Just spoke with Anya Wallach, that diminutive dame of youth theater, and boy does she have things to report.

Wallach, the brain behind The Random Farms Kids Theater, Inc., just signed  a 20-year lease on a 6,000-square-foot rehearsal hall in an Elmsford executive park a stone’s throw from Westchester Broadway Theatre. There, she’ll have two large rehearsal studios, two medium rehearsal studios, two small rehearsal studios, a kitchen and a lobby waiting area for parents.

“No more churches for us!” Wallach says with a giggle.

It’s a long way from the Random Farms clubhouse where Wallach started the troupe with neighborhood kids.

This is Wallach’s star turn, as she continues to be a first stop on the way to Broadway for dozens of kids. This season, Random Farms kids will be seen in “The Grinch,” “Spring Awakening,” “Les Miserables,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Color Purple” and “Sunday in the Park with George.”

The first event to be held in the Random Farms Kids Theater Performing Arts Center will be Dec. 18 and 21 auditions for Wallach’s newest enterprise, The Edge, a company where high-school and college-age actors will perform more mature works.

Says Wallach, “The Edge is a new company for the serious actor looking to perform challenging material in a professional setting. Upon acceptance into the company, members are guaranteed a role in all productions with The Edge. Members will also help to choose future shows, develop new programs and work on productions in a technical capacity.�

This month’s company auditions will be followed by next month’s auditions for “Cabaret.” Only those accepted into The Edge company can audition for “Cabaret” on Jan. 10 and 11.

Rehearsals will be in March and April. Performances will be May 3 and 4 at the Tarrytown Music Hall, where Random Farms continues to be the venue’s resident troupe.

The new home will allow Wallach to add more sections of classes, add summer workshops and admit those children who’ve been on waiting lists.

Wallach says she’s looking to cast a core of elite players for The Edge. Once in the company, they’ll be cast in shows. If they’re not cast in, say, “Cabaret,” they can try out for the next production.

Like all Random Farms shows, the time commitment is at a minimum, with 8 weeks of rehearsals culminating in performance.

Wallach says she’s aiming for two full casts of 20 for “Cabaret,” and will be strict in the age requirements: only ninth-graders and older.

Music director for “Cabaret” is Jamie Schmidt, who was the original musical director for the American Girl Revue in New York and Chicago. Schmidt plays in the pit at Radio City, “The Grinch” and other shows. The show will be directed by Marc Tumminelli and produced by Wallach.

Auditions for membership into the company will be Dec. 18 (5:30 p.m.) and Dec. 21 (7:30 p.m.) at the New Random Farms Performing Arts Center.

To sign up for an audition, or for more information, go to: www.randomfarms.com/theedge.html.After “Cabaret,” Wallach says, she’s “planning for other really cool shows.â€?

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Local kids will be heading south to Ridgewood, N.J., this week to perform in Stage Right’s production of “Beauty and the Beast,â€? the Disney Broadway classic.

The Stage Right students will perform at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, 335 N. Van Dien Ave., Ridgewood, NJ – throughout the weekend. Show times are Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 11 a.m., 2:15 p.m. 5:15 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at noon, 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Wow! That’s a slew of performances.

Tickets are available online at: www.stage-right.net or at the door for $12.

For more information, call 201-983-1295.

If you’ve ever spent a glorious summer evening on a majestic bluff overlooking the Hudson Highlands at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, you might wonder what those folks do all winter.

Friday and Saturday, you can get a glimpse, as TrueNorth Theatre presents a staged reading of “If Only,” by local playwright Jeannie Zusy.

The performances — at 7:30 p.m. both nights — will be at the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, 199 Main St., Beacon. A donation is requested.

“If Only” looks at a Croton family on the verge of disaster as they try to find what’s important in their lives.

The cast features Suzanna Hay, Mike Heintzman and Kurt Rhoads, as well as Joey Parsons (from Hudson Valley Shakespeare) and newcomers Aaron Wilton and Lucy Kaminsky.  Kurt Rhoads, a fixture at HVSF, directs.

TrueNorth was founded by seven theater professionals — Brad Bellamy, David Birn, Suzanna Hay, Lynn Hawley, Michael  Heintzman,  Kurt Rhoads, and Nance Williamson — who aimed to bring theatre “where we live.�

The Web site is www.truenorththeatre.org.

Got a nice note from Mike Ficocelli of Little Fig Stage, the teen group based at Harvey School that presented the original musical “The True Colors of Weedle” at Off-Broadway’s Players Theatre last weekend. Here, in part is his report:

“Both Saturday and Sunday were magical: standing ovations, packed crowds.  The kids put on a stellar performance.  To add to the excitement, we met with Laura Bell Bundy (of Broadway’s “Legally Blonde”) in her dressing room after our performance on Saturday to hand deliver a check for $500, money we raised for her charity.â€?

“She kept us in her dressing room for over 30 minutes telling us all about her career and past performance at the Players Theatre with Brittany Spears.  The kids were tickled to hear that they were performing on the same stage.�

Sounds like they’re off to a great start. In the spring, they’ll be performing Ficocelli’s musical “Wild Imaginings.” Looking forward to that.

“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart.�

So wrote a young Anne Frank, during her two-year seclusion in the attic of a Holland business.

Some might think it impossibly naive for a young girl to think like that, but that message of hope is what shines through in “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which will be presented at Putnam Valley High School this weekend, with shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2.

Set in Nazi-occupied Holland, “The Diary of Anne Frank” involves the Frank family and the Van Daan family, who are hidden in the attic of a business for two years. Anne Frank keeps a diary, chronicling her life — her hopes, dreams and fears — in seclusion.

