Aunt Pearl Burras (Joe Sears) finds herself in Las Vegas with Maurice (Jaston Williams) in "Tuna Does Vegas." The two actors play many roles in the production.

The costumes upstage the actors in the new adventures of those eccentric rednecks from Tuna, Texas, the state’s third-smallest community.

Not that the actors in “Tuna Does Vegas” are bad. Far from it. But the costume designs are even more hilarious in this nationally touring production presented by Broadway in Tucson.

Jaston Williams and Joe Sears are onstage playing all the characters, just as they always have since first creating “Greater Tuna” back in 1981 with Ed Howard, who is also the director.

This triumvirate then created “A Tuna Christmas” in 1989, which went on to enjoy a successful holiday run on Broadway in 1995. That triumph was followed by “Red, White and Tuna” in 1998. While all three plays have become popular moneymakers in regional theater, Williams and Sears still like to go on tour now and then to show the rest of the country how it’s done.

On the opening night of their most current production, “Tuna Does Vegas” at the downtown Fox Theatre, Williams and Sears were up there once more giving life to Arles Struvie, Bertha Bumiller, Petey Fisk, Vera Carp, Didi Snavely and all the others.

Lifetime fans – shall we call them the Tuna Nation – will be happy to learn a few more characters have been added who are uniquely Las Vegas. Which brings us back to those fabulously vivid get-ups designed by Linda Fisher. For openers, Bertha makes her entrance wearing a lime green vest over a shocking pink blouse, with pink and green flowered slacks contrasting nicely with her helmet hair.

Aunt Pearl Burras spins the chaotic color wheel even faster when she walks out wearing a dress that looks to be designed by Omar the tent maker. Scarcely more than a muumuu, it is covered in a busy print flaunting flowers with red, yellow, green and blue petals. To this she adds a little lime green hat adorned with more plastic flowers and fruit, plus a sturdy pair of black shoes with squatty, comfortable heels.

You get the idea. But while the women dress like peacocks on a suicide mission, the loudest and most spontaneous applause broke out when the Vegas hotel elevator doors opened to reveal a gargantuan Elvis impersonator. To say that he is larger than life doesn’t even begin to be large enough.

Plotwise, the story opens early one morning at radio station OKKK where Arles and Thurston Wheelis are still doing the farm reports and playing vintage country music from the 1950s. Arles and Bertha have been married so long they want to fluff up their love life by renewing their vows with a second honeymoon in Las Vegas. After Arles innocently mentions this on the air, all the Tuna townsfolk suddenly find reasons for a Vegas visit, too.

It takes all of Act 1 before we have been reintroduced, as well, to the station owner Leonard Childers, the waitresses Inita and Helen, hapless little theater director Joe Bob Lipsey and the gun-loving Didi, who runs Tuna’s only secondhand gun store. Just before intermission, all of them are heading for their rooms in the low-rent Hula Chateaux Resort and Spa.

When they return for Act 2, the seductive side of Sin City begins to warp some of the more rigid among Tuna’s traveling townsfolk. Those less committed to maintaining their morals find opportunities for self-expression are beginning to blossom.

The humor gets a little edgy from time to time. There’s a good bit of drinking, some profanity, a doobie is smoked, raunchy winks about sex are bandied about. Not that anything is R-rated, but it still seems a bit surprising for a family show. Several politically incorrect jokes about Mexico were greeted with more gasps than laughter. Other parts of the country probably don’t feel as sensitive about border issues.

Even so, Williams and Sears got a standing ovation. Their comedy may be getting a little dated, their politics stuck in the 1980s, but on opening night, nobody cared.

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IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Tuna Does Vegas” performed by Jaston Williams and Joe Sears

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St.

Price: $25-$50

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Grade: B-

Jaston Williams (left) and Joe Sears take their entire cast of zany characters on the road to Nevada in "Tuna Does Vegas."

Those wacky west Texas folks from Greater Tuna, proud to be known as the “third smallest town” in the Lone Star State, are getting out of town.

For the first time since this trilogy to rural life became a four-part series, fans will get to watch as “Tuna Does Vegas.” The nationally touring production opens Tuesday for a week of shows in the downtown Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St..

Think of the Beverly Hillbillies without all that oil money. Think of Greater Tuna’s own Vera Carp with her tight-jawed Christian values, convinced those Sodomites of Gomorrah are discovering new naughty words in Las Vegas. As a card-carrying member of Smut Snatchers of the New Order, it is her god-given duty to see these new words are banned as soon as possible.

“Gomorrah is what she calls Las Vegas,” says Joe Sears, on the phone with a smile in his voice.

Maybe that name Gomorrah has the weight of the Old Testament behind it, but Sin City would have been easier to spell. Even so, Sears co-created the character of Vera and a dozen other dusty eccentrics, working with Jaston Williams and Ed Howard. Sears and Williams also do all the acting. Howard directs.

Back around 1980, these three pals living in Austin, were creating a string of skits using corn pone humor to satirize political issues of the day. Right-wing religious groups were in the news a lot. But then it turned out that one of the most popular characters was Petey Fisk, a worried soul determined to prevent cruelty to all animals.

“Greater Tuna” was the right show at the right time, and its popularity soared in regional theater. Sears, Williams and Howard followed up |with “A Tuna Christmas” in 1989, then the Independence Day-based “Red, White and Tuna” in 1998. This rednecked Tuna Trilogy was keeping the three lads busier than a hound dog in a rabbit pen.

Back in 1995, “A Tuna Christmas” even enjoyed a box-office-smashing, Tony Award-nominated, run on Broadway. As always, Sears and Williams played all the roles, male and female, becoming remarkable quick-change artists in the process.

“We are professionally trained character actors who are keen observers of humanity,” Sears explains proudly.

For the last couple of years, this team has been developing “Tuna Does Vegas” on the road. The show’s premise is that Bertha Bumiller, with a closet full of polyester pantsuits, and Arles Struvie, her conservative radio talk show host husband, have decided to renew their marriage vows with a meaningful ceremony in Las Vegas. Suddenly all those beloved Greater Tuna residents find reasons they should go to Las Vegas, as well, at exactly the same time.

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IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Tuna Does Vegas” with the original cast of Joe Sears and Jaston Williams

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St.

Price: $25-$50

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Lin-Manuel Miranda (left) and Cynthia Nixon pose for photos before they announce the nominations for Broadway's 2009 Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards, in New York on Tuesday.

NEW YORK – “Billy Elliot,” the season’s biggest musical hit, dominated the 2009 Tony Award nominations Tuesday, picking up 15, more than any other show.

