BEST BETS Thursday 4/26

FULLERTON

8pm

Theater

The West Coast Ten-Minute Play Festival could be considered theater for the MTV generation. But what “Six at Eight” really offers is an evening of the country’s--and the county’s--best original, 10-minute plays. The program features the three top prizewinners in the O.C.-based competition’s eighth annual contest, along with three plays culled from the nation’s most prominent 10-minute play showcase, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ky. This year’s winners are described as “a commentary on love and war, redemption and renewal, and the rebirth that follows.”

* Six At Eight, Vanguard Theatre Ensemble, 699-A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Preview, 8 p.m. $7. Opens Friday, 8 p.m. Continues Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5 p.m. Through May 19. $5 to $15. (714) 526-8007.

ANAHEIM

7:30pm

Pop Music

Just over 20 years ago, a scrappy young rock band from Ireland on its first tour of the West Coast tried to woo a few new fans with a show at the Woodstock Concert Theatre in Anaheim, a divey little place that usually hosted aspiring local hard rock and metal bands. Few habitues of the Woodstock’s stage from those days are still around, but the Irish group, U2, is back in Anaheim tonight, for the last of three shows on its Elevation Tour 2001 at the considerably roomier Arrowhead Pond.

* U2, Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. With PJ Harvey. 7:30 p.m. $45 to $130. (714) 704-2500.

ANAHEIM

8pm

Pop Music

L.A.’s “alternative”--i.e. non-gangsta--rap acts such as Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples have gathered plenty of respect but relatively low record sales. Is it time for the tide to turn? Black Eyed Peas’ single “Request Line” recently burst to No. 2 on the national sales chart.

* Black Eyed Peas, with Burning Star, at the House of Blues Anaheim, 1530 S. Disneyland Drive, Anaheim, 8 p.m. $21. (714) 778-2583).

COSTA MESA

7:45pm

South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage is the setting for Washington, D.C., playwright John Strand’s first fully professional production on the West Coast. “Tom Walker” is a comic expansion upon “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Washington Irving’s fable about a miser in colonial Massachusetts who bargains for wealth with the devil. But Irving’s story is merely Strand’s starting point for a wryly funny look at the American way of getting ahead.

* “Tom Walker,” South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Sundays, 7:45 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends May 27. $18 to $47. (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org.