BEST BETS Friday 8/18

GARDEN GROVE

8:30 p.m.

Theater

A modernized “Hamlet” has flickered on movie screens this summer, with Ethan Hawke starring as Shakespeare’s tragic hero transplanted to contemporary Manhattan. Now comes a feminized “Hamlet”: Grove Theater Center’s artistic director, Kevin Cochran, has cast company regular Jane Macfie as the noble Dane. Whatever else happens, this version probably won’t lend itself to those commonplace Oedipal interpretations of the prince’s (princess’?) exceptionally thorny family hang-ups.

* “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare at Grove Theater Center’s Festival Amphitheater, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. Previews Aug. 18-19, opens Aug. 24. Thursdays through Sundays at 8:30 p.m. $18.50, except $22.50 on Saturdays. Ends Aug. 27 in Garden Grove, then resumes Sept. 7-17 at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton. (714) 741-9555.

IRVINE

8 p.m.

Pop Music

Sting, who plays in Irvine on Friday, long ago helped bring world music to the masses. His latest hit, “Desert Rose,” with Algerian singer Cheb Mami, continues that tradition. But he’s also intrigued by American country music, which helps explain his collaboration with Oklahoma heartthrob Toby Keith on the hit 1997 country version of Sting’s “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying.” As Sting told his fan Web site recently, “There’s something very direct about country music’s ability to tell a story, very simple storytelling, and that appeals to me. But also, the irony of it appeals to me as well. I’m this guy from England, who’s supposed to be sophisticated, doing country music.”

* Sting, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 8 p.m. $26.75 to $96.75. (949) 855-6111.

FULLERTON

8 p.m.

Theater

“So Alone” is O.C. playwright William Mittler’s musical dramatization of the life of Johnny Thunders, the doomed junkie antihero who is one of underground rock’s most pathetic yet musically admirable case studies. Robert Dean Nunez gives a striking, one-of-a-kind performance as Thunders, vesting him with a guttersnipe wit and Dead End Kid charm without planting an undeserved halo on this inveterate loser’s muddled head. The evening features fiery re-creations of performances by Thunders’ bands, the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers, with Nunez dynamic as a stage presence and blazing as a lead guitarist. A rock musical that rocks more fiercely and freely than most rock concerts while providing a thoughtful, sadly funny dramatization of the formative days of punk.

* “So Alone” by William Mittler at Stages, 400 E. Commonwealth Ave., No. 4, Fullerton. Friday-Saturday at 8 p.m. through Aug. 26. $15. (714) 525-4484.