Based on the popular British movie, the show about a coal miner’s son who dreams of becoming a dancer, will compete for best musical against “Next to Normal,” “Rock of Ages” and “Shrek The Musical.”

“It’s been an amazing experience,” Elton John, nominated for the show’s original score, told CBS’ “Early Show,” which telecast early nominations. “It’s made an incredible impact on my life.”

Best-play nominations went to “God of Carnage,” “Dividing the Estate,” “reasons to be pretty” and “33 Variations.”

“Next to Normal,” a heartfelt musical about a woman battling mental illness, received 11 nominations, while “Shrek” and the revival of “Hair” tied with eight each.

In several of the acting categories, performers from the same show will compete against each other.

For best-actor play, James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels, stars of “God of Carnage,” will face each other. So will their two co-stars in Yasmina Reza’s scathing comedy of manners — Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis — in the actress-play category.

Other actor-play nominees were Raul Esparza, “Speed-the-Plow”; Geoffrey Rush, “Exit the King”; and Thomas Sadoski, “reasons to be pretty.”

The two royal ladies of “Mary Stuart” — Janet McTeer as Mary, Queen of Scots, and Harriet Walter as Elizabeth I — will also battle for the actress nod. The last slot in the category was filled by Jane Fonda, who portrays a dying musicologist in “33 Variations.”

In one of the more unusual nominations, the three boys who share the title role in “Billy Elliot” — David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, Kiril Kulish — were named together for the best actor-musical prize.

Their competition: Gavin Creel, “Hair”; Brian d’Arcy James, “Shrek The Musical”; Constantine Maroulis, “Rock of Ages”; and J. Robert Spencer, “Next to Normal.”

The 15 nominations received by “Billy Elliot” were the most received by a production since “The Producers” was honored with the same number in 2001. Its composer, Elton John (along with lyricist Lee Hall) was nominated. Besides best-musical, score and lead actor, “Billy Elliot” received nominations for book, featured-actor (two), featured-actress (two), scenery, costumes, lighting, sound, direction, choreography and orchestrations.

Dolly Parton was nominated for her score of “9 to 5,” but the show was passed over for a coveted best musical nod. In this play-heavy season, a lot of well-known actors were snubbed including Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Daniel Radcliffe, Carla Gugino, Brian Dennehy, Frank Langella and John Lithgow.

Joesefina Scaglione, Maria in the revival of “West Side Story,” picked up an actress-musical nomination. She will compete against Stockard Channing, “Pal Joey”; Sutton Foster, “Shrek”; Allison Janney, “9 to 5: The Musical”; and Alice Ripley, “Next to Normal.”

Winners will be announced June 7 at Radio City Music Hall.

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NOMINEES

NEW YORK – Nominations for the 2009 American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards, announced Tuesday.

BEST PLAY: “Dividing the Estate,” “God of Carnage,” “reasons to be pretty,” “33 Variations.”

BEST MUSICAL: “Billy Elliot, The Musical,” “Next to Normal,” “Rock of Ages,” “Shrek The Musical.”

BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL: “Billy Elliot, The Musical,” “Next to Normal,” “Shrek The Musical,” “(Title of Show).”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (MUSIC AND/OR LYRICS) WRITTEN FOR THE THEATRE: “Billy Elliot, The Musical,” “Next to Normal,” “9 to 5: The Musical,” “Shrek The Musical.”

BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY: “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” “Mary Stuart,” “The Norman Conquests,” “Waiting for Godot.”

BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL: “Guys and Dolls,” “Hair,” “Pal Joey,” “West Side Story.”

BEST SPECIAL THEATRICAL EVENT: “Liza’s at The Palace,” “Slava’s Snowshow,” “Soul of Shaolin,” “You’re Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A LEADING ACTOR IN A PLAY: Jeff Daniels, “God of Carnage”; Raul Esparza, “Speed-the-Plow”; James Gandolfini, “God of Carnage”; Geoffrey Rush, “Exit the King”; Thomas Sadoski, “Reasons to Be Pretty.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A LEADING ACTRESS IN A PLAY: Hope Davis, “God of Carnage”; Jane Fonda, “33 Variations”; Marcia Gay Harden, “God of Carnage”; Janet McTeer, “Mary Stuart”; Harriet Walter, “Mary Stuart.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A LEADING ACTOR IN A MUSICAL: David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Gavin Creel, “Hair”; Brian d’Arcy James, “Shrek The Musical”; Constantine Maroulis, “Rock of Ages”; J. Robert Spencer, “Next to Normal.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A LEADING ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL: Stockard Channing, “Pal Joey”; Sutton Foster, “Shrek The Musical”; Allison Janney, “9 to 5: The Musical”; Alice Ripley, “Next to Normal”; Josefina Scaglione, “West Side Story.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEATURED ACTOR IN A PLAY: John Glover, “Waiting for Godot”; Zach Grenier, “33 Variations”; Stephen Mangan, “The Norman Conquests”; Paul Ritter, “The Norman Conquests”; Roger Robinson, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEATURED ACTRESS IN A PLAY: Hallie Foote, “Dividing the Estate”; Jessica Hynes, “The Norman Conquests”; Marin Ireland, “reasons to be pretty”; Angela Lansbury, “Blithe Spirit”; Amanda Root, “The Norman Conquests.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEATURED ACTOR IN A MUSICAL: David Bologna, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Gregory Jbara, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Marc Kudisch, “9 to 5: The Musical”; Christopher Sieber, “Shrek The Musical”; Will Swenson, “Hair.”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL: Jennifer Damiano, “Next to Normal”; Haydn Gwynne, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Karen Olivo, “West Side Story”; Martha Plimpton, “Pal Joey”; Carole Shelley, “Billy Elliot, The Musical.”

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY: Dale Ferguson, “Exit the King”; Rob Howell, “The Norman Conquests”; Derek McLane, “33 Variations”; Michael Yeargan, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL: Robert Brill, “Guys and Dolls”; Ian MacNeil, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Scott Pask, “Pal Joey”; Mark Wendland, “Next to Normal.”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY: Dale Ferguson, “Exit the King”; Jane Greenwood, “Waiting for Godot”; Martin Pakledinaz, “Blithe Spirit”; Anthony Ward, “Mary Stuart.”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL: Gregory Gale, “Rock of Ages”; Nicky Gillibrand, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Tim Hatley, “Shrek The Musical”; Michael McDonald, “Hair.”

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY: David Hersey, “Equus”; David Lander, “33 Variations”; Brian MacDevitt, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”; Hugh Vanstone, “Mary Stuart.”

