It was not your usual Narnia — which came as no surprise to anyone who has revelled in the fantasy and fun of the annual Camp Jabberwocky play.

In this year’s production, inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Narnia was not so much the lamppost-lit enchanted domain of the elusive White Witch. It was a Vineyard-inspired porthole between the wardrobe of the camp’s costume room and the wardrobe of a different take on a ruling female power – Lady Gaga, played to perfection by camper Mary Beth Rush.

The Vineyard Playhouse’s current production of Tape, opens on a set that itself poses a plot twist and a conundrum at the same time: Lights bear down on a typical off-highway motel room with twin beds, a banal color scheme of beige, gold and brown, a sink on one side rimmed by overhead white globes. Over in the right-hand corner, a vague charcoal-hued stain hints that a repaint of the unadorned walls is long overdue.

It’s a three-person play and a two-bed motel room. Something’s already intriguingly off-kilter.

It was in a motel room in Maine in the 70s that it all came together for the young Jon Lipsky.

It was an evening of tartans and tuna tartare as the men in kilts invaded the highlands of Oak Bluffs, auctioning off their services at the Mediterranean Restaurant to benefit the high school’s drama program. All the traditional Celtic standards were on offer Thursday night, from Danny Boy to It’s Raining Men, as kilt-clad local teachers and community leaders put their services up for bidding to help send 16 students to Edinburgh to perform in the legendary Fringe Festival in August.

Story will be fending for itself this summer on the stages of Martha’s Vineyard. Stripped like the economy (and because of it), this season promises something much more seductive than blockbuster pretense, jaw-dropping set design, or celebrity leads: a glimpse at the so-called creative process.

So, you all know about the giant Jack met up that beanstalk, right? But did you know that giant was the reason all those kids ended up in that old woman’s shoe? Here’s how the children themselves explain it, in song:

“The giant, big and mean and mad, made himself a snack of our moms and dads; now they’re gone and deep inside his belly, and we’re in his shoe all wet and smelly.”