"That ain't no way to treat a lady," Helen Reddy sang, but she was talking about a narcissistic boyfriend, not a serial killer. The latter populates Douglas J. Cohen's musical comedy, No Way to Treat a Lady, running on the Barrington Stage Company's mainstage Aug. 9-27. Barrington Stage regular Rob Ruggiero (All Under Heaven) directs.

In No Way to Treat a Lady, based on the William Goldman novel, demented actor Christopher Gill is on the kill, trying to overshadow his famous mother by any means necessary. Tracking him is Morris Brummel, an average down-on-his-luck cop, with an overbearing mother and a perfect socialite girlfriend.

Cohen won the 1999 Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla Award, plus two Richard Rodgers Development Grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is also the author of The Gig and co-author of The Big Time (with As Bees in Honey Drown playwright Douglas Carter Beane) and Children's Letters to God (with David Evans and Stuart Hample).

Bradley Dean, Adam Heller, Karen Murphy and Sandy Binion star. Dean recently performed in the workshop of The Big Time. Heller is a Broadway and tour vet whose credits include Titanic, Victor/Victoria and Titanic. Murphy also served on Titanic as well as A Christmas Carol, King David, Zombie Prom and Hysterical Blindness. Binion just completed the reading of Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman's Drawn to Death.

Tickets are $30-$18. The Consolati Performing Arts Center is located at Mt. Everett Regional High School, Berkshire School Road. For reservations, call (413) 528-8888. The Barrington Stage Company is on the web at http://www.barringtonstageco.org. -- By Christine Ehren