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL: Kevin Adams, “Hair”; Kevin Adams, “Next to Normal”; Howell Binkley, “West Side Story”; Rick Fisher, “Billy Elliot, The Musical.”

BEST SOUND DESIGN OF A PLAY: Paul Arditti, “Mary Stuart”; Gregory Clarke, “Equus”; Russell Goldsmith, “Exit the King”; Scott Lehrer and Leon Rothenberg, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”

BEST SOUND DESIGN OF A MUSICAL: Acme Sound Partners, “Hair”; Paul Arditti, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Peter Hylenski, “Rock of Ages”; Brian Ronan, “Next to Normal.”

BEST DIRECTION OF A PLAY: Phyllida Lloyd, “Mary Stuart”; Bartlett Sher, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”; Matthew Warchus, “God of Carnage”; Matthew Warchus, “The Norman Conquests.”

BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL: Stephen Daldry, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Michael Greif, “Next to Normal”; Kristin Hanggi, “Rock of Ages” Diane Paulus, “Hair.”

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY: Karole Armitage, “Hair”; Andy Blankenbuehler, “9 to 5: The Musical”; Peter Darling, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Randy Skinner, “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.”

BEST ORCHESTRATIONS: Larry Blank, “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas”; Martin Koch, “Billy Elliot, The Musical”; Michael Starobin and Tom Kitt, “Next to Normal” Danny Troob and John Clancy, “Shrek The Musical.”

———

SPECIAL TONY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN THE THEATRE: Jerry Herman.

REGIONAL THEATRE TONY AWARD: Signature Theatre, Arlington, Va.

ISABELLE STEVENSON AWARD: Phyllis Newman.

TONY HONOR FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE THEATRE: Shirley Herz.

A teenage boy (Christopher Johnson) moves in with his estranged father and meets his new family, including two teen foster children (Marina Jarrette, left, and Allegra Breedlove).

The irony is intense in Live Theatre Workshop’s gripping production of “Lemon Sky,” a play that seems more prescient now than when Lanford Wilson wrote it in 1970. Glen Coffman as director gives all the nuance a razor’s edge.

These days, we believe without exception: that inside every obedient housewife there was a stunted female screaming to get out; that every teenager of the early 1960s was a ticking time bomb of rebellion; and every authoritarian middle-aged white father who thought he knew best was about to be told differently.

Not that society is any better off today. It just seems like the cultural pressure cooker of conservative values in the 1950s was hissing and shaking, making so much noise we should have known the big blow was coming.

Sort of like how we should have known last year that the economy was going to collapse this year.

The first act of “Lemon Sky” sets up the scene, re-creating a happily positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peale-reading, Dr. George W. Crane-believing, Dale Carnegie-inspired 1950s suburban family in southern California riding the crest of a booming postwar economy.

Subdivisions were filling up the farm land just outside San Diego. Everybody lived in a new house. Americans were winners and the whole world knew it.

But even in Act 1, cracks were beginning to appear in this smiley-face facade. Now that the world was made safe for democracy, everyone wanted more freedom.

So divorce was becoming more common. A lot of those second-marriage families were setting up housekeeping out in the freshly minted ‘burbs.

Christopher Johnson with a shiny 1950s haircut and a nice touch of innocence plays 17-year-old Alan, who occasionally steps outside the scene to tell the audience about his dad, Doug, getting a new wife in Nebraska and moving to one of those tract homes near San Diego.

As the play set in 1959 opens, Alan hasn’t seen his dad for 12 years, but is moving in to stay. Doug (Roger Owen) and Doug’s new wife, Ronnie (Kristi Loera), are a bubbly couple with two young boys, Jack (Ryan Callie) and Jerry (Cole Gregory). The family has also taken in two teen foster children, Carol (Allegra Breedlove) and Penny (Marina Jarrette).

Carol is a flirty 17-year-old, either promiscuous or adventurous, depending on your personal values. She also pops a lot of pills for her anxiety.

Penny is a few years younger, and holds the honored family place as Daddy’s darling. He is teaching Penny all about photography, the science of developing film and the art of making prints.

As Doug, this is Owen’s strongest performance yet. Tall and broad-shouldered, he portrays the disciplined father as a positive guy who believes in a hard-line approach. These days, he would be applauded for his military insistence on law and order.

Owen does a fascinating job depicting the collapse of a man committed to this rigid way of life, even as human nature wins the struggle to maintain all those idealistic values.

Loera also displays a finer appreciation for subtle expressions. We see her outside appearance as the proper housewife who dresses extra-nice to fix dinner while waiting for Doug to get home from work.

But we can also feel her frustration at being helpless to deflect the train wreck momentum of Doug’s life. As with any train wreck, most of the casualties are innocent bystanders.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Live Theatre Workshop presents “Lemon Sky” by Lanford Wilson

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through May 31

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $14-$17

Info: 327-4242, livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: A

Brian Hanson and Tristyn Tucci play 20-somethings who have a hard time connecting with like-minded spirits in "I'm Sorry I Liked You."

The poignancy is palpable in “I’m Sorry I Liked You” written by Brian Hanson, who also plays the main guy.

In the late night production that opened last weekend at Beowulf Alley Theatre, Hanson is helped out by seven of his friends. Joshua Parra directed the whole thing, which looks and feels exactly like it is supposed to – people in their early 20s with no idea how to find and connect with any like-minded spirits out there.

For one thing, they aren’t even sure about the nature of their own spirits, so how can they hope to find any like-minded ones?

Hanson uses a series of conversational scenes set in casual places. There is no plot, per se, just this gradual deepening of frustration over always being misunderstood. Hanson’s self-named character Brian is the focus of this runaway storm. But all the characters have problems. Many have tried the escape route of recreational drugs.

So has Brian.

He is the stereotypical loser. A skinny kid in a loose-fitting black T-shirt and blue jeans who has spent so many years in public school sitting at the back of the class, drawing pictures in his notebook, that he’s become a pretty good cartoonist. In the opening scenes of the play, his sketch pad is always handy. It becomes an important means of communication for him.

Getting his ideas across has never been easy for Brian. Way too smart for his own good, completely lacking in social skills and having absolutely no interest in sports, Brian is still optimistic enough to believe life would be all right (or at least endurable) if he could just meet the right girl.

Or any girl, really. The more desperate he gets, the less particular he becomes.

At a time in our cultural history when self-image is being shaped mainly by the way people act on TV and in video games, guys like Brian are really out of luck. They don’t get any positive images, not even in all those slacker flicks.

