In its 28th year, this is the first time Alberta Theatre Projects will function as a full repertory company, thereby allowing the company longer rehearsal time and the ability to extend or close shows early, depending on audience response.

Home of the respected annual Playrites Festival, which fosters new work and takes artistic leaps of faith, ATP supports its risk-taking with a mainstage season balancing audience favourites with international hits.

The season begins (exact dates are not yet available) with Anne Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, one of the most enduring of Canadian comedies. Then it's The Stone Angel, based on Margaret Laurence's powerful novel of the same name. (If you missed it (twice) at Theatre Passe Muraille, watch for it in Toronto at Canadian Stage Company as well this season).

Michael O'Brien's magical new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist was critically acclaimed at Toronto's Young People's Theatre last year and now gets an airing at ATP, followed by Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned To Drive, a big off- Broadway hit now working its way north of the border. It will also receive a production at Toronto's Canadian Stage Company this season.

William Finn's gorgeous little musical Falsettos is next. A Broadway sensation five years ago, it is a simple, heart-warming show about acceptance, tolerance love and family politics. Concluding the season is Ben Elton's Popcorn, a thriller that explores the nature of violence in our society today.

For more information or tickets call: (403) 294-7493.

By Mira Friedlander
Canada Correspondent