BEST BETS Thursday 6/8

COSTA MESA

8pm

Theater

Country singer Larry Gatlin and pop-gospel star BeBe Winans head an 18-member cast in “The Civil War.” Composer Frank Wildhorn’s music stays in his characteristic contemporary pop mode; the touring production uses historic photographs and recitations of important speeches and authentic letters from home and from the front to give the show historical flavor as it explores the passions and human cost of the War Between the States.

* “The Civil War,” by Frank Wildhorn, Gregory Boyd and Jack Murphy, through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tonight and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. $18-$52. (714) 556-2787 (Center) or (714) 740-7878 (Ticketmaster).

ANAHEIM

9pm

Jazz

Master of jazz groove Medeski Martin & Wood open tonight at the Sun Theatre in Anaheim, then move to the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood for a show Saturday. Keyboardist John Medeski, percussionist Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood are working on an electric studio album to be released in the fall, but for now, they’re playing acoustic shows in their original piano-trio configuration.

* Medeski Martin & Wood, Sun Theatre, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. 9 p.m. $19.50. (714) 712-2700.

BREA

8:30pm

Comedy

Any comic who goes by the name Bob Zany had better produce his namesake comedy onstage. The veteran comic, who made his TV debut on the “Gong Show” in 1977 when he was 15, always delivers. How zany is Zany? He once dug an unusual object out of his suitcase full of props--a wallet with a tube of money running directly to a figurine of Mickey Mouse. He calls it “A Day at Disneyland.”

* Bob Zany, Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St. 8:30 p.m. Also Friday, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 8 p.m. $10 to $12. (714) 529-7878.

IRVINE

8:30pm

Comedy

Carlos Mencia has a confrontational comedic style designed to enlighten as well as entertain. The Honduras-born, East L.A.-raised comic tackles a variety of topics, including ethnic stereotypes, racism and people’s inability to laugh at themselves. People, Mencia maintains, have lost their ability to talk frankly with one another. “When I was a kid, it was ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.’ Now it’s ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words may devastate the inner child in me forever.’ ”

* Carlos Mencia, Irvine Improv, 71 Fortune Drive. 8:30 p.m. Also Friday, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 7, 9 and 11 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. $15 to $17. (949) 854-5455.