Jar the Floorboards

Top of the Heap

At Syracuse Stage (820 E. Genesee
St.; 443-3275), the new direction charted by producing artistic
director Timothy Bond is bringing a record number of risky ventures.
Out is the tired regional theater formula of classics and recent
Broadway hits; in is the take-a-chance adventure of the unfamiliar,
with most productions taking audiences where they haven’t been before.
The test for Bond is to delight, amuse and astonish us.

August Wilson’s first big hit, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Sept. 10-14, 17-21, 24-28, 30, Oct. 1-4), predates his Pittsburgh decalogue (including Fences and Jitney),
and focuses instead on a 1927 Chicago recording session with legendary
blues singer Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. “Black Bottom” is an archaic slang
term for the poorest ghetto neighborhoods, and also described a dance
contemporary with the Charleston in the late 1920s. Ambitiously
structured, Ma Rainey presents action on two levels. Only
gradually do we realize that the voices we have overlooked are the ones
more worth listening to.

Chicago blues: Cast members of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, opening this weekend at Syracuse Stage.

Neglected and marginalized voices also speak in Ping Chong’s Tales from the Salt City (Oct.
14-19, 22-26, 29-31, Nov. 1, 2), a staged reading of oral history from
seven local residents Chong interviewed last spring. All seven live in
some way outside the dominant culture. One is African-American
community theater actor Al Marshall, another is Jeanne Shenandoah from
the Onondaga Nation, and the others are immigrants from Sudan,
Macedonia, Mexico, Cuba and Cambodia. What we will see is another
chapter in Chong’s ongoing Undesirable Elements series begun in 1992 that has already interviewed participants in more than 30 world cities.

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The non-subscription holiday show now
comes in two parts. Retained is the collaboration with the Syracuse
University Drama Department, with choreographer Anthony Salatino
guiding students through the big dance numbers. The yuletide offering
has a religious theme (sort of), with Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell (Nov.
25, 26, 28-30, Dec. 3-7, 10-14, 16-23, 26-28), based in part on the
Gospel of St. Matthew. Director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj promises
international themes with world-dance inspired choreography. 

Simultaneously in the SU Drama Department’s home, the Storch Theatre, comes David Sedaris’ mordant monologue The Santaland Diaries
(Dec. 2-7, 10-14, 16-23, 26, 28, 30. 31, Jan. 2-4). Sedaris was an
anonymous housecleaner in December 1992, when the NPR broadcast of Diaries made him an instant celebrity. You’ll never look at a Macy’s elf the same way again.

Last weekend Syracuse Stage management announced a new title to replace the midwinter mounting of Souvenir: Putting It Together (Jan.
27-31, Feb. 1, 4-8, 10-15), a revue of Stephen Sondheim music as
conceived by Julia McKenzie and Sondheim himself. This is a different
review from Side by Side by Sondheim in that songs are fit into parallel narratives of an older and a younger couple. Selections come from early shows like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Company as well as Sunday in the Park with George, which furnished the title song, and Assassins. Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj directs.

Bridget Carpenter’s Up (Feb.
25-28, March 1, 4-8, 10-15) investigates what happened to everyman
Walter Griffin after his 15 minutes of fame from flying 16,000 feet up
in a lawn chair tied to 42 weather balloons. The Australian film Danny Deckchair (2003) depicts a comparable episode, but Carpenter’s Up can be seen in tandem with her Down,
written six years earlier. This is an East Coast premiere for a play
Timothy Bond saw at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival two years ago.

Two contrasting female-centered shows conclude the season. Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s The Diary of Anne Frank (April
1-5, 8, 10, 11, 15-19, 22, 25, 26, 28, 30, May 2, 3), long a mainstay
of community theaters, appears here with a somewhat different tone.
Wendy Kesselman’s new adaptation takes advantage of details of Frank’s
life and eventual fate not recorded in the first publication of the
Frank diary in the 1950s. Regina Taylor’s Crowns (May 13-17,
21-24, 27-31, June 2-7) is the only musical ever to have been based on
a coffee-table book of lush photography. That was Michael Cunningham
and Craig Marberry’s loving photographs of hats worn by black women in
Southern churches. Taylor’s Crowns, which ran off-Broadway in
2002, has been popular with regional theaters for six years. Taylor
promises a revised book for this joyous celebration in different
musical styles of African-American culture and tradition.

