Stage

It has been two decades since the Merchant-Ivory film "A Room with a View" reconfirmed the belief held by all true romantics (particularly the female of the species) that a trip to Italy -- with its gorgeous light, its layers of architectural history and its overwhelming treasury of artistic masterpieces -- has a unique power to stir the heart and tripwire the senses. There were at least two distinct choreographic masters dancing around inside George Balanchine. And while both of them live on in the vast repertoire of his New York City Ballet (NYCB), it is the raging modernist who most clearly retains the power to dazzle and amaze.

Fans of playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa are used to art imitating life. Yes, there is yet another entry into this season's unusually large and varied Shakespeare sweepstakes. This one is an import from Poland -- a highly unusual (and visually thrilling) production of Othello, created by the controversial, often rebellious Modjeska Theatre and its flamboyant director, Jacek Glomb.

Robert Sherwood's play, "The Petrified Forest" -- now in one of those gloriously quirky, revelatory, sometimes just flat-out hilarious revivals -- is many things. "Super Vision," the ingenious, bitingly funny, richly provocative multimedia piece you shouldn't have missed this weekend during its stop at the Museum of Contemporary Art Theater, draws in its audience from the word go. In her post-performance champagne toast Saturday night -- a celebration of the opening of the Biograph as Victory Gardens Theater's new home and the world premiere of Charles Smith's play, "Denmark" -- a beaming Marcelle McVay, longtime managing director of the company, noted that she admired playwrights who dealt with complex ideas.

"The place to explore those ideas is here," she added, "in the theater." A swirl of water, a sweep of black ink, the sudden burst of a punctuation mark. The clap of a wood block, the clang of a gong, the hard breath of sheer physical exertion.

It all began with a letter addressed to Alain Boublil, the lyricist who collaborated with composer Claude-Michel Schonberg on such gargantuan musicals as "Les Miserables" and "Miss Saigon." The letter came from Moya Doherty and John McColgan, the Irish team responsible for "Riverdance," an epic stage spectacle of a different sort that also easily merits the description of "megahit." Now playing at Theater Building Chicago is a little world premiere musical called "Kama Sutra: The Musical.

" And while two other stages in this complex house fine productions -- Vitalist Theatre's "Mother Courage" and Griffin Theatre's "Dead End" -- I'll give you one guess which of the three shows is selling the most tickets. Frank Galati, director of "The Pirate Queen," has shepherded scores of plays and operas to their openings over the years, but there is something particularly unnerving about overseeing a Broadway musical. In fact, when he discusses the process, he speaks in terms of "storms.

" Eat your heart out, Walt Disney. If you want to see how the real artists spin fairy tales -- with flesh-and-blood humans rather than animated cartoon figures -- just take a cue from the Joffrey Ballet, which Wednesday night opened its splendiferous, full-length production of Frederick Ashton's "Cinderella" at the Auditorium Theatre. As the final play in the Shakespearean canon, "The Two Noble Kinsmen" is somewhat of an oddity.

Penned at the end of the great playwright's illustrious career, it was written with a partner, John Fletcher, another prominent writer of the period. Stage director Jessica Thebus remembers two plays that made an impression on her when she was young. One was Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and the other was "Inherit the Wind," Jerome Lawrence and Robert E.

Lee's courtroom drama. Leapin' lizards! "Annie" is 30 years old.

Gore Vidal may have lost his bids for the U.S. House of Representatives (New York in the '60s) and the U.

S. Senate (California in the '80s), but as a politically and socially observant writer, he made his mark with words. For evidence, one need only look to his 1960 drama, "The Best Man," a trenchant commentary on the fine line between the personal and the public in politics.

Change, change, change. That has been the name of the game in recent weeks as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago prepares for its fall season program, "Global Tapestry," to be performed Wednesday through Oct. 1 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 251 E.

Randolph. If asked to pinpoint the origins of a black theater movement in this country, some might say it all began during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s, while others would assert it was rooted in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement reached its zenith. It is 1933.

The Great Depression is in high gear. And the poor and desperate have gathered for a chance to earn a cash prize and some crummy free food just by staying on their feet for days on end. Ten nominees will be selected for awards and honored on Oct.

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