BEST BETS Friday 5/25

ANAHEIM

10:30pm

Pop Music

Phil Shane, known for the “One-Man-Legends Show” he takes to various bars around Orange County, was spotted by booking agents recently in his semi-permanent home at the Fling cocktail lounge in Tustin. The agents, from the House of Blues, liked what they heard enough to give him a late-night slot at their new Anaheim club Friday, following ska-punk band Save Ferris. His debut album, “A Fling Thing,” which has nine of his own songs plus a cover of the 1958 Jerry Lee Lewis hit “Breathless,” has just been released.

* Phil Shane, House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Drive, Anaheim. 10:30 p.m. $10. (714) 778-2583.

COSTA MESA

8pm

Theater

There is already a buzz about “The Beard of Avon” as it begins its world-premiere run at South Coast Repertory. With her last play, “Freedomland,” also commissioned and first produced at South Coast, San Francisco playwright Amy Freed emerged as a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Freed is known for mixing funny and dark, but “The Beard” is pretty much a lark. It’s a humorous, literate, whimsically speculative and never-stuffy romp through the life of William Shakespeare, riffing merrily on the scholarly controversies over who really wrote his plays. Three other major regional theaters have already scheduled “The Beard” for next season, and it’s not unreasonable to assume that this funny valentine to the theater will appeal to the “Shakespeare in Love” demographic and prove to have plenty of legs.

* “The Beard of Avon,” South Coast Repertory’s Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Previews begin Friday; regular performances start June 1. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7:30 p.m., matinees Saturdays and Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends July 1. $18-$49. Pay-what-you-will matinee June 2. (714) 708-5555.

SANTA ANA

8pm

Theater

“The Chemistry of Change” is a tangy, almost sweet comedy of family dysfunction--not the usual fare of the edgy Rude Guerrilla Theater Company. But here’s the rub: Playwright Marlane Meyer has cast the devil as her leading man, and he proves to be the stand-up guy in this 1998 play. Smokey, as he’s called, marries into, and has a redemptive impact on, a family in which everybody else is emotionally bent. Jay Fraley, who has memorably played both Satan and Jesus in Rude Guerrilla productions, makes his directorial debut with this show.

* “The Chemistry of Change,” Empire Theater, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Also Thursday, June 14, 8 p.m. Ends June 17. $12-$15. (714) 547-4688.