All Minnesota basketball referees Art and Arthur want to do is to call the final game of the season. Thing is, they have to compete with the flashy antics of two rival referees — not to mention their own diminished confidence, Art's wife's oral surgery and a lost car. Man or McEnroe? was one of the funniest shows at last year's Fringe, and Christopher Kaminstein and Michael Bodel are back with the second in a planned trilogy about sports. "We started this trilogy partly as a way to explore and exploit the confusion of the fact that Michael and I look very similar," says Kaminstein. "We thought it would be interesting to base a show around that confusion, and the confusion of celebrity — a celebrity like McEnroe losing track of what is acceptable and what is not." This time around, the characters — again played by Kaminstein and Bodel — lose track of whose wife is whose in between periods. —Lori Hill

Over and over the teachers of capoeira dance/martial art stress that the beauty of the moves, and the physical discipline and respect necessary to participate, can heal a great many modern maladjustments. The phenomenal grace of its white-clad players under black lights hints at the integration of body and spirit possible with this Brazilian art form. Prepare to be seduced and recruited when ASCAB Capoeira invite you up to their studio. —Mary Armstrong

Jennifer Blaine contains multitudes. Specifically, it's a cast of about 30 characters, all with distinct points of view. Blaine embodies each persona — the horny old lady, the macho man, the black feminist poet — with physical tics that are both nuanced and hilarious in this one-woman show. Blaine's eccentric crew helps illuminate her real-life travails and triumphs in the acting biz. —Deni Kasrel

As if the Fabulous Theater Company's name weren't enough, When Boys Cry includes references to Woody's, Pure, Key West, the Bike Stop and Tavern on Camac ("which is like so five minutes ago"). Bradley is in a slump trying to find "the one" while his mom orders him a life coach; Fabrizio can't go anywhere without heads turning; and boys are almost always touching each other in the background. This romantic gay comedy features a variety of cheesy pickup lines, iconic '80s music and wildly phallic innuendo. Insider's tip for gals and gay guys: There may or may not be hot male nudity. See you there. —Gwen Tuxbury

Take five dancers, five pairs of shoes, four halogen lamps, a broken flower and three miniature chairs and put them inside a parked U-Haul truck. Park the truck at 205 Race St. Invite 25 audience members in, shut the door behind them, and what do you have? Either claustrophobia or one of the most intriguing site-specific events at Live Arts this year.

The Uhaul Trilogy is arranged thusly: First, "People Burning Inside Hotels;" second, "The Ritual of the Eye;" and third, "Ctrl+Alt+Del." To get the full effect of this work, you must get shut into that U-Haul three separate times. "In terms of involvement, the performers and the people will be very close," says Venezuelan experimenter Juan Souki, Trilogy's creator. "Part of the idea of the production has to do with the notion of sharing a confined space with someone. So the audience is involved in this way. It makes them work together with the actors and dancers to find comfort."

Souki's goal was to explore dysfunctional relationships, and he found the U-Haul truck an apt vehicle. "There's an immediate and maybe naive connection with the idea of leaving places and people behind, but if you look at it close enough there's also some feeling of extreme containment, of being locked up in a memory house surrounded by microstories."

Collaborating with director Sylvia Bofill at Columbia University, Souki found his inspiration in nomadic performance, nonlinear movement and minimal technology. The dancers are trained in modern dance, ballet and martial arts. "Working inside a U-Haul definitely limits your technical possibilities in so many ways," says Souki. "But it's always interesting to see how those limitations make your brain work harder to solve problems." —Janet Anderson

Literary feuds were much classier in 18th-century Venice. Forget today's authors, dart-slinging from within the safe confines of literary journals: In 1757, when Carlo Gozzi, an upstart agitator, bumped into renown playwright Carlo Goldoni in a Venetian bookshop, Gozzi laid down a challenge in person: to outshine Goldoni's theatrical reputation, and thereby to destroy him.

