Something is seriously wrong in a world where you get second and third late notices for your nonresponse to junk mail; in a world where much of the current theatrical excitement lies due north of La Jolla, in places like Carlsbad and Oceanside, which hosted sellout opening night audiences the weekend of April 9. In any event, New Village Arts and New Backyard Renaissance Theatre Co. opened shows on the same weekend. Backyard presented Bernard Pomerance’s “The Elephant Man” (three 1979 Tony Awards) in association with four-year-old Oceanside Theatre Company, co-directed by Francis Gercke and Oceanside’s Artistic Director Christopher Williams. “The Elephant Man” continues through April 24. As expected, Gerke is splendid as the grotesquely afflicted Merrick. Nick Cagle is solid as Dr. Treves, and Jessica John is lovely and sensitive as Mrs. Kendal, the actress who visits frequently. Some dialect, shouted in one case, is slathered on a bit thickly. Overall, crisp diction is challenged by the acoustics; however, the production is well staged in Oceanside Theatre Company’s former cinema, with effective scenic design by Ron Logan and Victorian costumes by Roz Lehman, with gowns created by Renetta Lloyd. Just down the pike from Oceanside, New Village Arts co-founder Kristianne Kurner opened the William Hauptman/Roger Miller musical “Big River: the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” based on the novel by Mark Twain. “Big River” originated at American Repertory Company, was produced at La Jolla Playhouse (both in 1984) and was directed on Broadway the following year by Des McAnuff (seven Tony Awards, including one for the director). The big musical (through May 15) is directed and choreographed by Colleen Kollar Smith, who manages to encapsulate Huck’s Mississippi River adventure with Jim, a former slave. Their raft tucks nicely into scenic designer Christopher Scott Murillo’s multilevel picket-fence set, which becomes the banks of the Mississippi and various towns along the river. Also useful in creating the illusion are the band, comprising fine musicians familiar from appearances around the San Diego area, including Lamb’s Players Theatre. Jon Lorenz is music director, and Matt Lescault-Wood is sound designer. Some of the instrumentalists are also actors who play numerous characters. Sweet-voiced Morgan Carberry plays violin, Miss Watson and Aunt Sally; invaluable David Kirk Grant is everpresent in numerous roles and on guitar; and versatile actor/singer Tony Houck is frequently found at the piano. Though amazingly complicated and busy, the scheme works from the top down, with an amazing young Huck (high school senior Reed Lievers) and the thrilling singer/actor Bryan Barbarin as Jim. They are vocally fine, and their friendship, the soul of the show, is convincing. In addition, Manny and Melissa Fernandes add a bit of melodrama in the subplot concerning a pair of charlatans. With the addition of seven actor/singers and three dedicated band members, it’s an entertaining 2½-hour show that seems and always did seem longer than it is. Favorite musical numbers are Jim and Huck’s “Muddy Water” and “River in the Rain,” Huck’s “Waitin’ for the Light to Shine,” and Jim’s “Free at Last.” Never saw/heard anything like it department Regarding 25-year-old Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov’s playing of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Orchestre Symphonique Montréal on March 23: I’ve heard dozens in my life, and this was unlike any other. Audience excitement ran so high that there was applause after the first iconoclastic movement from the sophisticated La Jolla Music Society audience and others that crammed Jacobs Music Center-Copley Symphony Hall for the Celebrity Orchestra Series concert. As one patron was heard to say, “I never heard anything like that.”