LILY JANIAK’S THEATER PICK

“Don’t look at it like that,” Lonn (Cameron La Brie) says to Callie (Megan Wicks) as she’s fresh off the bus, surveying his bar. She’s looking at it “like it could be something but isn’t — the way you used to look at me.”

Sparks get rekindled early in “Southern Lights,” Lee Brady’s “country music romance” now in a 3Girls Theatre Company production at Z Below.

Adopted siblings Lonn and Callie had an affair in their youth, but they both live under a long shadow, that of Callie’s country-music-star father and her long-suffering mother. When the pair reunite, Lonn’s stayed put, trying to profit off Callie’s father’s legacy, and Callie’s been on the road, trying to forge her own identity apart from it.

But a shared love of music, a chance to put on a show that might revive the bar and a lingering attraction just might set the pair on a new course. Andrea Gordon directs.

“Southern Lights”:

3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 16; 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Dec. 20-21; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22. $20-$45. Z Below, 470 Florida St., S.F. 415-626-0453. www. zspace.org some time, and masterful performances from Lura Dolas and Julian López-Morillas bring terrifying honesty to the play’s central question: What story do you write for yourself if your life and heritage are founded on unspeakable crime or victimhood? Ends Sun., Dec. 16. Two hours 20 minutes. $35-$70. Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. 510-8434822. www.auroratheatre.org — L.

Janiak

The Infinite Wrench For a conceit as contrived and blatant as a race to perform 30 short plays in 60 minutes, the San Francisco Neo-Futurists are the least stagey group on Bay Area stages. For their ferocious commitment to the new, their openness to the imagination, their unvarnished honesty and can-do pep, they’re an underground power generator in an art form no one should ever deride as “dying” so long as

Nthey’re fighting the seconds ticking by. Ongoing. One hour, 15 minutes. $14$19. PianoFight, 144 Taylor St., S.F. www.sfneofuturists.com — L. Janiak

The Magic Bus Antenna Theater presents Chris Hardman’s magical mystery tour through the hippie ’60s and the Beat and Cold War past, on a bus ride through the city. Veterans of the era might nitpick, but it’s hard to resist the old clips and ’60s music. Ongoing. $40-$59. Meet at Union Square, Geary Street, S.F. 855-969-6244. www.magicbussf.com — R. Hurwitt

MMarrakech Magic Theater Jay Alexander’s mien throughout his card tricks, mind reading, number games and feats of extraordinary coincidence is that of a nerd with overweening enthusiasm — enthusiasm you can’t help but share. And descending the venue’s mysterious

M