It’s Curtains for Gangsters : Two plays open, one a musical version of Capone’s life, the other an ex-convict’s tale.

It wasn’t intentional, but a couple of gangsters are holding a summit in the Valley this weekend. One of them is pretty big, a kingpin; the other is sort of a small- timer, just sprung from the joint.

Frank Farmer, dramaturge for the American Renegade Theatre, says it’s pure coincidence that Paul T. Murray’s post-prison drama “The Pen” is opening in the theater’s Stage Two just one day after tonight’s opening at West End Playhouse in Van Nuys of Mike Reynolds’ musical version of the life of Al Capone, “Knockin’ ‘Em Dead.”

Because of the earthquake and damage at the Renegade’s main stage, the Capone production has been transferred to the new venue. The show must go on.

The Capone caper has been in the works at Renegade for more than a year, but the decision to stage Murray’s play came independently.

Farmer says he has a “great part” in “The Pen,” that of a man released after 10 years in prison. He has become a new man and winds up in his old neighborhood bar to confuse and chagrin his old buddies. The character is based on the playwright’s real-life uncle, a career criminal with what is sometimes called the Irish Mafia.

Murray says his uncle did his first robbery when he was 7 or 8 years old.

“He lived a fast life,” Murray recalls. “He always had a huge wallet full of money, and he was very flashy. But in the end he lost everything--his wife, the family and everything. My father was the hard-working guy who did everything legit. In the end my father had what really matters, which was love and a family.”

The kingpin, Capone, in Reynolds’ musical started his life of crime when he left the sixth grade with a B-minus average. His story is history today, but Reynolds felt that it would lend itself to the musical form, and to Reynolds’ desire to write a show that showcased popular music of the period from the start of Prohibition to the end of what he calls the classical modern period, around 1947.

As with Murray, the idea was born in a family memory.

Reynolds’ mother was working at the time at a tobacco stand in a Palm Beach hotel where Capone stayed. Capone stopped by the stand every day to play the punchboard, a popular pastime years ago. But he never won until one day he unrolled the slip of paper he had punched out, and found that his prize was a $5 gold piece. He was so happy and proud he handed it to Reynolds’ mother and said, “Here, kid, keep this for luck.” She did, until the country went off the gold standard and she redeemed it, much to Reynolds’ dismay.

But the tale stuck with him, and has become the focus of the musical’s final scene, a Capone memory that leaves him wondering about the luck of life’s choices.

“I’m very ambivalent about Capone,” Reynolds says, “There are a lot of people who thought he was wonderful. He did indeed set up soup kitchens all over Chicago for the poor during the Depression, and people who worked in his buildings thought very highly of him.”

Josh Cruze, familiar in many TV and film roles and in the New York, London and Los Angeles productions of “Tracers,” is playing Capone, supported by a cast of more than 30. He has his own reference points for the role. While researching it, he saw a photo of a house where Capone had lived in Brooklyn. It was a house he had passed frequently when he was growing up.

“When you grow up in an area like that,” Cruze says, “there are certain things that you innately know. I got a feel for what it was like to be involved with that kind of people.

“You go out, they treat you to dinner, they do wonderful things. They have families, they want the best for their kids and a good education. It’s just that they’re in a business that requires muscle. And they were good at it. The power that they get drives them into that lifestyle.”

Both playwrights know that, whatever your business, whatever your lifestyle, there’s always humor to release tension.

“That’s one thing I remember about my uncle,” Murray says. “He was the funniest guy in the world. He’d keep you up five, six hours, order Chinese food for everybody and tell his stories. An extremely funny man. Yeah, there’s humor in the play.”

Reynolds had to find humor for his musical portrait of Capone, but he says it wasn’t easy.

“In the case of Capone,” he said, “there was very little to write about his life that could be construed as funny.”

Where and When What: “Knockin’ ‘Em Dead” at the West End Playhouse, 7446 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys; and “The Pen,” American Renegade Theatre, 11305 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Hours: Both productions 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. 7 p.m. Sundays. Indefinitely. Price: “Knockin’ ‘Em Dead” $12-$15. “The Pen” $10-$12. Call: (818) 763-4430 for both productions.