'Rocky Horror Show - Live!'

Don Shelby portrays the old narrator who welcomes audiences into a world dominated by hunchbacks, transvestites and ghouls -- much as he did for two decades as WCCO-TV's anchorman. Shelby headlines a cast that includes Andre Shoals as Frank-N-Furter, Randy Schmeling as Riff Raff, Molly Callinan as Magenta, Erin Capello as the charming Janet and Reid Harmsen as Brad. Andrew Rasmussen, the young dynamo behind independent productions of "Rent" and "Wild Party," is producing and directing this show in the Lab Theater, a venue that seems perfectly suited to the event. --Graydon Royce

'Reasons to be Pretty'

Walking Shadow Theatre Company, an articulate and young troupe, has been invited into the Guthrie Theater's Dowling Studio to produce this comedy from Neil LaBute. Never one to shy from indelicate and bold truths, LaBute has crafted a story about four friends who stumble on the tricky path of the "serious relationship." Walking Shadow did great work with LaBute's "Fat Pig" a few years ago. Amy Rummenie directs a cast that includes Joseph Bombard, Anna Sundberg, Rachel Finch and Andrew Sass. --Graydon Royce

'Neighbors'

Mixed Blood launches its new free-admission program, called Radical Hospitality, on Friday with "Neighbors," Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' race-themed comedy that uses the noxious array of characters from minstrelsy. The equanimity of a black professor (Bruce A. Young) and his white wife (Sarah Agnew) is disturbed when an obnoxious black family, named the Crows, moves in next door. The cast, directed by Nataki Garrett, includes Warren Bowles as Mammy, Thomas W. Jones II as Zip, Christian Gibbs as Sambo, Kalif Troy as Jim and Tatiana Williams as Topsy. --Rohan Preston

'The Pride'

Playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell warps time to contrast gay experience in 1958 and 2008. Actors play characters involved in love triangles from each era. Pillsbury House's cast includes Paul de Cordova, Matt Guidry, Tracey Maloney and Clarence Wethern. Director Noel Raymond said Campbell's play "makes the political personal, using the art of theater to reveal how issues that get encapsulated in sound bites actually play out on the landscape of human relationships." --Graydon Royce