Late one night last year, while reading in bed, Aaron Cromie, local actor and commedia dell'arte devotee, discovered the feud footnoted in a book of Gozzi's translated works. It was a confrontation that embodied a split in Italian theater, as Gozzi challenged Goldoni's modernizing urge to reject dell'arte, a style based on improvisational street performance. Goldoni, by Cromie's assessment, succeeded: "He took the mask out of Italian theater, and started writing out every part, every line." But Gozzi's plays, written in response, brought back those stylized and playful elements. The publication of his first play, Love for Three Oranges, which was later used as a basis for Prokofiev's opera, garnered serious acclaim — made greater by the hiring of the talented Sacchi troupe of dell'arte actors, who had been made jobless by the change in theatrical vogue. Every Gozzi success was spun as Goldoni's loss, and later that year, Goldoni skipped town and moved to France in the hope of getting some peace.

To dramatize such a showdown between playwrights, Cromie has turned where else but to their works. The result is his work-in-progress, Carlo vs. Carlo, a literary cage-match where Cromie showcases their styles. Scenes from each contender's masterpieces will be read by Fabrizio Paladin and discussed, workshop-style, by playwright Michael Hollinger. "Carlo Gozzi was a misogynist classist," says Cromie. "He was the member of the Testicular Academy, a group whose aim was to attack and belittle others." His target, Goldoni, "was basically a fun guy, practiced law a bit, philandered a bit." When Gozzi attacked him, "by all accounts you'd expect him to fail."

Yeah, but wouldn't the dell'arte-trained Cromie wish him to succeed? "Nah, it's balanced," he says. In fact, he's started to sympathize with the other side: After months of researching the Carlos, he says, "I find I have the work habits of Goldoni." —Juliet Fletcher

International juggling champion Greg Kennedy is more than a high falutin' ball-handler or fiery flame-tosser; his tricks are feats of engineering (a remnant of Kennedy's prior career) that play off of centripetal force, gravity and kinetics. Here he's aided and abetted by two aerialists who help increase the spectacle of this ballsy act. —Deni Kasrel

1968 was a tumultuous year: Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, Paris burned, Russia marched into Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, certain folks were happily ensconced in domestic bliss. Thus begins Suburban Love Songs, in which a springtime party in middle-class America slowly spirals out of control. All in good fun, director Karen Getz has assembled a delightful cast of comic actors and improvisors, including Jennifer Childs, Dawn Falato, Dave Jadico and Kelly Jennings, who play a game of Twister, go on a scavenger hunt, get high, drink too much, swing their partners and otherwise engage in shenanigans evocative of the late '60s. "It's inspired by social conventions of the era," Getz explains. "People were far more repressed and as the party progresses everyone loses their inhibitions." There's a fun-filled set and period costumes — go-go boots, macramé, plenty of polyester — and the kicker is, it's all done through dance. Considering that Getz's resume includes footwork for Dirty Dancing as well as performing with ComedySportz and Lunchlady Doris, this promises to be one kick-ass good time. —Deni Kasrel

It was listening to the Utah Phillips CD Fellow Workers that inspired Adrienne Mackey and Bradley Wrenn to want to tell the Joe Hill story once again. Hill was an Industrial Workers of the World labor union member, noted for writing satirical lyrics to popular song melodies. Without giving away the storyline, it can be said that the IWW considers Joe Hill a martyr to the cause, some 90 years after his execution. Mackey wanted to explore what it would be like to give oneself so completely to a cause as to be ready to die for it. She says that she and Wrenn also decided that while the actors should be professionals, the singing should be untutored, to re-create the sound of Hill's songs from Wobbly throats. —Mary Armstrong

