Imagine the temptation: An opportunity to stage the Christian-boy-band-spoof musical “Altar Boyz” in a beautiful church. And the devilish challenge: How to tame the huge, hard-surfaced, echoing sanctuary so the lyrics can be understood. Richmond Triangle Players can’t be faulted for any lack of pluck in giving this a go, but Philip Milone’s sound design is not quite equal to the acoustics of Metropolitan Community Church. And since the choice of “Altar Boyz” is both Triangle Players’ offering to the Acts of Faith Festival and a show requested by a large number of patrons, it’s unfortunate that many witty lyrics are inaudible. Maybe the sound design just needs a tweaking; lots can be understood, but the first couple lines of every song and every solo within songs were lost while the volume was adjusted.

Can two sets of “Altar Boyz” sing in harmony? The next few months will answer that question for the local theater community. Nearly four years after rocketing to small-scale hit status off-Broadway, “Altar Boyz,“ a tongue-in-cheek musical about a youthful, all-male Christian pop band, has finally reached the Richmond area. In fact, area audiences will have not one but two chances to sample the peppy piece in the near future: Richmond Triangle Players is mounting the first production, scheduled to run Jan. 28 through Feb. 21, as part of the annual Acts of Faith festival.

The close examination of morality in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” makes the play an excellent choice for the 2009 Acts of Faith Festival. This was the play that made Miller famous in 1947 and won him a Tony Award in 1948, and Chamberlayne Actors Theatre’s straightforward and careful production comes close to doing it justice. In fact, the fine cast, directed by Sheryle Criswell and well supported by the design staff, is nearly perfect. Miller wrote no throwaway roles in this beautiful work, and each of the 10 actors gets a fully realized human to inhabit. And the detailed set by Lin Heath is just right, as are the period costumes by Charlotte Scharff and Betty Williams. Alan Armstrong’s lighting is well done except for the third act, which takes place after midnight and is sometimes just too dim.

Two musical performances by the Modlin Center for the Arts and Swift Creek Mill Theatre have been postponed. The Modlin Center’s “Winterreise” by baritone James Weaver and pianist Joanne Kong, scheduled for tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Booker Hall of Music, will be rescheduled for a later date. The James River Harp Ensemble, slated to appear in “Dancing with the Harps,“ at Swift Creek Mill Theatre, has been postponed until June 5 and 6.

Now the sun will shine, now we’ll be just fine, we have got the science of the mind.“ That’s the oft-repeated refrain from one of the songs in “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant,“ Firehouse Theatre Project’s twisted holiday offering. In Kyle Jarrow’s deadpan 2003 comedy (from a concept by Alex Timbers), 10 choir-robed kids illuminate the life of L. Ron Hubbard, the creator of Scientology.

stillgoing   Barksdale Theatre at Hanover Tavern, 13181 Hanover Courthouse Road, Hanover, 282-2620. “Sanders Family Christmas,“ $35-$38. Through Jan. 25.  Barksdale Theatre at Willow Lawn, 1601 Willow Lawn Drive, 282-2620. “This Wonderful Life,“ $38. Through Jan. 11.

Richmond Shakespeare’s Grant Mudge first adapted Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” as a little holiday presentation for his family. Eleven years ago, he and Cynde Liffick expanded the adaptation, and Mudge has presented it yearly to Richmond audiences.

Ebenezer Scrooge and “The Santaland Diaries” starting to seem like the same old, same old? Deja vu might not be a problem at the Firehouse Theatre Project’s holiday show: “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant.“

It’s Christmas and—uh-oh—time again for “A Christmas Carol,“ the perennial holiday cash cow for theaters everywhere. “Inspecting Carol” is the 1991 effort by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theatre to wring a twist on the old Charles Dickens chestnut by conflating it with Nikolai Gogol’s comedy “The Government Inspector” and Michael Frayn’s farce “Noises Off.“

Richmond Triangle Players is a nomadic company this year as it readies its new performance space, and the group has just turned up at the Gay Community Center with 2004’s “Bite Me!“ This camp musical has a book by Wesley Eure (the actor from “Land of the Lost” and “Days of Our Lives”) and songs by Rob Bowers. It’s in the tradition of Charles Busch but way less brilliant.

Silhouetted spies lurk and conspire. Giant Chinese tangrams mysteriously float and topple. As if bewitched, flashlight beams detach from flashlights and hover like fist-sized halos. This is the wryly eerie world of “Shadow Play,“ a nearly wordless 75-minute entertainment nurtured at VCU and destined, its creators hope, for a career in professional theaters beyond Richmond.