If this week’s theater offerings sound familiar, it’s because we’ve seen some of these shows (or their inspirations).

The best choice, for my money, is Keith Glover’s Thunder Knocking on the Door at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, a revival of sorts from 1999 — but thoroughly and creatively reimagined for the final mainstage production of Ed Stern’s final season leading the Tony Award-winning theater. It’s a musical about the Blues and it features an emotional Blues score, mostly by Keb’ Mo’, to tell the story of the power of love and music — and blues guitar players. It’s presented with panache, including technology and design that are all about 2012. Through May 20. Box office: 513-421-3888.

If you loved the Doo-Wop silliness of The Marvelous Wonderettes, a hit from 2010 at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, then you’re likely to have a good time at Life Could Be A Dream, Roger Bean’s sequel to the story of some bubbly girls who bond around teen hits from the ’50s and ’60s. This time is boys, and that’s most of the difference. As in the two Wonderette shows, Dream is shot through with adolescent angst, in this case around a local radio station contest that could “make them famous.” It’s an excuse for more than two dozen tunes from the same era that are shaped to the story. So it’s a familiar formula, but ETC has a talented cast who make it a lot of fun. (Through May 20.) Box office: 513-421-3555.

Another show that totally mastered the art of wedging familiar tunes into an implausible story is Mamma Mia, and you can catch a touring production of that one at the Aronoff Center through Sunday. The cast of this tour has a lot of youthful energy and several mature characters who have fun reminiscing about their disco days. Box office: 800-982-2787.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson will have its final performance on May 12. If you haven’t yet seen this youthful mix of political commentary, driving Rock, history, humor and sober observations about the will of the people, you’d better go this weekend. (The longer you wait the less likely you are to get a ticket — the final weekend is selling fast.) Not many musicals begin with the cast flipping the bird at the audience, but then not many musicals are like this one, spinning a tale of America’s seventh president to in-your-face Indie Rock tunes. This is Bloody Bloody’s first professional regional production. I gave it a Critic’s Pick. Box office: 513-300-5669.

You have plenty of time to see The Second City 2: Less Pride – More Pork, since the Cincinnati Playhouse plans to keep it on the Shelterhouse Stage until July 1 (at least), but I predict you’ll enjoy it whenever you go. It’s a notch up from the first iteration of the show that set box-office records for the Mount Adams theater a year-and-a-half ago. Lots of hilarious fun-poking at … us. And the clever cast uniquely tailors every performance to the audience that shows up. Box office: 513-421-3888.

Know Theatre’s production of the recent off-Broadway and Broadway Rock musical hit, I was thoroughly entertained by Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last week at the Covedale. It has a cast of strong singers who do a fine job with the amusing score, stuffed with musical parodies — Calypso, Blues, County, Bubblegum Pop and more — and they’re having an infectious good time. Keep an eye out for the Pharaoh; he’s really the King! Through May 13. Box office: 513-241-6550.

Each week in Stage Door, Rick Pender offers theater tips for the weekend, often with a few pieces of theater news.

OK, so it's Memorial Day weekend, and theater-going might not be what you have in mind. How about this? If you're heading downtown for the feeding frenzy at Taste of Cincinnati (and what true Cincinnatian isn't?), you can take a quick side trip to Jackson Street in Over-the-Rhine to pick up some tickets or a pass for the eighth annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival. It's the perfect time to find your way to Know Theatre (1120 Jackson, right next to the Gateway Garage), which is Fringe headquarters.

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Cincinnati Art Museum’s China Design Now and Contemporary Arts Center’s Maria Lassnig and Carlos Amorales shows have been at the top of the list for contemporary art followers for quite some time. But now that they're both open and (hopefully) seen, it's a good chance to turn to some smaller but interesting gallery shows around town.

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ArtsWave has put out a very positive press release about the attendance for its first three Sampler Weekends, as well as information for the next three — including one this Saturday.

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Tracy Letts' plays haven't quite caught on in Cincinnati. We're yet to see a production locally of August: Osage County, his 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner. Neither the Cincinnati Playhouse nor Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati� have picked up Superior Donuts, his 2011 Tony-nominated script that will be staged by at least eight major regional theaters across the United States during the coming season. However, a local pick-up company will present Letts' latest script at the Clifton Performance Theatre (404 Ludlow Ave.) in a brief run (Sept. 9-18).

