What better way for Off-Broadway's Jewish Repertory Theatre to start off its silver anniversary season than with one of its biggest hits of the past? Kuni-Leml, the 1984 Outer Critics Circle Award-winning Off-Broadway musical, will return this fall, beginning previews Oct. 24, again helmed by JRT artistic director Ran Avni. The show will open Nov. 1 for a run through Nov. 15.

Richard Engquist (book & lyrics) and Raphael Crystal (music) adapted Abraham Goldfadn's folktale when penning this look at a young woman promised by her father to a Hasidic scholar but pining for a more modern fellow.

The production stars David Brummel, Danny Gurwin, Jonathan Hadley, Paul Herman, Joel Newsome, Jennifer Rosin, Jay Brian Winnick and Jodie Langel.

Next up (opening Jan. 16, 1999) will be the comedy A Majority of One. Richard Sabellico directs this look at a Jewish widow and a Japanese businessman who meet on an ocean liner just after World War II.

Arriving in the spring, a former Les Miserables Jean Valjean, Israeli actor Dudu Fisher, stars as the Pirate King in an all-Yiddish version of The Pirates of Penzance (here titled "Di Penzance Gazonim"). Closing the season will be a new comedy by Jerry Other People's Money Sterner. Titled Crossing The Double White Line, Sterner's play tells of four friends who meet for a weekly card game -- and then get trumped by an offer from their wives.

Other recent Sterner projects have included librettos for the developing musicals 1040 (with Sheldon Harnick) and Topper.

The Jewish Rep box office, (212) 831-2000, reopens Aug. 23.

-- By David Lefkowitz and Robert Simonson