Did you see “Adventureland,” the currently reigning movie for losers? The main loser becomes a winner at the end, of course, but the main loser’s buddy is sardonic Joel (Martin Starr), an even bigger loser. Joel majored in Slavic studies and defiantly smokes the kind of pipe we associate with old men. He also has a keen eye for the real world’s inequities. Bitter and cynical, he is the misfit who discovered in second grade that being smarter than all the other kids would never make him popular. At the end of “Adventureland,” Joel is still by himself, sucking on that pipe.

That is Brian, too, sucking in more emptiness with every breath, absorbed in the certainty that the only thing he is really good at is being a loser.

Brian’s friends in the play may not be quite that depressed, but neither are they living large. Ryan (Marcus Palm) is an energetic, lonely guy throwing himself into the gore of zombie movies. He thrives on them, running fast and never looking back.

Lana (Tristyn Tucci) is looking for love on the lesbian landscape, though she isn’t finding that much happiness. Stacy (Mindi Watts) has a chance to cross over into the social circles of successful people, but she can’t quite cut the cord on her friends from childhood who turned out to be less successful once they passed through the looking glass of adolescence.

What makes “I’m Sorry I Liked You” special is the dialogue. Hanson’s future is as a playwright. Although the language he gives these characters is filled with profanity, it also contains masterful psychology. Whether he is writing with a gift for intuition or the wisdom of masterful insight, Hanson nails it.

“I’m Sorry I Liked You” is more than a slacker’s memories set on stage. There is real life here, and for parents who want to look deeper, there are clues to what makes their children tick.

The other cast members are Ashley Kahaat, Antonio Ross, Evan Engle and Clinton Grozdanich.

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IF YOU GO

What: Late Night Theatre at Beowulf Alley presents “I’m Sorry I Liked You” by Brian Hanson

When: 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.

Price: $8

Info: 882-0555, www.beowulfalley.org

Grade: B

The best thing about adult fairy tales is the same thing as regular fairy tales. You can enjoy them over and over, and never get tired.

One of the most tuneful of these is “Mamma Mia!” – a show that has become as enduring as “Cats.”

“And why is that?” you may ask. On the opening night of “Mamma Mia!” at the Tucson Music Hall, one reason could be the national touring company’s stage fantasy of life on a Greek Island. Or the chance to look back nostalgically to 1979 when youth got the best of reason.

Or the conviction that a good memory deserves lots of bright colors, bouncy dancing and mock-acting with piles of hammy gestures.

Although all the songs are those totally irresistible, bass line-driven disco ballads by ABBA, one of the clues about the audience for this show is in the laughter when Sophie talks about 1979 as “the olden days.”

Such nostalgic time jokes keep slipping into the dialogue between songs, although most of the show is the songs themselves. And nobody goes to an ABBA concert expecting the muscle of the Rolling Stones or the depth of Leonard Cohen.

ABBA is closer to those surf and sports car songs of the Beach Boys.

“Mamma Mia!” wants to be cross-generational – feeling good about the past for one generation, and facing the future with a sunny smile for the new generation. If things can turn out well for Donna, who is happy for daughter Sophie, who is getting married to a nice young man, then there is still a chance for anyone who might have regrets about being too impetuous.

If “Mamma Mia!” has a secret to its enduring popularity, this must be it. Aside from celebrating the songs of ABBA, this show with its book by Catherine Johnson celebrates the sanctity of marriage. But even more than that, young Sophie insists not only on getting married but on setting her mom straight by discovering the identity of Sophie’s father.

Since she makes the biological lineage important, instead of just throwing up her hands with a hazy smile toward the fickle finger of fate, “Mamma Mia!” plants itself firmly in the conservative camp of tradition.

Meanwhile on the surface, a cast of 30 bright-faced young performers keep jumping around on a stage full of goofy costumes splashed with cascading colors that pump up their enthusiasm. The message is that we may be crazy on the outside, with all these frothy songs full of adolescent yearning, but deep down inside we want the stability of family values.

The cast in this particular production is equally balanced. There aren’t any stars of the future, no sparkling performers who have that “it” quality, but all are solid talents who keep the performance running smoothly at a very satisfying level.

Michelle Dawson as Donna, the mom, doesn’t look that much older than Liana Hunt, who plays Sophie, the daughter. But it doesn’t take much suspension of disbelief once Dawson starts to sing. Her big show-stopping finale in “The Winner Takes It All” is the show’s emotional peak.

Also good is John Hemphill as Sam, the regular guy whose dream is to settle down with his happy family in a home of his own design.

Sam’s big numbers are “S.O.S.,” and the more tender “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Adding comedy relief is Rachel Tyler as sophisticated Tanya doing the older woman-younger man thing with Pepper (Adam Michael Kaokept) singing “Does Your Mother Know.”

By the time this eager cast got to sing the title tune, “Mamma Mia!,” the audience had turned the evening into a Broadway musical singalong.

———

IF YOU GO

What: The national tour of “Mamma Mia!”

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.

Price: $25-$69, discounts for seniors and military personnel

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Grade: B

Tarreyn Van Slyke (from left), Joe Cooper, Deborah Klingenfus and Sarah Vanek star in "Harlie's Angels."

Are you ready for the 1970s? This time around, The Gaslight Theatre gang has given their time machine a little extra tug to get past the 1950s and into the TV wonderland of “Harlie’s Angels, or Clues But No Cigar!”

The 1970s were a decade of shameless excess and fashion extremes that held no fear of bad taste. We’ve got the videotape to prove it. The research staff at the Gaslight, ever relentless in its search for the truth, has dug up period details that will inspire a nostalgic smile from anyone still able to remember that psychedelic decade.

Samantha, Jessie and Kimberly are the three drop-dead beautiful angels who work for Harlie’s detective agency. In the finest feminist traditions of that period, they can outshoot, outfight and outsmart any guy. Fortunately for the rest of us, these angels aim only their talents at the bad persons.

Since all Gaslight shows are double cast, the roles become more important than the actors. At the performance I attended, Sarah Vanek, Deborah Klingenfus and Tarreyn Van Slyke play the angels Samantha, Jessie and Kimberly, respectively.

The unseen Harlie is heard onstage, but his voice gets no credit line in the program. The closest we get is Beasley (Joe Cooper), the dapper dude who works for Harlie and gives the girls – oops, women – their assignments. Beasley sort of watches over them, too, but just in an administrative way. Not in a sexist “I’ll protect you, baby” way that would be sooo wrong.

This was the Seventies, after all, when the pounding bass beat of disco had pushed those airhead folk singers in their Birkenstocks and blue jeans right out of the pop culture spotlight. Anybody who wanted to save the whales would have to do it after hours on their own time.