It might be that location just off the Ithaca Commons, or it might be having only 73 seats to fill, but the Kitchen Theatre Company (116
N. Cayuga St., Ithaca; (607) 272-0403) continues to do great business
with edgier, gutsier shows than anyone else attempts. The season has
already started with Brian Dykstra’s new comedy The Two of You (Sept. 10-14, 17-21). Although not new, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days
(Oct. 8-12, 15-19, 22-26, 29-31, Nov. 1, 2) is making an area premiere.
Jesse Bush directs Susannah Berryman in the darkest of dark comedies
that begins with a woman buried up to her chest in a mound of earth.
Company artistic director Rachel Lampert and composer Larry Pressgrove
also reprise their original hit of two years ago, Tony & the Soprano (Nov.
20-23, 28-30, Dec. 4-7, 11-14, 18-21). The title is supposed to invite
a double-take: A soprano from Juilliard moves to Brooklyn and meets
Tony. 

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Another world premiere, Francesca Sanders’ I Become a Guitar (Jan. 14-18, 21-25, 28-31, Feb. 1, 4-8), asks the question, “What if your inner life were much more fulfilling than reality?” Guitar
promises to be a magical, poetic exploration of what holds a family
together and what tears it apart. Brian Dykstra offers his second world
premiere of the season, A Play on Words (Feb. 25-28, March 1,
4-8, 11-15, 18-22). Rusty and Max, best friends who argue most of the
time, are now scheming something big. Expect ear-catching displays of
Dykstra’s patented wordsmithing. Dykstra specialist Margarett Perry directs. 

Perry is also in charge of the next world premiere, Rachel Axler’s Archaeology
(April 8-12, 15-19, 22-26, 29, 30, May 1-3, 6-10), an off-kilter play
about an earthquake and its effect on four 20-somethings as they search
for love, identity and purpose. Emmy-winning Axler made her national
reputation scripting The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Concluding the season is Scott Brown and Anthony King’s Gutenberg! The Musical! (June 10-14, 17-21, 24-28, July 1-5, 8-12), an unlikely but zany two-man show about the inventor of the printing press.

Nonagenarian Murray Bernthal knows the formula. Every year his Famous Artists, in association with NAC Entertainment
(241 W. Fayette St.; 424-8210), brings professional shows to the Mulroy
Civic Center’s Crouse-Hinds Concert Theatre, 411 Montgomery St. And
every one of them is a box-office contender. Eric Idle and John Du
Prez’s Spamalot (Oct. 7-10) is a musical spoof of a cinematic
spoof of the Arthurian legends; with flying cows, killer rabbits and
the Holy Grail, no wonder it was the 2005 Tony winner for Best Musical.
We’ll also follow the yellow brick road to the most familiar and
beloved characters in all Americana, The Wizard of Oz (Jan. 20-22), a lavish new production that boasts a sparkling art deco set. 

The surprise winner of five Tony awards in 2006 was the Canadian-written The Drowsy Chaperone (March
24-26). A die-hard musical theater buff in his living room plays a
recording of a now-forgotten 1928 show and finds himself transported
back to the glory days of Tin Pan Alley. Moving from the frothy to the
bloody, the once-shocking cannibalism musical Sweeney Todd
(April 14-16), by Stephen Sondheim, now attracts more audiences after
Tim Burton’s heavy-handed film version. There’s also the one-night-only
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (May 5), about six
young people in the throes of puberty learning that losing doesn’t
necessarily make you a loser. It’s another Tony winner that charms both
critics and audiences. One week later 2003 American Idol winner Ruben Studdard comes to town in the Fats Waller tribute Ain’t Misbehavin’ (May 12-14).