Conceived, written and directed by Sebastienne Mundheim, this production presents an offbeat portrait of the noted inventor, businessman, founding father and bon vivant. After reading several books about Franklin, Mundheim grew entranced by "certain metaphors. … I'm looking at what does currency actually mean? It's money and Franklin is on the $100 bill. Water has current and Franklin experimented with water. There's electrical current. It can mean the movement of ideas. All of these things can be used to explore the story of Franklin and a way of being." While the piece "literally follows [Franklin's] life chronologically," Mundheim's rendering is hardly straightforward. She sits at a computer cuing up music and acting as storyteller. Meanwhile, dancers animate paper puppets of varying shapes and sizes, the set features huge buckle shoes and other sculptural props, there's video projected on four screens, and a soundscape by James Sugg. —Deni Kasrel

Hop on a tour bus with Kaibutsu in Old City to hear one former ride guide's tale of abuse (self and otherwise) in this work by journalist (and new playwright) Bruce Walsh. His perspective? He's the guy driving, through the unique locales of South Philly's Point Breeze Avenue. So laughs ensue. If it's anything like last year's Northern Liberty — and I hear it is — expect very nervous people talking seriously and proprietarily about the daringness of their dreams versus the doldrums of their everyday lives. And everybody's pretty lonely and drained by the end of the journey. Didn't someone make a movie of this? And wasn't the guy happy and snappy? —A.D. Amorosi

"Today, information is just everywhere. There's almost nothing you can't find out. You can always say, 'I'll Google that, I'll Google that,'" says Niki Cousineau, artistic director of Subcircle. That's what she and husband Jorge, the award-winning sound designer and director, were thinking about when they posed this question to a slew of Philly artists: "What is it that you don't know?"

Now the questioned get rooms to themselves inside the cavernous space at 1400 N. American St. to work on their answers. Included are dancers Christy Lee, Makoto Hirano, Olase Freeman, Gin MacCallum and Cousineau herself. Other rooms will feature sound and design installations by Jorge Cousineau, Matt Saunders and James Sugg.

Of course, Nicole explains, the beauty of the premise is that the answers to the question will be more questions. Though she won't give away other people's good ideas, she says, "All of them address mysteries universal and personal. They can't answer their own mysteries."

The realization of such an elaborate project, comprising so many unique performances created and staged in sequence, naturally answers one of Nicole's burning mysteries: What would it be like to see one performance space transformed and inhabited by so many varied artists? And the audience — who will split into two groups and visit each room in different orders — will be left pondering a further question: What did the other groups see? It can't be the same each time. Can it? —Juliet Fletcher

There's a heap of hot footers in Philly and you can catch a cool mix of these movers and shakers at Indigenous Pitch. Featured acts include Illadelphlave, Surge, Underground Dance Works and DaBoom! Collective Innovations adds a touch of martial arts flair to the proceedings. It's all raw, street-wise and of course, winning material. —Deni Kasrel

If poetic narrative flicks (Nighthawks) and tender performance pieces (Whispers, Songs, Ghosts of the Past) are any indication of what avant-activist Susan DiPronio can do, expect passion at a political premium with Screams. A short film and an interactive button-pushing session give audiences an opportunity to see and hear women disappear — and it's no parlor trick. —A.D. Amorosi

It has been a meeting of the dance minds between choreographer-dancers Charles O. Anderson and Vincent Mantsoe, who are working together on a piece called Tar, part of the Live Arts' "In Progress" series. The title alludes to both the substance used in sacred rituals and the racist language and symbols made infamous in Uncle Remus plantation stories.

At a rehearsal last week in a sweltering dance studio, Anderson and Mantsoe refined the movement language for Tar. "I wanted to parallel the differences of black South African and the African-American South," said Anderson. "Looking at the idea that identity is a bunch of stuff dropped in the tar.

"I was blown away by how much he and I are relating. Our histories are similar: I was raised in the South on a farm with my grandmother and worrying about hoodoo; Vincent was descended from shamans and his grandmother taught him all of these dances."