Stepping up to be a hero is Flavio Suave (Todd Thompson), the international disco superstar who never met a female he couldn’t charm out of her entire wardrobe. That is, until he met Harlie’s Angels.

OK . . . well . . . as longtime fans of the Gaslight are fully aware, a meaningful plot is never expected. So don’t expect the story line to make much sense, either.

There are four Soviet-like characters – the head of the Slobovian Secret Services (David Orley), a member of the Slobovian Central Intelligence Committee (Nancy LaViola), plus the two wild and crazy guys, Serge Piroshki (Mike Yarema) and Yerge Piroshki (Charlie Hall) – who are convinced the power that rules the world of disco can rule the world.

They will come to America, dominate the disco scene and rise to world domination. But first, they must put themselves into the Discosizer. Wearing drab Soviet-style uniforms they step into the whirring, smoking, flashing device. More stage effects stimulate the Discosizer and . . . viola!

The government Slobovians step out transformed into devilish disco dilettantes, one in bright orange pants, another in deep purple. That wild and crazy commissar even gets to wear a red velvet jacket and flaunt his massive blond afro. Within seconds they are all singing about a “Brick House” or something.

So the Slobovians’ plan to destroy the totally awesome new discotheque that Flavio in his ankle-length orange fur coat plans to open. Harlie’s Angels, always fluffing up their fabulous hair, are assigned to protect Flavio and stop the Slobovians.

You can be sure, bright colors in vigorously clashing styles will prevail.

The Gaslight’s aftershow olio is called “Hurray for Hollywood,” but the absolute best part is a lengthy salute to “The Wizard of Oz.” This 15-minute segment alone is practically worth the price of admission. Alas, the players present only the first half of the story – getting Dorothy and her three pals into the Emerald City. We get no flying monkeys, dissolving wicked witch or little man behind the curtain.

Everyone should demand Gaslight management put up the money to produce the rest of the story (as the late Paul Harvey would say). Then they can start working on a Gaslight version of “Gone With The Wind.”

———

IF YOU GO

What: The Gaslight Theatre presents “Harlie’s Angels or Clues But No Cigar!”

When: various times Tuesdays through Sundays through June 13

Where: The Gaslight Theatre, 7010 E. Broadway

Price: $17.95 adults, $15.95 seniors, $7.95 ages 12 and younger

Info: 886-9428, www.thegaslighttheatre.com

Grade: B

“The Kite Runner” among offerings

Lynn Redgrave soon will bring her one-woman show to town.

Now is the time to prove that old saying, in difficult times people spend more money on entertainment. We have to hope the old saying doesn’t just apply to movies.

Some of the local theater company seasons announced for 2009-2010 are packing real beef. Unlike the collapse of imagination that neutered most of the city’s stages after 9/11, this time around there is good stuff going up on the marquee.

Let’s begin with Tucson’s big boy, Arizona Theatre Company. A pair of comedies and a musical are the heart of the season – scarcely risky fare – but one of the comedies is “George is Dead,” written and directed by Elaine May. Her droll sense of what’s funny will be a much appreciated antidote to the adolescent humor so popular in movies and television these days.

More importantly, ATC is opening its season with a stage adaptation of “The Kite Runner.” If the play is as good as the movie adaptation of the novel by Khaled Hosseini, we are all in for a thoughtful treat.

Down the block at Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, mental stimulation is pretty much the standard. David Hare brings modern Middle Eastern influences into metaphorical issues that involve the conflicted personal lives of three friends.

David Lindsey-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Rabbit Hole” is also there. So are the surreal Jane Martin comedy, “Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage”; echoes of the Vietnam War in “Last of the Boys” by Steven Dietz; and Sam Shepard’s modern classic, “Fool for Love.”

That is quite a lineup.

The Rogue Theater is moving into new digs near the Historic Y and also pitching a wider choice of plays. By Rogue’s lofty standards, this is a very accessible season.

Imagine Thornton Wilder (“Our Town”) and Samuel Beckett (“Krapp’s Last Tape”) in the same room with William Shakespeare (“Othello”). But here’s the kicker – Rogue’s season opens with Andrew Periale’s stage version of “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. Wow.

Heading uptown to Invisible Theatre, everybody lightens up a bit. There is often substance mixed in with the laughter, however. “Iron Kisses” from James Still looks the best on paper. It’s a domestic tale of one family where mom and dad struggle to love their two children equally – even though the son is gay and the daughter packs some personal baggage of her own.

In the celebrity game, IT is bringing in Lynn Redgrave to perform her one-woman show “Rachel and Juliet.” Former NFL defensive back Bo Eason plays on a different stage now, performing his semi-autobiographical one-man show “Runt of the Litter.”

Both productions will be presented at the Berger Performing Arts Center.

Much further east at Live Theatre Workshop, where comedy is always king, some fiber has been added to the season. Most noteworthy, LTW has chosen Sarah Ruhle’s introspective comedy “The Clean House” which received such a delightful production at ATC last year.

We are reminded the courageous little East Side storefront theater turned out an excellent production of “A Perfect Ganesh” even though ATC had given that play its big ticket treatment a few years earlier.

Having proved real art is possible on a shoestring budget, LTW wants to do it again.

Also exciting will be seeing the company do “Picnic” by William Inge. The power of intimacy in this theater space could be explosive.

Supplying the angst and nudity is LTW’s Late Night support of ETCETERA, now led with enthusiasm by Christopher Johnson. In fact, the season’s real gut-wrencher could very well come from Johnson himself in the world première of his blatantly autobiographical memory play “Knuckle Sandwich” with stage roles for his own family and friends.

So if you are going away for the summer, be sure to come back. The upcoming theater season will be a whopper.

You want an aisle seat for that?

Monty Python’s “Spamalot” will finally wind its way to the Old Pueblo, courtesy of Broadway in Tucson.

The company on Friday announced its 2009-2010 season, which also includes another hit musical, “Legally Blonde,” classics “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Chicago” and singing hunks The Ten Tenors in a holiday concert.

Here’s the schedule:

“Spamalot,” Sept. 22-27

The Ten Tenors, Dec. 15-20

“Legally Blonde The Musical,” Jan. 19-24

“Fiddler on the Roof,” Feb. 23-28

“Chicago,” April 13-18

All shows are at the Tucson Music Hall, except for The Ten Tenors, which will have a weeklong run at the Fox Theatre.

New season ticket packages, which range from $93-$344, will be available April 24. To order tickets, call 866-821-2929 or log on to www.broadwayintucson.com.