Also in the Crouse-Hinds Theatre is Syracuse Opera (47-OPERA), where all productions this year will be in some language other than Italian. Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Oct.
24, 26) will be sung in English but with projected titles. The
frequently performed rescue of Pamina by Tamino, and the Queen of the
Night’s coruscating aria, will take on new guises through a
collaboration with the Open Hand Puppet Theater. A Shakespeare opera
neglected by Glimmerglass last summer is Charles Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet (March 6, 8), sung in French with projected English translations. Concluding the season is a contemporary work in English, Little Women (May
1, 3), by young American composer Mark Adamo (b. 1962). Louisa May
Alcott’s beloved classic has provided the libretto for more than one
opera, of which this is the most admired. After opening in Houston in
1998, Little Women charmed summertime audiences at Glimmerglass in 2002.

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Meanwhile, Auburn’s Merry-Go-Round Playhouse (performances at Emerson Park; 255-1785, (800) 457-8897) continues its endless summer with the new musical comedy Church Basement Ladies (Sept. 10-13, 16-21, 23-27, 29, 30, Oct. 1, 2) and gets a big jump-start on summer 2009 with The Full Monty
(May 27-June 17), the earliest MGR has ever started its season. It’s
part of producing director Ed Sayles’ master plan to get audiences
thinking about MGR as a year-round destination. Other shows for next
summer include High School Musical (June 24-July 18), No, No, Nanette (July 22-Aug. 12), A Chorus Line (Aug. 19-Sept. 5), Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Sept. 9-30) and I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett (Oct. 7-17). 

Favorite Faces

Rarely Done Productions (performances at Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington St.; 546-3324) has already begun its season with Children’s Letters to God
(Sept. 12-14,19, 20). It and the remaining five shows are all area
premieres, proving that Dan Tursi’s troupe believes in living up to the
promise of the company name. The subtitle of Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God (Oct. 2-4,10,11,17,18) might be Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead;
Rarely Done’s advertising campaign reminds us this is a comedy for
mature audiences only. When CB’s dog dies from rabies, he begins to
question the afterlife. A chance meeting with an artistic kid, bullied
by others, gives CB peace of mind but also pushes teen angst to the
limit. Audiences sick of the treacle at the holidays will be braced by
Jeff Goode’s pitch-black and world-wise The 8 Reindeer Monologues & Seven Santas (Dec. 4-6,12,13,19, 20). Director Tursi gave us a preview in Reindeer Monologues under the Syracuse Civic Theatre aegis in January 2005.

David Drake’s The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me (March 12-14, 20, 21, 27, 28) begins when the seed of West Side Story’s “Somewhere”
is planted in the soul of a gay child and it leads to his sexual,
spiritual and political yearnings. Company favorite Jimmy Wachter is
featured. The comic book allusion in the title of Brad Frazer’s Poor Super Man (April
16-18, 24, 25, May 1, 2) should not mislead us about a comedy dealing
with 30-something urbanites whose lives are coming apart. David, a
successful painter, decides to get into the world again by taking a job
as a waiter in a small café, where he unexpectedly falls in love with
the married male owner. Finally, Michael Heitzman and Ilene Reid’s Bingo: The Musical! (June
4-6,12-14,19, 20) brings us to three gal pals who have driven through a
terrible storm in the name of their weekly obsession. Bingo cards will
be distributed, and audience participation is invited.

