good thing for Holly Jolly Christmas, the musical revue currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse. Considering, however, that the production has no loftier purposes beyond entertaining crowds with familiar holiday tunes and spreading a little yuletide cheer, I think audiences could be easily forgiven for turning to their theatre-going companions after the curtain call and saying, "Well, that was nice... but what the hell was it?"

James Bleecker, Jackie Madunic, Ray Gabica, and Jason Platt in Long Day's Journey Into NightAs I never tire of telling people, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night ranks first on my list of all-time favorite plays, which puts me in league with, I'd imagine, several thousand others over the years. Widely considered the greatest work ever written by the author widely considered the greatest playwright our country has yet produced, O'Neill's autobiographical epic is nothing less than America's answer to King Lear - an incisive, harrowing, and altogether exhilarating study of family conducted with a microscope and a scalpel.

Brittany Church in Peter PanBy the time the title character takes to the skies in the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Peter Pan, the effect, while wondrous, is also somewhat superfluous, since the presentation had already been airborne for a good 40 minutes beforehand, and will continue to be for the two hours that follow. If ever a production deserved to be called "ethereal," it's this one, but even that adjective doesn't suggest just how enthralling this Peter Pan truly is.

Sunshine Ramsey and Phillip Johnny Bob in Junie B. Jones & a Little Monkey BusinessI'm not sure where Barbara Park got the inspiration for her literary heroine Junie B. Jones, the adorable kindergarten heroine/hellion of the author's series of wildly popular children's books. But after seeing the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's presentation of Junie B. Jones & a Little Monkey Business, I have a pretty firm theory: Park swiped the characterization from kindergarten-era home movies taken of actress Sunshine Ramsey.

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