Jonathan Northover (from left), Roberto Guajardo and Jill Baker star in Beowulf Alley Theatre Company's production of "Proof."

As someone who stopped taking math classes after the first year of high school algebra, it is impossible to imagine what an “elegant proof” looks like. Is it the opposite of a sloppy proof, full of contradictions, numbers squirting outside the lines?

Making the invisible visible is a seductive fascination with David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize winning play “Proof.” Successful on the screen as well as onstage, this piece of thought-provoking theater receives a fine local production directed by Sheldon Metz at Beowulf Alley Theatre.

All the characters talk about math as if it is some unexplored land in an unseen world. Apparently, there is a considerable amount of math terrain still to be discovered.

Self-proclaimed math geeks are working day and night pouring over old formulas like ancient maps of forgotten lands. Meticulously, they go about rearranging baskets of numbers into new configurations hoping to find newer answers.

Making brilliant discoveries in math is the obsessive pursuit of every math graduate, convinced there’s nothing more pitiful than an old genius (like, say, 35 years old) who hasn’t staked a claim somewhere on this intellectual terra incognita.

It is the consuming pressure to discover something, anything – as long as mathematics is connected to it – that drives “Proof.” That, and the invisibility of the proof itself.

Auburn sees layers of possibility in this maze of mirrored ethics, where the reflection of something is the opposite of the original – yet both can look equally valid until someone starts slinging the arcane knowledge around until something breaks. Human nature, being equally invisible but infinitely more unpredictable, becomes the X-factor that defies every proof.

Metz keeps the play’s lines of communication as sleek and neat as one of those elegant formulas they talk about incessantly. All four actors move smoothly, making their stage personalities distinct, their thoughts clear. The tables of numbers they love may be multiplying themselves into infinity, but the actors keep their feet firmly planted onstage.

Jill Baker plays Catherine, a woman in her latter 20s who loves her genius father but also feels intimidated by his genius. She would like to be a brilliant mathematician, too, but she lacks the courage. All indications are she could be a genius if she would only apply her natural talent. But depression grips Catherine’s spirit.

She dropped out of college, spent six years caring for her mentally ill father. Now he has passed away. Her excuse to avoid life is gone.

Baker creates this person with a fine use of understatement. Her body language is drawn in, her voice subdued. Yet, we always know exactly what she’s feeling.

In the smaller but pivotal role of Robert is Roberto Guajardo. He plays the ailing genius who is Catherine’s beloved father. At the age of 23, Robert made a magnificent discovery of some important math landscape. But Robert hasn’t discovered anything since, though he has continued teaching at the University of Chicago.

Now time and stress have disintegrated his thought processes. But still he dreams of making one more age-defying breakthrough. Catherine has been helping him, and he has been encouraging her.

Into this relationship steps Hal, played by Jonathan Northover, a Tucson actor of British nationality who comes up with a remarkably natural American accent. Hal is the idealistic graduate assistant at Chicago U. who believes in Robert’s mental prowess. While going through Robert’s piles of notebook compilations, Hal searches for that masterful insight Robert always wanted.

Chris Farishon completes the cast as Claire. She is Catherine’s good sister – the one who studied hard, always did what she was told and now has a successful career as a financial analyst in New York.

Of course, Catherine hates her. Robert applauds Claire’s achievements but the one he loves more is Catherine, which Claire deeply resents.

So when it seems Catherine might have pulled out of her depression long enough to plant the flag of discovery on her own piece of the math world, Claire demands some definite proof.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Beowulf Alley Theatre Company presents “Proof” by David Auburn

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays through April 26

Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.

Price: $20 all tickets, discounts online

Info: 882-0555, www.beowulfalley.org

Grade: A

In "Page by Page," actor Ken Page will reflect on his past performances, from high school theater to the role of Old Deuteronomy in "Cats."

The Chinese like to say it is bad luck to be born in interesting times.

But even though St. Louis native Ken Page, born in 1954, spent his life and his show business career surviving turbulent racial change, the assassination of several American leaders and the AIDS crisis, he turned the experience into a one-man performance of Broadway hits that has been called “lusty, life-affirming, yet also haunting.”

The Broadway star has titled his singing autobiography “Page By Page,” which he brings to the Berger Performing Arts Center for two performances this weekend, presented by Invisible Theatre.

“Page By Page”celebrates a barrier- busting life that began when he was an African-American teen playing the Jewish tradition-loving Tevye in a Catholic high school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

When young Page played Horace Vandergelder in his high school production of “Hello, Dolly!” the casting made classroom history as the first interracial couple ever to appear on the school’s stage.

In the early 1970s those were big steps, Page recalled, and he’s always been very proud of taking them.

Coming of age when national political figures were being murdered for their beliefs, he bemoans the losses of “Martin, Malcolm, Medgar and both Kennedys.” Social issues have continued to be important to this performer. In 1973 Page saw his first touring Broadway show, “Seasaw.”

“I was mesmerized,” he told one reporter. “Not only with the show but with the people in it. They were short, tall, Asian, black, white.”

Just three years later Page was on Broadway himself, playing another white guy, Nicely-Nicely Johnson in an all-African American production of “Guys and Dolls.” It is Nicely-Nicely, we remember, who sings the show-stopping “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.”

In 1977 Page had the transitional role of the Lion in the African-American adaptation of “The Wizard of Oz,” known as “The Wiz.” But the next year, Page truly blossomed, winning the Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Fats Waller in “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”

There’s lots more to “Page By Page,” including his casting as Old Deuteronomy in the original production of “Cats” in 1982. Borrowing from that experience Page’s show also includes “Memory,” the signature song from “Cats,” which he performs as a poignant remembrance of his peers lost in the AIDS plague.

“I haven’t looked at the world in the same way since,” he has said.

On the life-affirming side, Page also tells stories of our shared humanity and works through a 25-song list that includes “Summertime Love,” “Bloody Mary,” “Broadway Baby,” “Ease on Down the Road,” “Ferry Cross the Mersey” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”

———

IF YOU GO

What: Invisible Theatre presents Ken Page’s “Page By Page” musical autobiography

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $42 general admission; group discounts available

Info: 882-9721, www.invisibletheatre.com

ABBA songs and fun, colorful dance numbers carry the plot along in "Mamma Mia!"

Check out the dancing in “Mamma Mia!” when this national touring show opens at the Tucson Music Hall on Tuesday.

See if it looks crisp enough for you. Sara Braslow will be doing that, too. She’s the company’s dance captain and a University of Arizona graduate, class of ’97, with her BFA in musical theater.

