Opening tonight over at the CoHo, a show about a mom and kid who move to a conservative small town, called Crooked, co-produced by local theater power couple Philip Cuomo and Maureen Porter. I've found myself prioritizing seeing shows at the CoHo lately: Their co-production model means you're seeing a variety of work; it's typically very well produced; and it's such a great little space, easily the most professional-seeming of the city's small blackbox theaters (and bonus, unlike the Back Door Theater, I'm not super-allergic to it. Does anyone else have that problem? I've sneezed through a lot of defunkt shows).

Speaking of! defunkt has some cool stuff going on right now—so cool that I will forgive them for calling their current program "History/Herstory". They're running two shows in repertory: Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, which an early onstage depiction of lesbianism; and The Boys in the Band, which was—you guest it—one of the first onstage depictions of male homosexuality. Both are directed by Artist Rep's Jon Kretzu, which is a big deal for tiny defunkt. The Children's Hour opens tonight at the Back Door Theatre, and The Boys in the Band opened last weekend at a private home on E. Burnside; both run Thurs-Sun at 7:30 pm. More details here.

The Left Hand of Darkness, the collaboration between Hand2Mouth and Portland Playhouse—with a little help from Ursula Le Guin—has been extended through June 9th. Has anyone else seen that show? I was harder on it than any of the other reviewers in town; curious to hear what audiences thought.

Let's jump in the Mercury wayback machine for a sec: Remember former Managing Editor Phil Busse? Ran for mayor? He wrote a one-man show called The Match.Com monologues, based on his own experiences in the online dating world, which is currently running at the NW Dance Project Theatre. Tickets here.

And it's more comedy than theater, but tonight at the Jack London, the inspirational self-help spoof Lance Banks and the LanceLife Comprehensive Total Life System.

Those are just some highlights—there's plenty more to do, our performance listings are full of it.