The Gumshoe Wears Heels in Parody of Radio : She’s tough and she’s looking for her grandmother’s silver

“It’s a hard-boiled detective serial--except all the roles are reversed,” said Anita Merzell, whose radio spoof “The Case of the Purloined Sterling” (opening Wednesday at Actors Alley in Sherman Oaks) boasts a tough-talking female private eye. “All the he-man behavior is performed by Shayna Goldberg, and the fainting characters are the men she leaves behind, in her pursuit of peace, justice and the American way.”

In the spirit of “The Maltese Falcon,” Shayna is also in pursuit of valuable booty: in this case, the Flaming Tahitian Sunset silverware passed down from her grandmother to her mother.

“Shayna’s no-good boyfriend, Bernie, steals the silverware, which sets her on a quest from New Jersey to Peekskill to Sing-Sing, on a train to San Francisco and a boat to Cairo,” Merzell said. “Along the way, she meets some bizarre characters who both help and hinder her: her mentor-bookie Mad Rabbi Mordechai, the mysterious Dr. Chu and his sex slave Rod Todd, whom the silverware falls to. So Shayna follows him to the tomb of a long-dead Jewish princess in the Valley of the Kings. . . .”

Four actors and one singer play the 20-odd characters. As with old-time broadcasts, the sound effects are provided by an on-stage collection of creative noisemakers. “We have traditional effects, like a pumpkin being dropped for a dead body,” Merzell noted. “We also have untraditional ones, like a basketball--also dropped for a dead body--bouncing a few times. And the actors will have their scripts in hand, making costume changes as the scene changes.”

The writer-actress (who’s also playing Shayna) won’t reveal her age, but emphasizes that she doesn’t personally remember radio drama.

“All of the information we get in our generation has been from film and TV,” she pointed out. “I started thinking about what it would be like to get it from the radio--or sit in the audience during one of these broadcasts. So when I was in San Francisco developing this, I did a lot of research, listened to old radio shows. We’ve also written some funny commercials and used old news broadcasts to give people a flavor for the era--then turned it on its ear. It’s looking with an affectionate, funny eye at where we were, and where we are now.”

Admission is free.

December is the month for Christmas plays, Hanukkah plays, holiday satires . . . and a couple of nondenominational pursuits. The small but eclectic roster of December theater openings includes the following.

“Sophie and Willa,” Katharine R. Sloan’s story of the friendship between an elderly Jewish New Yorker and her single, pregnant black neighbor premieres Friday at the Tiffany in Hollywood. Jill Andre directs Louise Fitch, Francesca Roberts, Lucy Lee Flippin, Richard Reicheg and Shavar Ross.

Rosemary Forsyth stars as a harried single mom in “Happytime Xmas” (opening Dec. 10 at the Cast Theatre in Hollywood), a spoof of kinder, gentler holidays past. It’s written and directed by Justin Tanner, whose “Zombie Attack!” is also playing at the theater.

“Hanukkah Lights,” an original musical theater retelling of the story of Hanukkah by the four-person group, the Shpielers, begins Dec. 10 at the Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism in West Los Angeles.

Patrick Stewart--a.k.a. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of TV’s “Star Trek: the Next Generation”--dons his classical hat for a one-man, one-performance show of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (Scrooge, Marley, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, et al), playing Saturday at UCLA’s Wadsworth Theater in Westwood.

In a more lavish rendition, the 32-member Nebraska Theatre Caravan brings its version of “A Christmas Carol” to Pepperdine’s Smothers Theatre in Malibu for two performances Dec. 17.

In Santa Monica, Highways’ latest Car Pool performance series revs up from Dec. 14 to Dec. 17 with a quartet of solo works: Eric Gutierrez’s “La Llorona,” Angela Yokoe’s “Where Do I Stand?,” Rick Ohara’s “Nuke-Age Trilogy” and Carol McDowell’s “Madame Lazare.”

“The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber: a Concert” (show tunes from “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Evita,” “Cats,” “Starlight Express” and “Phantom of the Opera” and others) opens Dec. 26 at the Shubert Theatre in Century City. Webber’s wife, soprano Sarah Brightman, does the honors.

Kwanzaa , the so-called “black Christmas,” is celebrated at Highways Performance Space with Akilah Nayo Oliver’s “Dissectations: Anatomy of Rage,” a collection of stories, chants and confessions, playing Dec. 28, 29 and 30. Keith Antar Mason directs Oliver, Michelle T. Clinton, Adele Renault, Kokuma Desiree Rugley and Veronica Wilson.