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This is a weekend to catch up on local theater — or perhaps to be reminded of the many riches we have available to us.

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As the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) prepares for next Tuesday's announcement of its 2009-10 season, there is indication it will be bringing the big, nationally reviewed Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand show here from Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). The first museum retrospective for the popular and controversial street artist, Supply and Demand looks at his career up to his creation of the iconic Obama silk-screen posters, depicting the then-presidential candidate, head slightly and nobly uplifted, above the words "Progress" and "Hope."

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In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Carnegie Center in Covington has been producing some ambitious theater and following a course that others haven’t tried: It’s called collaboration. Joshua Steele, the managing director of theater for the arts center in a one-time Carnegie Library, has amplified his results by working with other arts institutions in the region — especially, but not limited to, the fine theater programs at area universities. Steele will announce his 2012-2013 this week, and it’s evident that he’s continuing this commendable course working with Dayton’s Human Race Theatre Company for the first time and building on a productive relationship with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He’s also engaged some top-notch freelance talent to ensure that productions will be memorable.

Steele, who previously co-founded the meteoric New Stage Collective with his friend Alan Patrick Kenny, is bringing the remarkable director back to town for his first return since NSC closed in April 2010. Kenny, who has been earning an M.F.A. in California and staging theater on the West Coast, will direct the regional premiere of the musical Xanadu (Aug. 11-26, 2012). This campy, tongue-in-cheek show, based on the 1980 move that featured Olivia Newton-John, is right up Kenny’s inventive alley, and should be a refreshing dash of onstage energy at summer’s end. (Auditions for this show will take place on May 22, 7-10 p.m. at the Carnegie. Actors interested in auditioning should contact Adrianne Eby, aeby@thecarnegie.com)

The Human Race collaboration will be next. The Dayton company, which performs regularly at the Loft Theater in that city’s downtown, is premiering a new play by Michael Slade, Under a Red Moon, in late October. The production will then move to the Carnegie for a three-weekend run (Nov. 2-18, 2012). Set in 1949, it’s a taut psychological thriller telling the story of John George Haigh, Britain’s infamous “Acid Bath Killer.”

For the third consecutive year, Steele has lined up a joint, in-concert presentation of a well known musical with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. After successful outings with the CCO for Carousel and The King and I, the late January 2013 production will be Camelot, the story of chivalry and the love triangle of King Arthur, Queen Guenevere and the knight Sir Lancelot. The lush Lerner and Loewe score will be conducted by the CCO’s music director Mischa Santora onstage with musicians from the orchestra.

Steele wraps up his four-production season with Jason Robert Brown’s powerful musical Parade (April 5-21, 2013), staged by local director-choreographer team Ed Cohen and Dee Anne Bryll, who will be joined by music director Steve Goers (currently appearing in the Carnegie’s production of Pump Boys & Dinettes). Set in Atlanta in 1913, it’s about the intolerance and misunderstanding swirling around the trial of a Jewish factory manager accused of murdering a young girl in his employ. Cohen and Bryll staged an excellent community theater production of the show with Footlighters Inc. in 2007, winning that season’s outstanding community theater award. They also staged the Huck Finn musical Big River for the Carnegie with great results in 2010.

It’s a great line-up, and I suspect audiences will be lining up in Covington for these productions.

The Manhattan Dolls will make a one-night tour stop at Know Theatre on Sunday evening at 7:30, performing their Swing-style revue of tunes from the 1930s and 1940s, "Sentimental Journey," in the Over-the-Rhine theatre’s Underground cabaret space. The trio of singers from New York City travel the world performing for military events, air shows, award ceremonies, parades, Jazz clubs and concert series.

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The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, model trains, zoo  lights, skating on Fountain Square - do you ever wonder if Cincinnati is capable of creativity around the holidays? Beyond the Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati - an institution that actually takes some risks - the others stick with the same old script with the only news being who will play Scrooge for the next 25 years.. 

 If you could pick  the Holiday line up for 2009, what would it look like?