“;Feast or famine.”; “;When it rains, it pours.”; Describe it as you will, Hawaii's vibrant community theater scene is going all out this weekend as five new productions open on Friday.

Front-runner in size, budget and probable ticket sales is Paliku Theatre's production of “;Miss Saigon.”; Hawaii theater legend Ron Bright has assembled his regular team of performers and support staff—his wife, “;Mo”; Bright, sons Michael and Clarke, and at least one of the Anguay sisters, among others—in taking on the ever-popular five-hankie tear-jerker. Michael Bright, a veteran of the Broadway production, is playing Chris opposite Punahou student Brittany Browning as Kim.

When “;Miss Saigon”; was presented by Army Community Theatre in 2005, the ending was bowdlerized to present Kim's suicide as being a convenient solution to an American couple's problem rather than the tragic end to an ill-fated wartime romance. Paliku Theatre manager Tom Holowach promises that Paliku's production will tell the story as the playwrights intended.

The Actors Group, meanwhile, continues its 2008-09 season with the Hawaii premiere of “;The History Boys,”; Alan Bennett's 2006 Tony Award-winning look at England in the 1980s and the experiences of sixth-form (senior) boys preparing for their college entrance exams. The boys are “;wunsas”; (as in “;one's a Muslim, one's a Jew, one's a jock”; and so on), and their teachers offer them conflicting strategies on how best to pass the exams. Expect comedy, drama, and Bennett's take on the legacy of the Thatcher era.

UH-Manoa follows its season-opening production of “;Stop the Clocks!”; with the world premiere of “;The Little Snow Fox and Other Tales of the North Pacific.”; Tamara Montgomery directs Kemuel DeMoville's adaptation of her recently published book of the same name. The play follows the adventures of an arctic fox, a whale and an arctic tern, and is recommended for ages 3 to 8.

There was a time when high school theater was, well, high school theater. But these days, with high schoolers starring in community theater shows, major high school productions are often worth seeing. Punahou School Theatre Department presents one such offering, the classic comedy “;You Can't Take It With You,”; a hit from the mid-1930s.

For something completely different, playwright/actor Frank South stars in his new one-man play, “;Pay Attention—ADHD in Hollywood On the Rocks With a Twist”; at Scott Rogers' Academy of Film and Television. The story follows the experiences of a New York performance artist who goes to Hollywood. Is it autobiographical? You'll have to ask South.