Curtain time From Of Mice and Men to Bat Boy:The Musical BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
	Fall Preview 2003 American sweethearts From Courtney Love to Gina Gershon and the Garage Girlz BY MATT ASHARE Fall safe After a summer of sequels, the real films return BY PETER KEOUGH Curtain time From Of Mice and Men to Bat Boy:The Musical BY BILL RODRIGUEZ Mega-moves Fall brings a full slate of choreographic delights BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ ‘From the makers of Smallville’ Plus Whoopi, The Mullets, Rob Lowe, and HBO BY JOYCE MILLMAN

Associated fondly in recent years with the 10-minute plays of its Short Attention Span Theatre, 2nd Story Theatre has kicked off a five-play season of full-length productions, from high drama to low comedy.

Running through October 26 is A Delicate Balance, a black comedy depicting one of Edward Albee’s stage families that would regard the label "dysfunctional" as something to strive for. Next up is John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (November 14 through December 14), a buddy story about George and Lenny, two Depression-era vagabonds who remind us that homelessness has as long a tradition in this country as friendship. The new year will bring Molière’s infrequently staged The Learned Ladies (January 30 through February 29), which will be followed by Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (March 19 through April 18) and Marjorie Taub’s The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (May 7 through June 6).

Last year 2nd Story demonstrated that they can hold our attention for two or three hours, staging a two-play sampler of works by Oscar Wilde and Arthur Miller. Artistic director Ed Shea was pleased, to say the least.

"I never expected last season to be the success that it was," he said. "Ever. I was stunned by it. I would look at a full house for Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, the least performed of his best-known work,s and I kept saying, ‘If two years ago you told me that Oscar Wilde would sell out in Warren, Rhode Island, I would’ve said you were crazy.’ "

Shea learned from the experience. Audience members were telling him they appreciated not just longer plays, but narrative plays, the sort of storytelling that theater sometimes gets away from.

"Really great stories, that’s what people responded to more and more last year," Shea said. "That’s what I heard from audiences again and again and again."

Plenty is going on at other theaters, too, from realistic narratives to a spoofy musical.

Trinity Repertory Company is staging David Auburn’s popular new play, Proof through October 12. From September 26 through November 9, they’re taclking an American classic. Eugene O’Neill’s Moon for the Misbegotten takes place on one fateful moonlit night in the 1920s on a farm facing foreclosure. Will landlord James Tyrone (Fred Sullivan Jr.) relent? Will farmer Phil Hogan successfully appeal to friendship as they drink together, or will Tyrone’s fondness for his daughter Josie (Janice Duclos) play the more consequential role? Duclos will reprise her well-received performance from Washington’s Arena Stage, and Amanda Dehnert directs.

Don’t miss First Stage Providence’s current production of Not About Heroes, by Stephen McDonald, which is being performed around the state through October 16. (See the Phoenix listings for dates and locations.) Nigel Gore and Rudy Sanda deliver blistering portrayals of World War I poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

Always making a splash at Perishable Theatre in the fall is the International Women’s Playwriting Festival, coming up October 2 through November 1. The 11th annual competition drew the most submissions ever — 374 one-act plays. A Providence playwright is among the three having their work premiered this year. Quiara Alegria Hudes’s Holy Broth, directed by Nadia Mahdi, is about a bilingual family’s communication difficulties as their casual conversations are misheard and badly translated. The other two winners are both from Brooklyn. Written by M.F. Unser and directed by Brooke O’Harra, Temporaria is a comedy that follows an innocent victim confronting corporate America. Finally, Johnny Hong Kong, written by Kathryn Walat and directed by Bob Jaffee, looks into the relationship of a single mother and her energetic five-year-old son.

Judy, or What Is It Like to Be a Robot, written and performed by Tom Sgouros, will be at Perishable November 6 through 23. Initially developed in performances at Perishable in 2000, the play has since changed considerably, as it examines such matters as consciousness and human nature. Also in November, for the first time Providence will be host to the National Black Storytelling Festival, which will take place at the Providence Marriott November 12 through 16.

Dylan Thomas’s prose poem A Child’s Christmas in Wales gets brought to life by the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre November 20 through December 21. The Welsh writer populates the narrated reminiscence with a carnival of colorful relatives, and visions of snowball fights and tables groaning with food. The Gamm is reprising its popular 1998 adaptation, which was described in these pages as "passing along [Thomas’s] spirit and wonder in fine style." Still getting its new Pawtucket arts center digs in order, the theater initially won’t be staging plays at the main building of the Arts Exchange, as the center will be called, but in its annex.

Brown University Theatre will stage a long-awaited production, both comical and poignant but too twisted for prime time at PPAC or Theatre-by-the-Sea. Bat Boy: The Musical, with story and book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keef, will come to Stuart Theatre October 16 through 26. A Boston Globe reviewer gushed that it was "jaw-droppingly wonderful" when it hit the stage nearly 10 years ago. Found in a West Virginia cave where he was raised by bats, the bloodthirsty kid arrives in Providence with time to spare for Halloween. Coming to Brown November 6 through 16 is Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living, a powerful drama about a serial killer and the influences behind his actions. Lowry Marshall directs.

Winner of eight Tony Awards this year, not neglecting to pick up Best Musical, the musical comedy adaptation of the camp classic John Waters film Hairspray comes to the Providence Performing Arts Center November 4 through 16. The year is 1962, and 16-year-old Tracy Turnblad brings her big dreams and even bigger hair to grab the brass ring on TV’s most popular teen dance show.

The Aquila Theatre Company of London is performing an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King on September 22 at the University of Rhode Island’s Will Theatre. The Jewish Theatre Ensemble in association with Mixed Magic Theatre will present Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy, with Ricardo Pitts-Wiley directing and performing, at the Jewish Community Center in Providence November 6 through 16.

At Rhode Island College, an American comedy and a French farce are coming up. Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet will be staged October 1 through 5, and Molière’s The Misanthrope will be presented November 19 through 23.