Sat. Oct. 10

(Contributed by JSInk correspondent Matt Robinson) Last call! To kick off their 36th season, the To kick off their 36th season, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston offered (as the opening song says)  “Another Op’nin” to what was not just “Another Show.” Instead, picked the Tony Award-winning stage-within-a-stage Cole Porter smash “Kiss Me Kate” and put it into their intimate performance space. They ended up with a pleasantly in-your-face backstage look at life in the theater. From the peroxide blond with a heart of gold that almost everyone loves Lois Lane/Bianca (Michelle DeLuca) to a falsely hirsute and questionably moral peasant/General/Veep candidate (Timothy John Smith, whose take on “From This Moment On” was a surprise show stopper), to the main pair of raspy rapscallion Fred/Petruchio (Peter Davenport) and musically moody Lilli/Kate (Ameia Broome), the cast offered twice the talent and fun in this brilliantly-woven double story of life and love on both sides of the curtain. With the help of a live but at times distant-sounding orchestra, the talented company (which included local cabaret star Mary Callanan among other talented troupe-rs) banged through such Cole classics as a sultry and smoky “Too Darn Hot,” a conscientious “Why Can’t You Behave,” and an entertainingly edifying “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” And though the codas and second starts made the show a bit long, the false endings gave the appropriately eager to applaud audience chances to do their thing. Tickets: $42-$29. Showtime: 8. It's ends tonight, Oct. 10. It runs about 2 1/2 hours.

140 Clarendon St., 617-585-5678 www.lyricstage.com