Vancouver's Touchstone Theatre will kick off its twenty-first season with Sex In Heaven, a fantastical comedy/drama by Gordon Armstrong, who died in February of AIDS at age 35. The show opens Oct. 12 and runs to Oct. 27 in Vancouver, B.C.

In the play, freshly-dead John passes through a corridor of light into a "deliciously kitschy corner" of Heaven. There, he is eager to reunite with his longtime lover, Max, who passed away five years earlier. But Max wants to know about the lovers John's had back on earth during those years. Their conversation is interrupted by a surly maitre'd, a rabbi, and the ghost of Italian composer Nino Rota.

Touchstone Theatre produced Gordon Armstrong's 1992 play, A Map Of The Senses, while Sex's co-producer, The Playwrights Theatre Center, staged Armstrong's Scary Stories in 1995. Also co producing Sex is the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, where Touchstone Theatre's playing space is housed.

After years at the Firehall, Touchstone Theatre has now become the resident theatre company at the Cultural Centre, nicknamed "the Cultch." Artistic director Roy Surette notes, "with the new seats and lighting system, the venue becomes one of the most comfortable and well-equipped theatres in town."

Surette directs Sex In Heaven, which stars Peter Wilds (John), Paul Magel (Max) and Alex Ferguson (everyone else in Heaven). Lighting is by Alan Brodie, sets by Phillip Clarkson, costumes by Brodie Davidson. For tickets and information on Sex In Heaven, call (604) 254-9578.

-- By David Lefkowitz