In a season where many community theater companies are unsure of which direction to take next, Appleseed Productions (performances
at the Atonement Lutheran Church, 116 W. Glen Ave.; 492-9766) runs on
sturdy legs, with comedy, musicals and drama set as far ahead as next
June. Always adventuresome director William Edward White opens the
season with the granddaddy (or grandmamma) of all the out-of-body
comedies, George Axelrod’s Goodbye Charlie (Sept. 12-14, 19-21,
26, 27). After trying to escape through the porthole of a friend’s
yacht, ladies’ man Charlie finds himself reincarnated as a beautiful
chick. Trouble is, his macho personality remains in place, and he has
to learn how to move with a curvy body. A man looking for curvy body,
one who never drinks . . .wine, is of course, Dracula (Oct.
24-26, 31, 1, 2, 7, 8), based on Bram Stoker’s novel. The Transylvanian
count has taken many incarnations, but this is the first one that
appeared on the London stage. Patricia Catchouny directs. Also from the
British stage is Communicating Doors (Dec. 5-7, 12-14, 19, 20)
by the premier comic playwright of the last generation, Alan Ayckbourn.
Unwisely compared with America’s Neil Simon, Ayckbourn always calls for
more complex action. In this intricate time-traveling comic thriller, a
sex specialist from the future stumbles into a murder plot that sends
her, compliments of a unique set of hotel doors, traveling back in
time. Dan Stevens directs.

The new year brings Dale Wasserman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Jan.
23-25, 30, 31, Feb. 1, 6, 7), after the Ken Kesey novel. Admired as
Milos Forman’s 1975 film version has been, Wasserman’s stage adaptation
tells the story differently and is constantly revived, becoming a
surprise box-office smash in London last year. Dustin Czarny directs.
Tom Griffin’s The Boys Next Door (March 13-15, 20-22, 27, 28),
an off-Broadway hit from 1991, portrays the trials of burned-out social
worker Jack as he deals with four mentally handicapped men living under
his supervision in a New England group home. Sharee Lemos directs this
comic yet often poignant drama. British comedy with Mark Chandler’s I Shot My Rich Aunt (May
1-3, 8-10, 15, 16), a rollicking romp that combines off-the-wall farce
and near murder mystery. Jon Wilson directs the guests arriving at Lady
Valonia’s stately manor. Lastly comes Stephen Sondheim’s first hit, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (June 12-14, 19-21, 26, 27). Czarny directs this continually popular send-up of vintage burlesque and Roman comedy.

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After sweeping this year’s Syracuse New Times Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) Awards, with 29 nominations and 10 wins, John Nara’s Simply New Theatre (558-9194;
marketing 876-2161) has still not settled on a favorite venue. The
BeVard Studio of the Mulroy Civic Center serves for the only scheduled
production at press time, John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God (Sept.
20, 21, 26-28). Katharine Gibson, nominated for two previous SALT
awards, portrays the possibly insane title character. Kate Huddleston,
a second SALT nominee, who memorably played the inquiring Dr.
Livingston almost two decades ago, returns as the mother superior,
while Karis Wiggins, a third SALT nominee, is Dr. Livingston this time. 

Chris Lightcap’s The Talent Company (479-SHOW) also had only one production to announce at press time, but it’s a biggie: Mel Brooks’ The Producers (Nov.
7-Dec. 7) at the New Times Theatre at the New York State Fairgrounds.
Dan Tursi will direct the biggest Broadway musical of this decade,
whose production numbers, like “Springtime for Hitler” and “When You’ve
Got It, Flaunt It” are already legendary. Look for the chorus of
elderly ladies with walkers.

Todd Ellis runs two parallel companies, Syracuse Civic Theatre (412-PLAY) and Syracuse Children’s Theatre
(432-KIDS), both sharing, most conveniently, the same initials. All
three Civic productions are stage adaptations of literary works
assigned in high school English classes; most performances will be at
10 a.m. at the Mulroy Civic Center’s Carrier Theater, with likely
public performances on two different weekends. These include Lord of the Flies (November), To Kill a Mockingbird (February-March) and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (March-April). The Children’s shows include Once on this Island (December) for grades 6-12 and the pre-kindergarten, one-act version of Disney’s High School Musical (December).

Salt City Center for the Performing Arts, Joe
and Pat Lotito’s heroic little company, earlier announced two shows for
the season—only to have to withdraw them. Undaunted, the troupe will
perform Side by Side by Sondheim (Oct. 24-26, 31, Nov. 1, 2, 7-9) at Jazz Central.

