Photo By Tony Arrasmith

After eight years as Bob Cratchit at the Cincinnati Playhouse, actor Bruce Cromer will step into the role of Scrooge in December.

I really expect you to be at UC's Corbett Auditorium Friday evening when the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for the 2004-05 theater season will be handed out (see story page 28). So that means you'll have to miss another great theater opportunity when NEW STAGE COLLECTIVE (NSC) presents its New Directors Workshop Series at the Contemporary Arts Center (44 E. Sixth St., Downtown). The good news is they're also presenting the program on Saturday (2 and 8 p.m.), so you'll still be able to catch five pieces from the Backstage Book of New American Short Plays, works chosen by award-winning playwright Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss, Light in the Piazza). Among the pieces is one by Cincinnati native and Miami University grad ANDREW DAINOFF, All We Can Handle, a story about a musician's reaction to 9/11. Other works on the bill are Joan Ackermann's The Second Beam, Jason Grote's Kawaisoo (The Pity of Things), Dan LeFranc's Hippie Van Gumdrop and Anna Ziegler's Sad Song. Andrew Lazarow, a Wyoming High classmate of Dainoff, will direct All We Can Handle and Ziegler's play; other directors include Allison Collins-Elfline, Joshua Steele and Zach Stewart. NSC provides aspiring theater professionals with opportunities to develop their skills in productions of works not frequently performed. Earlier this summer they staged David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo and Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George. Tickets: 513-345-8405. ...

If you work for a nasty boss, you might aspire to someday replace him. That's exactly what actor BRUCE CROMER has done: After playing the kindly but nervous Bob Cratchit to Joneal Joplin's tyrannical Ebenezer Scrooge for eight years at the Cincinnati Playhouse (coinciding with Joplin's run in the central role), Cromer has moved up to the big accounting chair. Come December, he'll preside over the Cincinnati Playhouse's beloved holiday production of A Christmas Carol. (If you were paying close attention, you read about this in Curtain Call back on Feb. 2, but now it's official.) Director Michael Haney says, "I'm really looking forward to working with Bruce on the role of Scrooge. He is one of the most exciting and inventive actors that I know. His eight years of experience with this production will make the transition from Joneal Joplin seamless." Cromer teaches theater at Wright State University and works regularly at Dayton's Human Race Theatre Company. In Cincinnati he's also performed at Ensemble Theatre (where he won a CEA for 2003's Blue/Orange and was nominated for 2002's Underneath the Lintel) and at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival in 2005, where he played a character even meaner than Scrooge -- the argumentative history professor George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a role that earned him another CEA nomination. Tickets are on sale for A Christmas Carol: Purchase them for the Dec. 1-8 performances by Friday, and you'll receive a $5 discount. Box office: 513-421-3888. ...

Speaking of CEA nominations (have I mentioned that this year's awards are on Friday?), SHERMAN FRACHER, cited for her performance as the mother of a dysfunctional family obsessed with bowling in While We Were Bowling at ETC, won't be around on Friday night. That's because she's in Atlanta rehearsing the role of a drug-weary waitress holed up in a seedy Oklahoma City motel in Tracy Letts' award-winning Bug, getting its regional premiere at Actor's Express. She's being directed by JASSON MINADAKIS, former artistic director of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. Bug runs Sept. 15-Oct. 29. Tickets: 404-607-7469. ...

If you're thinking ahead to Halloween (or to a theater production you'll be involved in this season), you might want to keep in mind that the CINCINNATI COSTUME COMPANY (2724 W. McMicken, University Heights) is holding its annual Labor Day Garage Sale of costumes, vintage clothing, accessories and other household items. You can preview the sale on Friday (10 a.m.-5 p.m.) or Saturday (10 a.m.-3 p.m.); the official sale is Sept. 2 (10 a.m.-5 p.m.) and Sept. 3 (10 a.m.-3 p.m.). Info: 513-541-6803.