the only Neil Simon set that calls for six doors, all slamming. In 1988 the gagmeister had been America’s favorite comic playwright for nearly three decades and was coming off the late-in-life success of the three heartfelt, more ambitious “BB” autobiographical dramas, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues.

World War I alters a couple’s romantic plans in Kitchen Theatre’s area premiere of Mary’s Wedding.

Any revival, however, has to find a new angle to keep the thing fresh. Over at Auburn’s Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, director Ed Sayles, always a careful man in casting, makes all the difference with three casting choices, two proven favorites from recent summers and the return of a local boy made good.

First came Theater of the Absurd. Then came Ridiculous Theater. The second one is American and often mistaken for farce, but don’t let that fool you. Both traditions present ordinary bourgeois life as crass nonsense.

Moe Harrington plays a memorable seductress in Covey Theatre’s take on The Graduate

First is the high-powered, hard-working Doctor Lane (Carol Halstead), who utters the aforementioned “I didn’t go to medical school” line and finds herself in conflict with her more domestic sister Virginia (Linda Marie Larson).

The action begins when the Finn character, Gordon Schwinn (Marcelo Pereira), a talented but sarcastic composer, is facing the usual kind of writer’s block. He’s stuck meeting a deadline writing what he feels is inferior material for a tyrannical, exasperating children’s entertainer, Mr.

Buoyed by continuing successes, he started his own outfit, Not Another Theater Company, 18 months ago, doing smaller-scale works as dinner theater items at the Locker Room’s Fire and Ice Banquet Hall, 528 Hiawatha Blvd. Taking on a co-producer, Bill Brod, publisher of The New Times.

First is the high-powered, hard-working Doctor Lane (Carol Halstead), who utters the aforementioned “I didn’t go to medical school” line and finds herself in conflict with her more domestic sister Virginia (Linda Marie Larson).

The action begins when the Finn character, Gordon Schwinn (Marcelo Pereira), a talented but sarcastic composer, is facing the usual kind of writer’s block. He’s stuck meeting a deadline writing what he feels is inferior material for a tyrannical, exasperating children’s entertainer, Mr.