At press time, several companies have yet to announce their schedules, including Wit’s End Players (345-8001), always a strong competitor at SALT Awards time, and Opening Night Productions (476-6915), Bob Brown’s well-regarded company, often appearing at the Glen Loch restaurant in Jamesville. Only Art Zimmer Productions (1415 W. Genesee St.; 422-7011) knows whether a sixth revival of the perennial sellout Cruizin’ Thru the 1950’s will be mounted again at—where else?—the New Times Theater. But after

17 years of making people laugh and sing, Holly Wilson’s Theatre ’90 company has announced its final curtain call.

Young at Heart

In contrast to Syracuse Stage next door, the productions at Syracuse University Drama Department (820
E. Genesee St.; 443-3275) feature well-known names, with two musicals
by John Kander and Fred Ebb bookending the season. The little-seen Steel Pier
(Oct. 3-5, 8-12) is set in 1930s Atlantic City when the Lindy Hop,
Jitterbug and Black Bottom were the reigning forms. Maestro
choreographer David Wanstreet directs. The season concludes with the
Kander-Ebb review The World Goes ’Round (April 24-26, 29, 30, May 1-3, 7-9), with selections from the duo’s greatest hits, such as Cabaret, Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Kim Hale and Nathan Hurwitz co-direct.

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Elsewhere on the SU Drama slate, The Rimers of Eldritch (Nov. 14-16, 19-23) is an early work by the much-admired Lanford Wilson, better known for Talley’s Folly and Burn This. Gerardine
Clark directs this drama of the aftermath of a major crime in a small,
rural town. Malcolm Ingram will guide William Congreve’s Way of the World (Feb.
6-8, 11-15), the greatest of all Restoration comedies. No lovers ever
speak as well and sharply as Mirabell and Millamant, save possibly
Beatrice and Benedick. It’s not love but sexual obsession that marks Boy Gets Girl (March 20-22, 25-29) by up-and-coming playwright Rebecca Gilman (Spinning Into Butter). Executive Therese thought computer jock Tony was OK, but when she tries to end their relationship, he comes on like Fatal Attraction testosterone. A hit first at Chicago’s Goodman and later the Manhattan Theatre club, Marie Kemp will direct the SU students. 

Things progress from Wilde to Wilder at Le Moyne College’s Boot and Buskin Drama Club (1419
Salt Springs Road; 445-4523), which performs at the school’s
state-of-the-art Coyne Center for the Performing Arts. In Oscar Wilde’s
An Ideal Husband (Oct. 24, 25, 30, 31), eminent British
politician Sir Robert Chiltern risks humiliation if an incriminating
letter should come to light, exposing him as less than ideal. Steven
Braddock directs. The scene switches to New Hampshire for Thornton
Wilder’s American classic Our Town (Feb. 20, 21, 26, 27), about
a resonant day in the lives of neighboring small-town families. The
peerless Karel Blakeley provides sets and lighting for both productions.

A family company with professional standards, Gifford Family Theatre (1419
Salt Springs Road; 445-4230) also makes full use of Le Moyne College’s
Coyne Center when classes are out of session. The big spring show is
Joan Cushing’s musical adaptation Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business (May
19-June 13). The Junie B. Jones series, by Barbara Park, is already
well-established with primary school students. Gifford artistic
director Steve Braddock expects that Monkey Business will bridge the gap between preschoolers and upper elementary kids as previous Cushing adaptations (Miss Nelson is Missing) have done.

Meanwhile, The Media Unit (327
Montgomery St.; 478-8648, 478-UNIT), the award-winning teen group
coached by Walt Shepperd, could show up anywhere, in keeping with its
street theater tradition. At press time the Unit is exploring use of
the Atrium at Carousel Center with the development of a new show on
bullying. Peace!

