‘Peace, Love, and Cupcakes: The Musical’

Vital Theater Company has again revived this show, which takes place on one of the most treacherous, complicated and unrelenting battlefields to which America has sent its young: middle school. An attempt to attract audiences as old as 12, it draws on the first novel in a series by Sheryl Berk and her young daughter, Carrie Berk. Though not always plausible, the production, written by Rick Hip-Flores, offers a brisk, entertaining and well-acted hour as it explores what happens to the misfit heroine, Kylie Carson, when she starts a cupcake club that threatens to become even more popular than the reigning mean girl at school.