DEVIL BOYS FROM BEYOND • Stray Dog Theatre

You won’t find any elves or sugary confections in Stray Dog Theatre’s traditionally, non-traditional holiday show. What you will find is Buddy Thomas and Kenneth Elliott’s camp-tacular, 1950’s retro-styled close encounters caper featuring a tightly knit group of actors, sly creative contributions, and a welcomed getaway if you’re already sick of the commercial holiday season. One glance at that artwork over there to the left, and you’ll get what I mean.

It’s 1957, and there’s some weird stuff going on in Lizard Lick, Florida. Florence Wexler fills us in on all of the details at the start -- about how her husband disappeared after colorful lights appeared in the sky, and an unidentified flying object crashed into the shed. Florence is played splendidly by Michael Juncal, who's great in drag, and sports one of the most delicious Southern drawls I’ve ever heard. This incident has gotten the attention of some New York City newspaper slickers.

ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER • R-S Theatrics

Playwright Rajiv Joseph’s 2008 drama places a delicate art at its center. Origami, with its precise execution of intricate folds, makes a fitting prism to look through at three people, suffering through fragile times, who hold the art dear -- whether through hard work or natural ability, and as a method of creativity, or escape.

When Ilana (Teresa Doggett) hesitantly opens the door to let in Andy (Andrew Kuhlman), he’s soaking wet from the pouring rain outside, and a little starstruck and giddy, meeting a fellow origami artist -- and Ilana is one of the best. But because of her two month old divorce and her beloved dog running off, she’s in no mood for company, and hasn’t felt any passion for folding paper in awhile, though her studio where she now lives is cluttered with all kinds of paper -- origami paper, newspapers, and Chinese takeout boxes. Andy, a high school calculus teacher, is there on official business as the treasurer for the American Origami organization. He’s the kind of guy who literally counts his blessings, writing them down in a little notebook with listings that now number up to the thousands. Ilana’s in there more than a couple of times, which she discovers when Andy leaves his book behind and Ilana takes it up as her latest reading material.