"I'm structuring it, but he's adding other layers. So I have a feeling, but he is making me focus so much on the details to understand my own choreography," continued Anderson. "I'm not operating solely on intuition. I have to articulate on a new level." —Lewis Whittington

Irish dance blended with ballet moves and a bit of Appalachian clogging? Saoirse Celtic Performance Troupe is nothing if not imaginative when they illustrate the story of the legendary Irish pirate queen Granuaile O'Malley. The show promises to be family-friendly, so let the kids enjoy an introduction to the many faces of Irish artistic expression. —Mary Armstrong

Few of us would know how to act at a truly formal dinner. Sure, you're savvy enough to tell one fork from another, but do you know exactly when you're supposed to place your napkin in your lap (and how to fold it, for that matter)? Does the host precede or follow her guests into the dining room? What is the correct way to eat an olive, and what the heck do you do with the pit? Philly favorite Lee Ann Etzold (New Paradise Laboratories) used the elaborate rules for formal dining as a launching point for P's & Q's, first presented as a hilarious short piece in the 2002 Fringe. The guests at this dinner party include many familiar faces from Philly's experimental theater and dance scene, who traveled to South Carolina's Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette to learn the "rules" for a show which will likely end up breaking them in spectacular fashion. —Debra Auspitz

What's old is new again with The Tale, a showcase for ritual dances of love and seduction as interpreted by Reggie Wilson/Fist & Hell Performance Group. Wilson, a noted New York choreographer, refers to his style as "post-African new hoodoo modern dance." He's devised an intriguing mix of cultural influences that emphasizes body rhythms, draws on spiritual traditions, and features stepping, stomping and vocal harmonies. —Deni Kasrel

If watching Matt Neenan's extraordinary talent spurt as a choreographer and if seeing another new work he's created for BalletX — the small troupe he and fellow PAB dancer Christine Cox have put together — isn't enough to make you put an X by this Live Arts event, then consider the company he's keeping. Major league experimenter Jorma Elo, a Finn who started with Netherlands Dance Theater, now resident choreographer for Boston Ballet, created something for the Xfolk as well. Neenan's fiddling around with music including Martha Wainwright and She Haw, while Elo is tackling Carmen no less. Promises to be Xceptional. —Janet Anderson

It's too easy to draw nautical analogies to composer James Sugg's new song cycle. But that shouldn't stop us. In late 2003, he set sail, figuratively, finding fellow musician Christopher Colucci, and literally, by heading down to Panama to interview sailors and deckhands for a rock-song narrative about life out on the blue.

But the pair hit choppy waters. Once they both started writing songs, it became clear the sea was sweeping them in different directions. So they took the sail down. And then, after two years of dead calm, they found a second wind. Sugg refocused his efforts on the fishermen of Cape Cod. He read Melville's Moby Dick — "all the way through."

As Captain Ahab and Hemingway's old man would attest, the narratives of seafarers tend to be a bit relentless. (As relentless as landlubbers' use of sailor-speak to connote adventure.) And so it is for Sugg and his shanty-singing protagonist, Captain Owen Chase, who recounts his whole life, voyage after voyage, in verse.

But because this is rock music, it takes extra endurance. Sugg says that has a lot to do with why it took this long to, well, find harbor. "[In 2003] I didn't have the room or the time or the confidence to do this." Now, with Lars Jan's direction and Colucci still on board, Sugg uses projected film and 19th-century reed pump organs onstage to tell of Owen Chase's pursuit of his errant mermaid daughter. "It's totally rocking," says Sugg, "and also totally theater."

Bring your sea legs for moshing. —Juliet Fletcher

The Late Laureates of Laurel Hill, Philly's self-described "only known collection of dearly departed artists," promise "a show from beyond the grave" with a twilight reading of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. The event marks the newly rebranded Laurel Hill Cemetery: The Underground Museum's entree into the Fringe.

The Laureates, all local poets and actors, will read excerpts from the haunting 1915 avant-garde poetry of Masters, who died in 1950 in Philly. In the poems, the dead of a Midwest graveyard tell, in sordid detail, their tales of scandal, seduction, sin and ultimate woe. Each speaks his own epitaph.