“I’ve been with this show for 3 1/2 years and I’m not tired of it yet,” she says cheerfully on the phone from Los Angeles where “Mamma Mia!” is in the midst of a two-week run at the historic Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

“As dance captain, I’m in charge of keeping it looking right, so both the choreographer and the director are happy,” Braslow says. That includes being responsible for working new people into the act and keeping the cast veterans on their toes with brush-up rehearsals. A typical schedule would include two dance rehearsals “pretty much every week.”

To do that, the dance captain (much like the quarterback on a football team) must know everyone’s moves.

“Yes,” she says with a laugh. “I do know all 30 dance tracks. So I know everybody’s part. I’ve always loved math. To me it is like working out an equation. I have to fit the right people into the right spots. I have two very thick books, where we have mapped out each dance track, section by section, in letters and numbers and colors.”

Braslow is also a swing dancer in the show, covering the roles of seven women. The story, we remember, takes place on an enchanted Greek isle where an inquisitive daughter, on the eve of her wedding, tries to discover which of her mother’s three main men from an earlier time could actually be the daughter’s father.

All the songs, of course, come from the equally thick book of favorites sung by the Swedish quartet ABBA. Included in the show are “Dancing Queen,” “S.O.S.,” “Super Trouper,” “Take A Chance On Me” and “The Winner Takes It All.”

For anyone who hasn’t seen either the musical or the movie (is there anyone like that?) “Mamma Mia!” is a true ensemble cast without a standout role for some famous person to step in and do the tour. Those songs are the star, actually, with the singers and dancers there simply to make the music more exciting.

“The show has a very loyal audience,” says Braslow with marvelous understatement. “Some of the fans dress up. All of them are very vocal.”

Back in February, the show had a thorough refurbishing to get freshened up for playing these two weeks in Los Angeles. Immediately after that, everything will be loaded up and hauled here for a week of performances in the Baked Apple. Tucsonans get the benefit of all this fluffing that includes four new faces (three of them in principal roles), new sets, new costumes and new lights.

“To the audience it will look the same as always, but the performances will feel very fresh and be lots of fun.

“And the cast will be enthusiastic because I’m always talking up Tucson to everybody,” she adds, the sunshine in her voice.

Looking to her show business future, Braslow thinks being dance captain and a swing dancer has its payoff artistically. She sees lots more than just being a teacher and disciplinarian.

“I do love the teaching end of it, which surprised me, actually. But what I really like is being able to jump in anywhere.

“And instead of being the choreographer, what I enjoy more is maintaining someone else’s choreography, and adding my own touches to it.

“Now that I’ve discovered this niche, being dance captain and a swing, I’m thinking I would like to make this my career.”

It is an interesting choice. Becoming a star or being one of those character actors full of colorful quirks is the usual show business motivator. Braslow has had those roles, at the UA and in regional theaters all over the country.

With this more or less backstage role, she has disappeared into “Mamma Mia!” But if you appreciate snappy turns with style you will be seeing Sara Braslow’s hand up there onstage.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Mamma Mia!”

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 23; 8 p.m. April 24; 2 and 8 p.m. April 25; 1 and 6:30 p.m. April 26

Where: Tucson Music Hall

Price: $25-$69

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Hershey Felder stars in "Beethoven: As I Knew Him."

Members of the MTV generation will be calling Arizona Theatre Company’s new production “Beethoven Unplugged,” even though the official title is “Beethoven, As I Knew Him.”

Written and performed as a one-man show by actor/concert pianist Hershey Felder, the musical selections emphasize the composer’s genius for power ballads. Not to mix too many music metaphors here, but Beethoven is best known for composing magnificent symphonies.

Felder has pared away all the tuxedoed pomp of a proper European concert hall, the imposing sight of 80 musicians playing all sizes of bowed instruments, and replaced them with . . . himself and a grand piano in a simple setting with a few pieces of studio furniture. Behind him is a backdrop resembling a story book. From time to time, illustrations that look like etchings are projected on the larger-than-lifesize pages.

Everything is black, with minimal stage lighting, which adds a certain formality to the atmosphere. The playwright does enhance the scene with some recorded orchestral excerpts in a sound design by Erik Carstensen. Unfortunately the theater’s sound system wasn’t equal to the challenge. There was no rich resonance to this recording. It came out thin, with distortion around the edges.

The ideal setting would be Felder with a full symphony orchestra. As an instrument for humanizing the great artist, “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” works its magic. Just like you can hear the tunes better in those “Unplugged” TV programs, Felder brings out the angelic moments in Beethoven’s music.

Instead of soaring through the heavens on the wings of 30 violins, Felder draws us past the Pearly Gates and into God’s own darkened living room where Beethoven has been playing every evening for a couple of hundred years.

Do they serve after-dinner drinks in Heaven? If they do, this would be the perfect place.

For narration, Felder has drawn on the writing of Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, whose father was one of Beethoven’s most loyal friends. Gerhard was 12 years old when he first met the composer. For the next couple of years he would spend time with Beethoven nearly every day.

His stories become Felder’s stories, told with a pronounced German accent. Always understanding what he’s saying isn’t easy. This does detract from the performance, though it doesn’t get in the way of the music. Still, a simpler accent would be appreciated.

We do get that Beethoven lived a difficult, unhappy life and was a terrible housekeeper. As a boy he was abused by his father. The composer’s cruel deafness in later life could have been caused by those childhood times when the father beat his son about the head.

“Beethoven, As I Knew Him” is presented without an intermission, running nearly two hours. Felder adds a coda, as he calls it, stepping away from the piano to answer questions from the audience.

So, dream up a good question during the performance and be one of the first to get called on afterward, just to get the audience participation started. On opening night it took Felder awhile before the questions were flowing.

My favorite question from the audience: “If Mozart had lived longer, how would his presence have affected Beethoven’s composing?”

———

IF YOU GO

What: Arizona Theatre Company presents “Beethoven, As I Knew Him,” written and performed by Hershey Felder

When: various times Tuesdays through Sundays through April 27

Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

Price: $31-$54

Info: 622-2823, aztheatreco.org

Hershey Felder will appear as himself in a special six-performance concert series April 30-May 3 in the Temple of Music and Art, presenting “The American Songbook Sing-Along.” For details, aztheatreco.org.

Grade: B

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin

If you’ve ever wondered how to get a show onstage, pay attention to the way some Texas smarty got Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin to team up for a performance 25 years after they both starred in Broadway’s “Evita.”

A new arts center was opening five years ago, and they wanted LuPone and Patinkin.

“The presenter called my agent and said, “I have Mandy,’ and then called Mandy’s agent and said, ‘I have Patti.’”

