Curtain Is Up on the New Theater Season

The familiar story, set to music, is a long evening for the kids, but most enjoy the gentle Beast. The show runs to Oct. 9, although it could be extended, theater officials said. After that it's back to standard fare, with Arthur Miller's classic (and much produced) "The Crucible" in January and English writer Ray Cooney's insipid (and much produced) comedy "Run for Your Wife" in May. A bright spot on the Reston calendar is in March, when they will present "Gershwin, by George!" This fantasy radio program, circa 1936, features the era's big stars and of course Gershwin's marvelous songs.

American Music Stage

The peripatetic American Music Stage ( http://www.americanmusicstage.com ), having abandoned the terrible acoustics of the Ernst Theater at Northern Virginia Community College for the vastly superior Heet Auditorium at Paul VI High School in Fairfax this last season, is back at the ear-challenging theater in Annandale. And it's taking on a mighty musical challenge: "Aida," Elton John and Tim Rice's sprawling extravaganza. They're already selling tickets for the May performances of this recent Broadway blockbuster about the love between an enslaved African princess and her captor, an Egyptian army captain.

Providence Players

The relatively new Providence Players ( http://www.providenceplayers.org ) seem to be settling into a niche: presenting a comfortable combination of standards along with not-so-familiar fare on their Falls Church area stage. They begin Oct. 14 with the frequently produced farce "The Women," but in February will move on to Robert Anderson's rarely staged, probing drama "I Never Sang for My Father," which studies the chasm between a father and a son. That will be followed in May by Stephen Sondheim's demanding musical "Company," a show firmly ensconced in 1970s-era sensibilities about love and commitment.

McLean Theatre Alliance

The McLean Theatre Alliance ( http://www.mcleantheatrealliance.org ) has only one announced show so far for this season and it opens Oct. 7. Under edict from the Alden Theatre to fill more seats, the Alliance has chosen A.R. Gurney's bare-bones but absorbing "Love Letters," a poignant, two-character drama about a bittersweet love relationship presented via letters the couple have written through the years. (A review is scheduled for Oct. 13 in Fairfax Extra.)

Great Falls Players

The Great Falls Players ( http://gfonline.org ), who also perform at the Alden Theatre and have also been told to sell more tickets or face difficulty getting stage time, apparently believe that what has worked well in the past for everyone else will work well for them. Their season opener in January is one of the most frequently performed comedies locally the past few seasons, the 1930s chestnut "You Can't Take It With You." It's been staged about a dozen times in the area recently. They'll follow that in May with the 1960s Broadway hit, "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off."

Vienna Theatre Company

The Vienna Theatre Company ( http://www.potomacstages.com/Vienna.htm ) also loves oldies-but-goodies, but it likes lesser-known shows, too. The company opens its season Oct. 14 with an often-staged suspense thriller, "Deathtrap" (which will be reviewed Oct. 20 in Fairfax Extra), followed in January by "Enchanted April," based on Elizabeth Von Arnim's novel about four English women on a holiday in romantic Italy. Then it's back to familiar fare in April for the umpteenth local production of the musical "1776," which, luckily for Vienna Theatre, can still stir one's patriotic emotions.

Springfield Community Theatre

The Springfield Community Theatre ( http://www.sctonline.org ) has not been heard from for some time, but it's back and performing at one of its former homes, Immanuel United Methodist Church in Annandale. It is starting slowly Oct. 14 with the oft-seen "The Lion in Winter" and then warming up in March with the comedy "Luv," in which a hapless husband tries to get his wife interested in another man so he can marry his mistress. The troupe will also stage a reading of A.R. Gurney's "Ancestral Voices," about a family's history, over several nights in April.

GMU Players

The GMU Players ( http://www.gmu.edu/org/gmuplayers ) are a unique theatrical hybrid, a company combining GMU students with professional directors and designers and often presenting demanding works. But you have to move quickly or you'll miss some of their shows. The Players have a number of productions limited to just a few performances this season but will also present "Uncle Vanya," perhaps the play most familiar to Americans from Anton Chekhov, the great genius of the Russian theater, beginning Oct. 20 and running for two weeks. In February, they have scheduled James Joyce's "The Dead , " to be followed in April by "The Trojan Women," both of which will run for 10 days.

Aldersgate Church Community Theatre

That leaves Aldersgate Church Community Theatre ( http://www.potomacstages.com/Aldersgate.htm ) in the Alexandria section of Fairfax, a troupe that specializes in comfortable, familiar plays and musicals, especially those that have been produced by other local groups in the recent past. Their season features two classic plays and a classic musical, all of which have been before local audiences the previous season. Aldersgate opens with the weak stage adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes thriller, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" Oct. 14, followed by "The Man Who Came to Dinner" in March and "Oklahoma!" in June.

The C.A.S.T in McLean theater company ( http://www.castinmclean.org ), which produces a summer musical at the Alden Theatre, has not announced its pick for 2006.

For more information about community theaters in Fairfax, go tohttp://www.washingtonpost.comand click on "Entertainment Guide," then on "Theater," and choose Fairfax County under "Neighborhood."