| theater now playing |

Meadow Muffin Mafia Fri-Sat 8pm. Western vaudeville hijinks from the Barbary Players. A villain, Osama Bendover, rolls into the town of Meadow Muffin and disrupts life for the colorful community, which includes a female sheriff named Charley Parker, a bar named Dolly Partson’s, town fathers Chief Big Bird and Chop Stix, and a loose mail girl named Easy Pleasures. Barbary Coast Theater, 320 Hoffman Ave., Monterey. $14; $13/seniors; $8/students; $6/active military. 655-4992. Ends 12/18.

The Rocky Horror Show Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun 7pm; plus Special Midnight Shows Sat-Sun. (Reviewed this issue.) The Fox Theatre, 243 Main St., Salinas. $17. 675-0521. www.paperwingtheatre.com. Ends 10/31.

Second Nature: A Human Tribute to the Living Earth Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun 2pm. Seven actors under the direction of Rosemary Lukes deliver an original multi-media performance steeped in passion for the natural world. Leave civilization behind and remember the wild as human voices conjure hawk and salmon, blood and moon, ice, gold and gangs, shapeshifters and crop circles. Carl Cherry Center, 4th and Guadalupe, Carmel. $15; $8/seniors and students. 484-9346. Ends 10/31.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun 2pm. After fifteen years in Australia, the unjustly exiled Benjamin Barker returns to Victorian London seeking revenge against the corrupt judge who framed him and ravaged his wife. Now calling himself Sweeney Todd, Barker sets up a barber’s shop in Fleet Street, where his thirst for blood soon extends to his unsuspecting customers. Main Stage, Hartnell College Performing Arts Center. Hartnell College, 156 Homestead Ave., Salinas. $25; $16/seniors, juniors and military. 755-6816 or www.westernstage.com. Ends 10/30.

Tartuffe Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun 2pm. Orgon meets Tartuffe and invites his new friend home and begins showering his guest with all the riches he has to offer—including the hand of his daughter in marriage. The family realizes that they must unmask Tartuffe as the self-righteous hypocrite he is before his ungodly influence on Orgon costs the family everything. $17; $14/seniors, students and military. The Studio Theater, Hartnell College Performing Arts Center, 156 Homestead Ave., Salinas. 755-6816 or www.westernstage.com. Ends 11/20.

Two One Acts Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun 2:30pm. Anton Chekhov’s The Marriage Proposal is about a 35-year-old hypochondriac’s beleaguered attempt to propose to the debutante next door. In George Bernard Shaw’s Village Wooing, an educated travel writer who would just like to work in solitude meets a chatty phone operator with a mission to marry him. $16; $12/students, seniors and military; $6/children 12 and under. Indoor Forest Theatre, Santa Rita and Mountain View, Carmel. 624-1531 or www.cetstaffplayers.org. Ends 11/21.