The Santa Fe Opera, whose audience thrives on the obscure, is producing at least one musical gem this summer, Szymanowski’s King Roger, that’s little known to the operatic public.

Yes, the puppets are naughty. Yes, it’s an adult spoof of Sesame Street. But why Avenue Q works so well – and works so well in Theatre 3′s basement space – is about more than just goggle eyes and gay jokes.

… ‘dreamy’ being a term not typically associated with the Herman Melville novel. But then, a thin-yet-lovely, one-hour-long, mimed-puppet stage version of the novel is not exactly typical, either.

What can one say about a book review that concludes a great bonus in this particular novel is that the Bears beat the Cowboys? Well, so far, it’s in a tiny, minority. Ben Fountain’s novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk continues to rack up the accolades.

We’ve come to accept so much of what Harold Pinter pioneered in The Birthday Party. From Monty Python to David Mamet, we’ve found his menace, his puzzles, his great, off-the-wall humor. It takes the Undermain and director Patrick Kelly to find the old-fashioned, theatrical delight.

Dallas author Ben Fountain wins praise from The New York Times, high schoolers win awards from the Dallas Summer Musicals and the Arboretum wins the right to mow some grass but it may lose the war. Talk about a jam-packed Monday Roundup.

The decades-long battle over the invention of television may get distorted in The Farnsworth Invention, but Theatre 3′s production makes it a sharp, snappy entertainment — one of the company’s best.

Steven Walters’ comedy Pluck the Day finds three and a half guys on a Texas porch with peyote and a cooler of beer. Been there, done that. But there are female complications. And there are laughs. Too much of some, not enough of the others.

Conservative Christians are forcing the interrogation of a freethinker. It’s 1656 in Amsterdam. And the fate of the city’s entire Jewish population is at stake. Did we mention that David Ives’ New Jerusalem can be pretty funny?

The devoted fans of Lonesome Dove and Last Picture Show may not know it, but author Larry McMurtry has been a terrific essay-writer and reviewer. They certainly wouldn’t know it from his latest gig.