Photo By Playhouse In The PArk

Stephen Sondheim's work is again on stage in Cincinnati.

If you're a fan of Stephen Sondheim, this is a week to celebrate. The great composer-lyricist was recognized last spring by our Fine Arts Fund for his many contributions to Cincinnati's local theater scene (exemplified by the Cincinnati Playhouse's revival of his 1970 show Company, which moved to Broadway and won a 2007 Tony Award), and it's a rare season that doesn't see several of his shows on local stages. Already this fall UC's College-Conservatory of Music has presented Assassins. This weekend you can choose between the legendary FOLLIES, onstage at the Aronoff's Jarson-Kaplan Theater (through Nov. 10; box office: 513-621-2787), and INTO THE WOODS at Xavier University's Gallagher Student Center Theatre (performances are Thursday-Sunday; box office: 513-745-3801). Follies, the story of aging singers and dancers at a reunion where they recall their younger days, is directed by JOE STOLLENWERK and features CEA winners LAURIE BRINKMAN and RICK KRAMER. Into the Woods, Sondheim's dark take on fairy-tales, is being staged by XU alum and theater professional GARY MCGURK, a veteran professional actor. ... Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT is my favorite classic play. With all the elements of mistaken identities and unrequited love, hapless villains and high-minded suitors, its combination of whimsy, romance and flat-out comedy always entertains me. I'm particularly looking forward to this weekend's production at UC's College-Conservatory of Music because it's in the Cohen Family Studio Theater, where you're close to the performers. Local director Brian Robertson, who often works with Performance Gallery, is staging this one. Tickets are free, but you need to call in advance for a reservation: 513-556-4183.

MINIREVIEWS

ALTAR BOYZ, at the Cincinnati Playhouse, shows how to elevate a cliché to entertainment. It's directed by Stafford Arima who put the original version on Broadway. Altar Boyz pokes gentle, good-natured fun at conservative Christianity -- with special attention to Catholicism. The "boy band" features Matthew, Mark, Luke and Juan, plus "the Jewish one," Abraham. They're great individually, but it's as a tightly-knit ensemble that they truly shine. The show parodies the environment familiar to anyone who's taken attended an arena show with squealing preteens -- stage smoke, dramatic lighting, a metal grid floor and an announcer who sounds like a very hip Voice of God. Souls are saved (with tongue-in-cheek measurement by the "DX-12 Soul Sensor"). Altar Boyz is designed to entertain and on its way to being a local hit. Grade: B+ (Rick Pender)

You might love Martin McDonagh's virulent and violent THE PILLOWMAN at Know Theater of Cincinnati or you might hate it. An author has written stories about murdered children. Mysteriously, some of his fictional crimes closely resemble actual murders. Two detectives investigate. Did the writer merely imagine them or were they crimes perpetrated by his mentally challenged brother? Are the tales mad fictions or before-the-fact reports? The game of cat-and-mouse inquisition is staged by Jason Bruffy at breakneck speed with train-wreck intensity and, unfortunately, train-wreck subtlety. Questions are asked. Too few are answered. Grade: B (Tom McElfresh)

In Steven Dietz's MORE FUN THAN BOWLING at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Josh Aaron McCabe brings an appealing energy to Jake, who has managed to lose three wives while gaining a daughter and a bowling alley. He recalls all of them, and we get to meet two -- Loretta (Morgan Grahame), the most recent, and Lois (k. j. Jones), Jake's second wife, who demonstrates why strong women sometimes marry a little beneath them. Michael Bath, who could make an audience laugh by merely eating a sandwich, does so at intermission. Unfortunately Dietz's script struggles to make its metaphors and laugh lines seem less labored than they are. Grade: B (Nicholas Korn)