BEST BETS Thursday 4/19

LAGUNA BEACH

2pm/8pm

Theater

“Fully Committed” is the story of Sam, a lowly reservations clerk for a posh and trendy Manhattan restaurant. This good-natured aspiring actor worries about his auditions and whether he will be able to make it back to Indiana for Christmas with his dad--all while fielding dozens of calls from social climbers and celebrities who want to see and be seen in a gustatory hot spot. The show, which creators Becky Mode and Mark Setlock based on their experiences as theater artists with restaurant day jobs, calls for one actor to play 40 parts ranging from an egotistical and manipulative chef to a society grande dame to an oily personal assistant trying to secure reservations for supermodel Naomi Campbell. Brian Beacock stars as Sam--and everybody else--in the play’s Orange County premiere.

* “Fully Committed,” Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna Beach. Previews today at 2 and 8. Also Friday, 8 p.m. Opens Saturday. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. $24 to $41. Ends May 20. (949) 497-2787 or www.lagunaplayhouse.com.

VARIOUS CITIES

7pm

Theater

Even fans of Arthur Miller may not know “The Archbishop’s Ceiling,” a seldom-performed play first seen in 1977, then radically retooled and presented again in 1984. It concerns tyranny, betrayal, paranoia and sexual desire, set in an unnamed, totalitarian Eastern European capital. A group of writers gathers in a lavish home that once was an archbishop’s palace. It’s suspected that the place is bugged and that the secret police are listening. With the nation’s leading dissident author on hand, a lot is at stake. Readers Repertory Theater will present Miller’s play as a free staged reading touring this weekend.

* “The Archbishop’s Ceiling,” Readers Repertory Theater. Tonight through Saturday, 7 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m. Performances are tonight at the Newport Beach Public Library, 1000 Avocado Ave.; Friday at Mesa Verde Library, 2969 Mesa Verde Dr., Costa Mesa; Saturday at Mission Viejo Library, 25209 Marguerite Parkway; and Sunday at Vanguard Theatre Ensemble, 699A S. State College Blvd in the College Business Park, Fullerton. Free. (949) 206-9674.

ANAHEIM

7pm

Pop Music

La Habra rock-rap group Zebrahead has been making the most of its latest album, “Playmate of the Year,” including shooting a video at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and having 1 million copies of the title song distributed free in Hefner’s magazine. The band returns home for a show tonight at Anaheim’s House of Blues.

* Zebrahead, House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Drive, Anaheim. 7 p.m. $15. (714) 778-2583.

COSTA MESA

8pm

Music

Beethoven and Shostakovich used the string quartet as a kind of diary, conveying their meanings intensely, but often ambiguously. The Emerson String Quartet--violinists Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker, violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel--here continues its survey of these masters with Beethoven’s Quartet No. 14 and Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 14. Haydn’s G-major quartet, Opus 54, No. 1 completes the program.

* Emerson String Quartet, Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $46. (714) 556-2787.

SANTA ANA

7-9pm

Art Talk

Museum docent Jack Wong will speak on artists Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art. The lecture provides background information on the museum’s upcoming exhibition, “Remington, Russell and the Language of Western Art,” opening July 7. Wong, who has a background in Western and Native American history, will discuss the western cowboy genre and the historical and cultural context of other artists of the West that preceded them.

* “Remington, Russell and the Language of Western Art,” Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. 7-9 p.m. $5 to $8. (714) 544-4354.

SANTA ANA

8pm

Pop Music

Baltimore pop-rock group SR-71, which gets its name from the official designation for the Air Force spy plane that’s the fastest aircraft ever built, gets a shot at introducing itself to some big audiences opening for Bon Jovi (a show that comes to the Arrowhead Pond on Friday). But first, the band grabs a headline date of its own with a stop tonight at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana.

* SR-71, Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. With Dexter Freebish, Diffuser, Whipt. 8 p.m. $15 to $17. (714) 957-0600.