Neither had actually committed at the time – but the ploy got the performers talking.

“I adore Mandy, and it’s a crime that we haven’t been onstage together since ‘Evita,’” LuPone says during a telephone interview while on vacation in South Carolina. “However, that’s show business.”

LuPone starred as Eva Peron in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Evita.” Patinkin originated the role of Che, the revolutionary who as a one-man Greek chorus comments on the power-hungry Perons. Both won Tony Awards in 1980 for their performances.

The longtime friends began talking about creating a two-person cabaret, but LuPone told Patinkin she wasn’t sure she could commit to the creative process because she was starring in the Broadway revival of “Noises Off” at the time.

Patinkin said, “I’ll take care of it.”

And he did.

Since then, they’ve done several shows together. On Wednesday, the pair will stop in Tucson as part of their five-month tour of “An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.” They have reworked a 2007 show that they performed in Philadelphia.

LuPone says it’s hard to characterize the musical revue she’s doing with her fellow Broadway star. It’s a mix of popular songs and some Broadway scenes.

The pair will be accompanied on piano by Patinkin’s longtime pianist, Paul Ford. But, basically, LuPone says, “It’s just Mandy and Patti.”

“Mandy is constantly creating and constantly changing it,” she says of the actor known for his roles in the TV series “Chicago Hope” and “Criminal Minds” and in such movies as “Yentl” and “The Princess Bride.” “It’s a different show from the show we did for the Richardson, Texas, benefit.”

She’ll wear black – because Patinkin wants her to – and they dance in two numbers, “April in Fairbanks” and “I Won’t Dance,” both choreographed by Ann Reinking.

“Neither of us are dancers,” LuPone confesses.

The show’s centerpieces are two songs from “Evita” – “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” and “Oh, What a Circus.” They also perform a scene from “Carousel.” Another show-stopper, LuPone says, is the love scene from “South Pacific.”

The ultimate theme is relationships – wanting them, finding them, struggling through them, keeping them, losing them and remembering them.

The revue is directed by Patinkin. “He’s done a great job, even though I cursed him because I had to learn new music on my vacation,” LuPone says. “Every time he comes up with an idea, it’s truly better than the last one. It’s an unbelievable joy to be onstage with Mandy – period. And to be onstage with Mandy, while Mandy is creating a piece for the two of us … it can’t be much better than that.”

LuPone, who also won a Tony in 2008 for playing Rose in “Gypsy,” says she can’t pick a favorite moment in the show.

“I don’t have a favorite number. … I don’t have a favorite play. I don’t have a favorite part. I don’t have a favorite anything. I’m lucky to be doing it at all.”

She doesn’t like to even suggest what might be high points. “I always feel as if I’m managed the audience by saying, ‘This is the emotional high point.’ “It will be different for everybody.”

LuPone and Patinkin are well-known as emotional, dramatic singers who can belt out a tune.

“But there are others who are equally as passionate in how they deliver their songs,” she says. “We are passionate and emotional performers, but I think he’s smarter than me. I’m probably more passionate, and he’s smarter, book-sensewise, intellectually. Mandy does a lot of deep thinking.”

LuPone and Patinkin’s tour will end in New Zealand. They’ll pick it up again next year.

“Hopefully,” LuPone says, “we’re going to be booked and booked and booked and booked, and I’m going to be saying, ‘Recession?’”

———

IF YOU GO

What: “An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin”

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: UA’s Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd.

Price: $42-$82

Info: 621-3341, uapresents.org

Live Theatre Workshop’s “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me”

Amanda Gremel and Christopher Johnson star in "I Wrote This Play to Make You Love Me."

They are the people we never see. The single travelers with their elaborate black leather brief cases. The people who sit by themselves on airplanes, keeping an eye on their wristwatches and always looking bored.

Or else we see them riding in buses with musical instruments tucked under their seats, munching on old food, being terminally hip.

Or maybe just schlepping from town to town with big make-up cases and a couple of changes in theater clothes. They are the actors, riding on their imagination, truly believing they are just one dramatic role away from becoming shiny celebrities.

They are the travelers, the disconnected who judge each town by the quality of its restaurant waiters and hotel staffs. They are the unencumbered souls who fill Anne Thibault’s “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me.”

That is, all the characters but one. She is the marginally successful actress Lysette, played with an incredible innocence by soft-voiced Amanda Gremel in the late night production by Etcetera at Live Theatre Workshop. Lysette can be describing the most incredibly horrific sexual misadventure while maintaining an open-minded sweetness that feels absolutely genuine. Which makes the horrible parts even more so.

She not only depends on the kindness of strangers, she depends on the kindness of sick perverts with voracious appetites. Sharks of immorality who must keep committing more immoral acts just to stay alive.

In the course of this 90-minute one-act Lysette meets them all. She doesn’t want to meet them. She doesn’t seek them out. She would prefer to stay in her hotel room, learning her lines to be in Ibsen’s equally bleak “A Doll’s House.” But she meets them anyway.

The construction of Thibault’s play doesn’t invite the audience in, however. This is basically Gremel providing a recitation of Lysette’s unfortunate social life as she keeps traveling in pursuit of work, hanging out with equally transient punk rockers along the way and hating those sandal-wearing hippie vegetarians in Vermont who keep protesting the construction of more cell phone microwave towers.

Which is why she can never get a decent cell phone connection.

There is a stream of consciousness feeling to this dutiful remembrance of her lost loves, disgusting loves and the numbing sorrow of always having to settle, not for Mr. Right, but for Mr. Right Now.

Occasionally her resigned ruminations are augmented by off-stage comments from Christopher Johnson. His disembodied voice floats unseen, sort of like the voice of conscience that couldn’t care less about anyone’s true feelings.

Occasionally, Johnson jumps onstage to play a variety of unsavory characters who pop in and out of Lysette’s directionless life. There is never any arc to her journey, no moment when she must risk everything to save her own soul from this limbo of pop culture vultures feeding on the spiritually dead.

Johnson is also the director, carefully guiding Gremel’s revelations of personality. Without calling on any vein-bulging theatrics, eschewing the usual mannerisms of damsels in mental distress, Gremel does create a convincing portrait of a young person who wants to believe wearing the right clothes and loving the right music will make her more valuable in the eyes of others.

Such poignancy is irresistible. While the structure of the play keeps Gremel from any blossoming insight, anyone who has traveled these same midnight roads through such tortured landscapes will love her stories.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Etcetera presents “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me” by Anne Thibault

When: 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through April 18

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $10

Info: 481-1449, www.livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: B+