"What a perfect setting to perform it — in a cemetery at twilight," says Laurel Hill executive director Ross Mitchell. From behind the aging stones on the terrace above the Schuylkill River — what Mitchell calls "a natural amphitheater," the actors will appear, then speak in postmortem voices. All are dead, and "all, all are sleeping on a hill," as Masters wrote.

Guests are encouraged to arrive 20 to 30 minutes ahead of show time to be seated. Bring beach chairs and blankets (for sitting on or hiding under). After the performance, a cemetery-themed art exhibition will follow at a reception in the historic Friends House. There, guests can mingle with characters, enjoy refreshments and listen to other local poets read their own haunting work. —J.F. Pirro

Ever since the birth of her daughter, Tania Isaac has been grappling with the many shades of parenthood. "You're balancing everything: being a wife, lover, mother … to have a career, whatever, so much changes," she says. "There are really hard decisions. You have to decide what will give out for a while. You can't do it all." Isaac found solace talking to fellow mothers with the same concerns. Now she's looking to open the conversation up to a wider audience with Stuporwoman Phase II, which she describes as "a cross between a workshop and a lecture/demonstration about contemporary motherhood."

The program combines discussion with exercises designed to turn personal stories and memories into movement. "They're exercises in self-exploration and discovery," she says. It's not group therapy, but Isaac hopes the presentation will help people better understand the positives and negatives of motherhood. "I think in general I try to make my work about having a dialogue. … It's a relief to talk to other people. Because sometimes you wonder, 'Am I the same, or am I alone in my craziness?'"

Isaac will also present dance excerpts from Stuporwoman, a work in progress about her experience as a mom. Seeing Isaac perform is always a treat and viewing her work in the context of this interactive program will surely provide intriguing insight into her creative process.

Lest you think this is strictly for the estrogen-producing crowd, Isaac says all are welcome. "It's not for women only. You hardly ever do it by yourself." —Deni Kasrel

Our genetic code varies just a tiny percentage from person to person, but oh, what a difference that minor deviation can make. That's the jumping off point for Coil, a collaborative project between young artists from the Village of Arts and Humanities, scientists from GlaxoSmithKline and Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. The ethical and social issues surrounding genomics might seem like a lot for 13- to 17-year-old kids to absorb, but they did a fine job of it. The lessons learned have now been artfully translated into a program that blends dance with video self-portraits. "The self-portraits are about how the world views them and how they view the world," says Kumani Gantt, executive director of the Village of Arts and Humanities. "But it's not just somebody sitting in a rocking chair saying, 'This is who I am.' It's really about the imagery, and sometimes they complement it with text." All in all, Gantt assures, the piece is "a very interesting investigation of the intersection between science and art, and actually they're not all that far apart." —Deni Kasrel

You give someone your cellphone number. You show up alone at a certain time at a certain spot in Old City. Someone will call with instructions: where to go, what to do. Don't ask any questions because they ain't talkin'. That's your mission, should you choose to buy a ticket to Cell, the latest movement experiment of Headlong Dance Theater — a Fest favorite that loves to throw curve balls. With Cell, it's not always clear to attendees where the performance ends and reality begins. "There are certain parts that everyone will get to see, but it will be different for each person," says Andrew Simonet, co-director of Headlong. "It's using the city as a stage and there's a lot of unpredictable stuff." So maybe that guy in the weird-looking clothes is part of the performance, or maybe not. The not knowing is part of the fun. FYI, you won't be asked to do anything dangerous. "There will be some challenges," he says. "It isn't always obvious or easy. And if you stop following instructions you won't get called back." Hmm, wonder how they figure that out? Simonet says: "Suffice to say we have ways of knowing." —Deni Kasrel

Patrons are asked (but not forced) to wear blindfolds while listening to a series of surrealistic sound collages created by Gloria Justen. The room will have speakers around, above and in the midst of the audience. "I am creating an immersive sound environment which hopefully will take people on a journey though their imaginations," she says. "The 'destinations' will be strongly suggested by the sonic material, but, of course, everyone will see something different depending on their memories and associations." —Deni Kasrel

