The Play's the Thing

A preview of the 2006-2007 season

A A A Comments (0) By Robrt L. Pela Thursday, Sep 7 2006

The usual cluster of Christmas shows (ATP's Christmas Carol; iTheatre's A Holiday Cabaret, both in December) returns this season, this time in the company of some new holiday cheer. I'm delighted to note that none of our several dozen local troupes is this year attempting Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical, although Maripat Donovan has penned another nun comedy, Sister's Christmas Catechism, set to play at Scottsdale Center for the Arts through December. New kids on the block Insurrection Theatre are weighing in with Holiday Cheer, a Musical Revue, and Copperstate Dinner Theatre hopes to entice us out to the dog track where it presents all its shows with Tuna Xmas (November), a sort-of sequel to the perennial Greater Tuna, with which Copperstate is opening its season. I'm saving my holiday cheer for Southwest Shakespeare's Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge (November), because I need to know what's behind that intoxicating title.

And theatergoers for whom no season is complete without a mammoth pile of tried-and-true musicals may want to Google this list for times, dates, and theaters: A Chorus Line; Jesus Christ Superstar; Godspell; Man of La Mancha; Gypsy; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Thoroughly Modern Millie; South Pacific; Guys and Dolls; Kiss Me, Kate; Cabaret; Fiddler on the Roof; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; The Fantasticks; Pump Boys and Dinettes; Grease; Hair; and The Music Man.

Laura Durant

Phoenix Theatre is banking on Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Laura Durant

Bat in the cave: London Assurance opens this month.

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Phew. It's enough to make you want to stay home with your YouTube and forget the whole theater thing. But don't — there's plenty of exciting, provocative theater on the schedule this year, if you know where to look.