Different Strokes

Playwright-actress Donna Stuccio took over Armory Square Players (478-3590)
last spring after 22 happy years under the guidance of founder David
Feldman. The company will continue with script-in-hand productions of
new plays, mostly by local authors, with animated discussions to
follow. The Redhouse, 201 S. West St., remains the favored venue, with
dates including Nov. 30, Jan. 25, Feb. 22 and March 22, although the
scenes shift to the Coville Theatre of Manlius Pebble Hill School, 5300
Jamesville Road, DeWitt, on Oct. 26 and April 26. Three short plays
will be heard on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 1 p.m. at the Redhouse: Amy
Doherty’s The Kiss, Kathy Kramer’s You Can’t Be Switzerland and Craig Thornton’s Man on Television.

Thanks to Open Hand Theatre (476-0466), the storybook castle Victorian mansion known as the International Mask and Puppet Museum, 518
Prospect Ave., is always alive with activity. The popular “World of
Puppets” series, Saturdays at 11 a.m., begins Oct. 4 with the return of
Michael Graham’s Jack and the Beanstalk, with a special Halloween show bringing the Puppet People’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Nov.
1). Continuing also is the “Well-Aged Words” series of adult
storytellers on Saturdays at 8 p.m., such as national award-winning
“Liar and Storyteller” Bill Lapp (Jan. 10). The company will also
reprise the much-acclaimed production of Giancarlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors
(Dec. 5, 6, 12-14, 19, 20) at the First English Lutheran Church on
James Street. Featured vocalists include Cathleen O’Brien, Michael
Chellis and James Shults

Since the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company (805 E. Genesee St.; 442-2727) last appeared on the Syracuse New Times
radar, most operations have moved a mile west to the Syracuse Stage
neighborhood, and many productions take place in the Dee-Davis Room of
the company’s performing arts center. Opening the season are two
one-acts: Blue Vein Society by Yale-trained playwright Samuel L. Kelley, now resident at SUNY Cortland, and Sweat by
Zora Neale Hurston (Sept. 25-28, Oct. 2-5, 9-12, 16-19). Annette
Adams-Brown has conceived and will direct a storytelling series
featuring three local icons supported with multimedia enhancements at
dates to be announced. In late November and early December the company
expects to produce a show titled Black Nativity.

After winning this year’s SALT Professional Theater Best Drama Award for Frozen, Laura Austin, artistic director of The Redhouse (201
S. West St.; 425-0405), still holds live drama close to her heart. The
popular venue at the edge of Armory Square has been drawing larger
crowds for music, comedy, art and, this year, opera as well. Austin and
pals Tim Mahar and Glenn “Gomez” Adams continue their Friday-night
improv series on Sept. 19, Oct. 17, Nov. 7, Dec. 19, Jan. 23, Feb. 13,
March 20, April 24 and May 29. The four productions scheduled this
season all originate outside the company. Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen’s
The Eaten Heart (Sept. 26, 27, Oct. 3, 4) is produced by an edgy
New York City company known as The Debate Society. It’s a dark comedy
about longing and loneliness inspired by the medieval masterpiece Decameron by Boccaccio. 

Douglas Kinney Frost and Jeffrey Tangeman will co-direct Peter Brook’s La Tragedie de Carmen (Nov.
14-16), a stripped-down, three-character version of the Bizet opera,
produced in collaboration with Syracuse Opera. Opening the new year is
a professional production of Patricia Buckley’s Evolution (Jan.
8-11), first seen at Le Moyne College in summer 2007. Buckley’s pal
Leslie Noble, formerly with the mime company Gams on the Lam, directs
this solo performance dealing with the lives of three women grappling
with family ties and mental illness. From New York City’s acclaimed
LAByrinth Company comes Carlo Alban’s Intrilingus (April) about his teen experiences working with PBS’ Sesame Street while an illegal immigrant from Ecuador with a fake green card.{mospagebreak}

Life’s a Niche

Onondaga Hillplayers (469-8822),
Jack and Doris Skillman’s annual dinner theater production at the Inn
of the Seasons, 4311 W. Seneca Turnpike, will stage a revival of Neil
Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers (March 6-8, 12, 13), little
seen in recent years. Veteran director Robert “Tank” Steingraber guides
the farce concerning an anxious fish salesman (John Seavers) who tries
to carry on sneaky affairs with three different women, not all at the
same time.