Three twentysomething males are all stuck in Wales in the small town they grew up in, with their high school reputations intact — the bully, the geek and the gimp. Performed as a series of monologues, the events of one night unfold through three different views of the same story. Director Tom Reing promises "karaoke singers, drunken hooligans and a cat who doesn't fare well in the end." Sounds like my typical Saturday night. —Gwen Tuxbury

Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Bennet could have used a little less pout and a little more pizzazz. Thankfully, British company From the Top and Philly's own 11th Hour join forces for the furiously meta and gloriously tongue-in-cheek Austentatious: (No) Pride and (Extreme) Prejudice: The Musical, about the foibles of a community theater musical version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Co-creator Kate Galvin of From the Top says the characters range from the egotistical to the downright incompetent. "It was a lot of fun making the show within a show the worst adaptation of Pride and Prejudice you've ever seen." Like a 19th-century Waiting for Guffman, this is nerd heaven, and I'm proud to say I'll meet you at the pearly gates. —Lori Hill

Fringes the world over are famous for festivals within their festivals. Northern Liberties' GIVE Festival, though, gives back, using art and music to promote community solidarity and help the underserved. Aside from the usual outdoor melange of arts, crafts and food, the performances are wildly divergent — roots-reggae, monologues, the music of Unlikely Cowboy and the distinctive art of Mobile Pleasure Lounge, in which a band creates a soundtrack to a B movie on the spot. All proceeds go to New Bridge Collective and its community center for arts and culture. —Lori Hill

This play about female sexuality, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel, is sure to get Shakespeare's pantaloons in a bunch — not in the good way. In the Bard's eyes, the lead females of Othello were whiny, dependent victims. Here, the audience gets a peek at what happened behind the scenes. Desdemona is a slut, her maid Emilia yearns for her husband's death and the brothel owner decides to sell her own body for a change. All the while, they're searching for that "crappy little snot rag." Included with a ticket for the Wednesday night performance is a wine and cheese reception at 7 p.m. —Gwen Tuxbury

David O'Connor sensed his MFA drama project at Temple had gone well this spring when his professor wanted to be cast in the rerun. O'Connor had staged One Flea Spare, Naomi Wallace's taut drama about sexual politics during the Black Death plague, with eager undergrads. Now, in "more age-appropriate casting," he will direct Dan Kern, an L.A. Drama Critics' Circle Award-winning actor and director, opposite fellow Temple theater professor Nancy Boykin. They'll play the Snelgraves, an elderly and moneyed couple trying to avoid a common fate. Once a sailor and his daughter sneak into their house, a quarantine is imposed. "The rules of the outside world — social roles, class — don't apply anymore," O'Connor explains. And Mrs. Snelgrave, a barren and disfigured woman, finds a new lease on life. —Juliet Fletcher

Corporate America got you down? Agribusiness, oil tycoons and pharmacueticals have you disillusioned? Let Richard Metz help. Musing, literally and figuratively, on suits, Metz and his parade will march through Old City wearing handmade suit jackets representing giants of industry. Metz describes it as "both art object and street art, stationary and processional, wild fun and pointed political parody." Don't let the suits pass you by without grabbing one of their paper fortune-tellers filled with all manner of fun facts about corporate domination! —Lori Hill

The converted small-mall cinema on UPenn campus serves as a parallel stage world for Miro Dance Theatre's Philadelphia premiere of Lie To Me. The movie theater also works as a larger screen for films by artistic director Tobin Rothlein.

Amanda Miller, who is married to Rothlein, is co-artistic director of Miro and the couple have been involved in a six-month collaboration with renegade choreographer-dancer Antony Rizzi (longtime ballet master for maverick choreographer William Forsythe). The three teamed up for Lie to Me, Miller and Rizzi choreographing and Rothlein and Rizzi each shooting films. They started to piece it all together this summer in Frankfurt, Germany, where Rizzi is based.

