Take The Bad Seed and smush it together with All About Eve, add a little camp and some over-the-top musical numbers, and you have some idea of Ruthless, The Musical! In it eight-year-old Tina declares, “I was born to entertain.” When auditions come up for the school play, Pippi in Tahiti, Tina is sure it’s her big break, but the lead goes to someone else. Undaunted, Tina accidentally-on-purpose hangs the other girl from the theater’s catwalk. But her problems aren’t over. There’s an acid-tongued theater critic coming to review Pippi. Before it’s all done, Tina spends some time in the Daisy Clover School for Psychopathic Ingénues while her mom and agent fight over her future career.

“What’s ruthless about it is the different personalities you see in musical theater, with all the backbiting and competition. And it’s all seen through the eyes of this little girl,” Kent Johnson, producing director for Generations Theatre, says of the group’s inaugural production. A little girl who isn’t going to let a little thing like homicide get in the way of her curtain calls. 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Rice University, Hamman Hall, 6100 Main. For information, visit www.generationstheatre.com. $11 to $32.

Thu., Aug. 21, 8 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 22, 8 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 23, 2 & 8 p.m., 2008

This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2008.