Now in its 66th year, Baldwinsville Theatre Guild (c/o
Presbyterian Education Center, 64 Oswego St.; ticket information:
457-3739) rightly claims to be the longest-running company in the area.
Opening the season is Larry Shue’s comedy of the insufferable guest, The Nerd (Nov. 7, 8, 14-16, 21, 22), followed during the midwinter gloom with Fred Carmichael’s Exit the Body (Feb.
27, 28, March 6-8, 13, 14), a comedy from one of the most prolific but
least-known American playwrights. Ernest Thompson’s beloved family
drama On Golden Pond will appear sometime in May.

Just finishing its 12th season, ACME Mystery Company (reservations,
475-1807; company business, 622-2665) has polished a winning formula of
genre spoofery and interactive theater, usually with company founder
Bob Greene in an important role. This season ACME will retain its
Thursday evening slot at the Spaghetti Warehouse, 689 N. Clinton St.,
starting with Montana Smith and the Curse of the Golden Crocodile (Sept.
18, 25, Oct. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, Nov. 6). If “Montana Smith” does not
immediately make you think of Harrison Ford in a fedora, you won’t like
the other gags, either. For the holidays it’s Nick Saint, Private Elf (Thursdays,
Nov. 13, 20, Dec. 11,18 and Jan. 8; Fridays, Dec. 5, and Jan. 2). On
the island of Misfit Toys, Nick seeks out Santa’s dirty little secret
in the seamy underbelly of the North Pole. While ACME’s shows have long
been in demand around upstate New York, often as fund-raisers, this
season the company is scheduled at four different venues, drawing on an
extensive backlog of original scripts. Look to the Glen Loch of
Jamesville (469-6969) for Big Louie and the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (Oct. 18) and Deadly Inheritance (Nov. 22); Monirae’s Restaurant in Pennelville (668-1248) for Homestyle Homicide: The Freagan Family Reunion (Oct. 17); Yesterday’s Royal in Sylvan Beach (762-4677) for Hello, My Name is Death (Wednesday, Sept. 10) and Montana Smith (Wednesday, September 17); and Beardslee Castle in Little Falls (823-3000) for Montana Smith (Oct. 3, 25), Death Takes a BowNick Saint, Private Elf (Dec. 12, 13). (Nov. 14) and

Also at the Spaghetti Warehouse, but on Saturdays at 12:30 p.m., is Magic Circle Children’s Theatre (449-3823).
Interactive retellings of classic fairy tales invite participation from
youthful audiences for only $5. The season begins with Snow White (Sept.
20, 27, Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25, Nov. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, Dec. 6, 13, 20),
featuring many familiar names. Jo D’Aloisio and Meredith D’Angelo
alternate in the title role, with SALT winner Binaifer Dabu and
Jennifer DeCook as the wicked queen. Community theater favorites
Gennaro Parlato and Maureen Harrington, who are often mistaken for one
another, will split the role of the dwarf Grumpy, while Michael Spinoso
stands alone as Happy.

Ronnie Bell’s doughty little company Syracuse Shakespeare Festival (443-8781,
476-1835), which has been performing the bard’s treasures in Thornden
Park for free over several summers, last year launched a full season at
Syracuse University’s downtown space, The Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St., VPA Room 001. At press time the room is being renovated, and a venue is uncertain for Favorites of the Bard (Oct. 4, 5), which consists of selected speeches performed by different players. Romeo and Juliet (Jan. 9, 10, 16-18), however, should be at the completely renovated space, as will Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex (April 10, 11, 17-19). Rex
premiered at the Stratford Festival in 2000, winning top prizes in
Canada, and then moved to off-Broadway a few months ago, attracting
much praise. A cross-dressing actor teaches the queen how to be a
woman, and she helps him to become a more aggressive male.