Theatre in the Square, Marietta, Georgia's two-venue professional theatre, has a mixture of rural Southern fare and urban New York comedy set for their 2001-02 season, including Becky Mode's Fully Committed and the adaption of Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies.

The one-man tour-de-force Fully Committed kicks off the smaller Allen Stage series season Sept. 18-Oct. 7. Starting out as Sam, the stressed, out-of-work actor-cum-reservations clerk at the city's hottest four-star restaurant, the yet-to-be cast star portrays not only the eatery's staff (including the head chef, described by the New York Times as "Hannibal Lechter in kitchen whites"), but also a series of outrageous guests clamoring for a table. These patrons run the gamut from killer Mafiosi and rich old ladies to supermodels and Wall Street tycoons.

Also set for the Allen Stage is Mark Steven Jensen's Atomic Summer, a light romance between a Midwestern farmer with a secret and two teenage girls, playing April 2-21, 2002.

Playing May 15-June 23, 2002, Fair and Tender Ladies traces the history of Ivy Rowe, a woman who has lived a life of hardship and joy among the Southern Appalachian mountains. The mainstage season also features George Bernard Shaw's classic Pygmalion (Aug. 15-Sept. 23), David Hare's Amy's View (Oct. 3.-Nov. 11), A.R. Gurney's Far East (Jan. 16-Feb. 24, 2002) and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (March 20-April 28, 2002).

The Theatre in the Square is located at 11 Whitlock Avenue in Marietta. For reservations, call (770) 422-8369. Theatre in the Square is on the web at http://www.theatreinthesquare.com. — By Christine Ehren