Theater

Spitfire Grill: Three hard-luck women heal their broken spirits after they’re thrown together running a small-town diner. It’s a simple premise for an upbeat script. But “The Spitfire Grill” was developed in two directions -- the 1996 film by Lee David Zlotoff, and a more sentimental and sunnier 2000 musical by composer James Val and lyricist Fred Alley. The musical is making its first West Coast appearance in a superb staging by Nick DeGruccio. Despite the artifice inherent in the musical format -- contrasted with the grittier surface reality of the movie -- it’s the stage version that emerges as the more coherent and convincing of the two.

-- Don Shirley

Ends Sunday at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. (949) 497-2787.