Last week while on layover in Amsterdam after a performance of their company's politically charged work Civilian/Warrior at the Noorderzon Theatre Festival in The Netherlands, Miller and Rothlein talked about the Philly premiere of Lie to Me.

"There was always a political flavor in this," mused Rothlein. "How people loved to be lied to. In a nonpreachy and delicate way we went into broad social commentary. The truth hurts and we avoid it. Then there is lying as a performer, or even one's personality. Lies become a search for the truth."

Rizzi works with movement sense-memory and dancers' real lives, in the mold of Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. Miller, accomplished both in classical ballet and counterpointe, often has a screwball movement style and choreographs everything from broad physical comedy to nuanced dance satire. Both dance-makers are leaving room in the 75-minute piece for improvisational phrasing. "I want the dancers' movement voice to come through," said Miller. "For me, this is more personal than ever because of this theme." —Lewis Whittington

The epitome of every straight man's fantasy, right? Especially if the man is a jacked, powerful mafioso and the two women are slim and limber ballerinas. However, A Man and Two Women intends a very serious and reflective account of three lives unraveling and intertwining in the wake of an accidental meeting, touching on themes like war, the government and the media's false accusations. —Gwen Tuxbury

Anyone who saw the Philadelphia Museum of Art's show of work by Andrew Wyeth this summer may have an inkling that he didn't use models as other artists did. "They weren't people he painted, then paid and sent home," explains Paul Blore, a member of Aperture Tectonics Theatre Co. who set out this summer to craft a show around Wyeth and his connection to three of his favorite models. "Karl Kuerner was a neighbor to Wyeth in Chadds Ford. Walt Anderson was from the coast of Maine, and inland lived Christina Olson, the model for one of his most prized works, Christina's World." Blore has collapsed events from their lifetimes into a streamlined narrative around Wyeth. "For him, a painting had layers and layers of meaning," he explains. "Objects themselves are imbued with significance. He said he never painted his father until after he died. But you know, he probably did — he was just a rock or hill or something." —Juliet Fletcher

The brochure write-up for this Bald Mermaids show reads simply, "Hey look! We're doing something!" And for certain folks that will be enough, because this inventive dance ensemble is a Fringe fave that's gone missing for a few years. The gals are back and as usual have got some nifty ideas. Rebecca Sloan says they plan to do a duet with a cat — "if the cat cooperates." She adds that the thrust here is "dancing to be fun, and dancing to entertain people, as opposed to being a big drama." —Deni Kasrel

In this One Percent production, Blair Laces follows the misguided advice of a newspaper horoscope, and her life promptly falls apart. Searching for the one to blame, Blair sues the astrologer and takes him hostage in the second act. That's all the prognosticating I'll do for you. —Gwen Tuxbury

Gr’os is a Celtic word meaning "to enlarge, incite, rake up a fire." Founder and artistic director of KineticArchitecture Rob Davidson says the group's six "fabulous movement performers" intend to do just that. They've been compared to everything from Cirque de Soleil to burlesque. This three-part concoction goes from fantasy (lunatic pixies), to a cabaret pub (beer fairies), and finally to Celtic knotwork, which is performed on an 8-foot-long wall installation. According to Davidson, "Costumes for the first section are very ethereal, somewhat over-the-top for the pub, and the wall sequence is performed nude." Definitely not twee. —Janet Anderson

Jeb Kreager, best-known for his work with New Paradise Laboratories, has more recently been spied hanging with Headlong Dance Theater, and that influence is evident in Contest, a half-hour sprint of a work focusing on our society's obsession with winning. His cast of 16 — drawn from assorted local dance and physical-theater ensembles — embarks on a series of "competitive vignettes" where waltzing devolves into wrestling and solos morph into major competitions. Besides all the action, everyone sings, though Kreager says, "They're not really songs. It's more soulful, sometimes painful, sometimes ecstatic, vocal emoting." —Deni Kasrel

---