BlueForms Theatre Group from Columbus combines music, dance, theater and movement to explore contemporary themes in The Pursuit of Happiness, a show selected for presentation during May's Cincinnati Fringe Festival.

There's so much theater in town right now that my weekly Curtain Call column, usually found elsewhere, this week has been elevated to the esteemed lead-off position in CityBeat's arts section. The big news is the announcement of the lineup for May's CINCINNATI FRINGE FESTIVAL. A fringe festival, according to organizer JASON BRUFFY, "is a showcase of cutting-edge and contemporary work that can't be seen anywhere else. Our artists and their work range from political to social to bawdy and perhaps even grotesque." (See The Show Inside, Issue of Nov. 11, 2003)

The granddaddy of all Fringe Festivals happens in Edinburgh, Scotland. For more than 50 years Edinburgh's Fringe has been a mecca for innovative work. It now encompasses more than 20,000 performances of nearly 1,500 shows using 176 venues over more than two weeks, with nearly over a quarter-million attendees.

Edinburgh has inspired similar festivals in dozens of cities around the world. In Minneapolis, a July festival involves more than 100 performing groups. In New York City, where 2003 marked the seventh annual Fringe Festival, more than 200 shows were presented at 20 theaters in lower Manhattan in late August. (The big success from New York is Urinetown, which evolved from a funky fringe show to a Broadway blockbuster.)

Here in Cincinnati, Bruffy has screened more than 70 entries for the city's inaugural venture into fringedom. The selected performances, down to 30, will be presented May 12-23 mostly in two venues -- the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and the new Contemporary Arts Center's downstairs black box theater; they'll also be using some space at Sycamore Place at St. Xavier Park on Sycamore St. Most of the artists are from Cincinnati, but 20 percent of Bruffy's selections are from other cities -- New York, Minneapolis, Colum-bus and Los Angeles. The Cincinnati Fringe will offer four full-length plays, five short plays, three one-man shows and two spoken-word presentations (featuring popular local artists Embrya deShango and Abiyah). Other productions include dance and performance art, several musical acts and two visual art installations.

Works are too numerous to mention, but the festival will feature a return to Cincinnati by Columbus-based BlueForms Theatre Group, seen in mid-November in a piece called A Lonely Crowd at the Performance Gallery in the East End. This time, they'll stage THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, using a combination of live Rock & Roll, dancing, acting and expressionistic movement, to explore a theory about changing the world through entertainment and how people have become too dependent on corporations and government. Other full-length pieces will be a musical version of Roger Corman's "B" movie, EATING RAOUL, presented by Kim Crabtree from Los Angeles, and Mark Ravenhill's piercing, dark British comedy, SHOPPING AND FUCKING, staged by Hand-Dog Theatre Company from Columbus. Familiar local names include Michael Shooner of New Edgecliff Theatre who will present BETWEEN THE LINES, a series of random phrases assembled by four different directors, and two short gay-themed productions presented by the Know Theatre Tribe, I WILL LOVE YOU AT 8 P.M. NEXT WEDNESDAY by Cincinnati playwright Kevin Barry and A POSTER OF THE COSMOS by renowned writer Lanford Wilson.

Fringe passes will go on sale on March 19; single tickets will be available on April 21. Info: 513-381-2273.

For an early taste of the kind of work you'll find at the Fringe Festival, head to the CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK on Monday for the first evening of the performance series, ALTERACTIVE. This week it's WINK, a play with film and live sound that tells two intriguingly linked urban stories. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the performance is at 7 p.m. Happy hour drink prices, plus dinner and des-serts available for purchase. (Buy your tickets at the door: $12 general admission; $8 for students.) The series continues on Mondays through March 29 (no performance on March 15).

The Playhouse presents more mainstream fare with Michael Healey's THE DRAWER BOY, the most-produced show at American theaters this season. Telling the story of two longtime friends whose lives on a Canadian farm are disrupted by an urban actor, The Drawer Boy demonstrates the power of art to help us remember what's important. It's already in previews; the official opening is Thursday (through March 7). This production, directed by Michael Evan Haney, Playhouse associate artistic director, has already been presented at Actors Theatre of Louisville, so the cast should be ready for prime time. (Tickets: 513-421-3888.)

Perhaps you have a thing for nuns onstage: If so, you have several choices, believe it or not: COVEDALE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS opens on Friday its production of NUNSENSE (through Feb. 29), the story of five star-struck members of the Little Sisters of Hoboken, who stage a talent show after the rest of their convent is bumped off by botulism. (Tickets: 513-241-6550.) If you can't get enough of funny sisters, BROADWAY IN CINCINNATI is presenting a one-week run of LATE NITE CATECHISM at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater, starting on Tuesday (through Feb. 22). This one is as wicked as Nunsense is good natured -- with the benevolent nun evolving into an authoritative drill sergeant. (Tickets: 513-241-7469). This show is an experiment in bringing smaller touring productions to town for one-week runs in the 440-seat theater.

Photo By Geoff Raker

Jason Bruffy has pared 70 entries down to 30 shows to be presented during the Cincinnati Fringe Festival.

The KNOW THEATRE TRIBE concludes My Children! My Africa! on Saturday evening. Earlier in the day (4 p.m.), CEA nominee BURGESS BYRD kicks off her one-woman show, of Charlayne Woodard's touching comedy, NEAT, with a pay-what-you-can performance. (It continues through Feb. 28.) Byrd earned her nomination for Pretty Fire, another solo piece by Woodard, presented by Know in January 2003. (Tickets: 513-300-5669.)

Coming full circle, let me suggest a show that was probably seen as a fringe work when it was first presented in 1975: Ntozake Shange's now classic choreopoem (which eventually had a run on Broadway), FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, is in the middle of its run at the Arts Consortium, presented by the CINCINNATI BLACK THEATRE COMPANY. This powerful piece celebrates the bonds of sisterhood across a wide range of emotions, from fear to joy, from hatred to love, from confusion to understanding. The work still has much to say to contemporary audiences. (Tickets: 513-421-1100.)