This production ends several months of Holocaust-related activities in the Putnam Valley schools, including viewing an educational exhibit from the Anne Frank Center — presented to students and the community on two evenings in October — and the free screening of the documentary film “Paper Clips,� about a school in Tennessee that constructed a Holocaust memorial out of paper clips, each one representing a life lost.

Tickets are just $5 for this story of fear and hope.

For reservations or other information, please call 1-845-526-7847, ext., 1369 or email PVPAC@pvcsd.org.

PHOTO, from left: Kristen Ricci, Jim Hertzel, Jackson  Gilman-Forlini, Joe Rao, Stephanie Stoisits, Jenna Isabella, Matt Sharison, Maggie McCarthy. (Photo courtesy of Susi Cummings)

Yorktown Stage announces audition dates for next spring’s production of “Disney’s High School Musical.”

Tryouts are Sunday, Jan. 6 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Monday, Jan. 7 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Callbacks will be Tuesday, January 15, 2008, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Performances will be Saturdays, April 5 and 12 at 2 PM and 7 PM and Sundays, April 6 and 13 @ 1 PM

Rehearsals begin March 2: weekdays 7 – 10 pm, weekends 12 – 6 pm.
All actors are not required every day.

For the auditions:
• Bring sheet music in the appropriate key.
• Be prepared to sing 16 bars (possibly more). An accompanist is provided.
• Bring headshot (or small non-returnable photograph).
• Bring resume’ (list of experience is acceptable).
• Non-professionals must be able to speak loudly and clearly.

For more information:
Phone: 914/962.0606
website: www.yorktownstage.org

email: yorktownstage@aol.com.

The rebirth of the White Plains Performing Arts Center began with a trumpet blast to herald the arrival of something big: “Man of La Mancha,” in a production that, for the most part, bodes well for professional theater’s newest home in Westchester.

The musical adaptation of the Don Quixote story – starring Broadway veteran Robert Cuccioli, in a role he was born to play – was an appropriate choice to kick off a venue for big musicals.

For one thing, audiences know it.

For another, it’s about dreaming, about changing the way people see the world. Every venture should start with such optimism.

Cuccioli, the Broadway star of “Jekyll & Hyde” and “Les Miserables,” plays three roles: poet-actor-tax-collector Miguel de Cervantes, thrown into a dungeon before facing the Inquisition; Alonso Quijana, an old man; and Don Quixote, knight errant of La Mancha, a figment of Quijana’s increasing senility.

In all things, Cuccioli is in command.

He sings sweetly – as in the lovely, lilting “Dulcinea” – and forcefully – as in the show’s anthem, “The Impossible Dream.” Cuccioli is an actor at the top of his powers, clearly delineating each character vocally and physically. His Quixote is stooped but courtly, wild-eyed and infectiously hopeful; his Cervantes is nervous then self-assured, deferential and always inventive.

The change comes about when Cervantes – in full view of his fellow prisoners – puts on the makeup that transforms him into Quixote. It takes less than a minute for Cuccioli to don the goatee, false eyebrows and makeup, but the impact is long-lasting and unforgettable.

Cuccioli’s acting doesn’t end when the songs begin. He drives each home with the lightest of touches: a raised eyebrow, a gleam in his eye, a turn of his head.

He is something to behold.

One wishes the same could be said of the actress playing Aldonza, the object of Quixote’s adoration. He calls her Dulcinea and thinks the prostitute is a lady – but Rosena M. Hill fails to impress.

She sings in a thin soprano that’s too clipped, too operatic, too technical for the role.

It’s akin to a great tenor singing “Maria,” from “West Side Story.” There’s no way Placido Domingo is convincing anyone that he’s a soda jerk from the West Side of Manhattan. The notes may be there, but the character is not.

Likewise with Hill, who proves little match for Cuccioli.

Fully believable and endearing is Carlos Lopez as Quixote’s roly-poly squire, Sancho Panza. Lopez, who appeared in the most recent Broadway revival of the musical (starring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), has a crystal-clear voice and gives a rock-solid performance as the man who’ll do anything to serve his master. He’s broad, to be sure, but one can forgive that in a knight’s best friend. In the end, there is more chemistry between Sancho and Quixote than there is between the knight and his lady.

The supporting cast is uniformly good. Standouts include Robert Ousley as the Governor, Sidney J. Burgoyne as Padre, David Villella as the Barber, and newcomer Patricia Noonan as Alonso’s niece.

Director Luke Yankee adeptly creates stage pictures, moments that will stay with the audience long after the houselights come up: Quixote and Sancho riding horse and mule; the trio in the song “I’m Only Thinking of Him”; Cervantes as director, watching the play within a play unfold.

Michael Hotopp’s set is a three-story wonder, with towering gothic arches and windows set high above the Inquisition dungeon in which the play is set. The drawbridge-like stairs that give access to the dungeon, however, appear too modern for the rest of the setting, and Joe Carozza’s accompanying sound effect – for each lowering and raising of the stairs – seems at odds with the size of the chain that is doing the work.

Carrie Robbins’ costumes are pitch-perfect, a lovely mix of armor, boots, blouses and skirts that instantly evoke Spain at the end of the 16th century.

Thom Weaver’s lighting design is uneven.

There are several inspired moments: a chess-board pattern to show the maneuvering of Quixote’s family and friends; an effect that bathes Quixote in bright-white light at the end of “The Impossible Dream.”

But there are also misses, as when an inexplicable spotlight trains on Aldonza while the hard-working ensemble sings a mocking “Dulcinea” reprise in the darkness.

The windmill – the iconic image of the piece – is presented as a spinning lighting effect on a too-bright stage, diluting its impact.

The actors wear body mics in the intimate, 400-seat venue, but the volume could be higher.

The technical shortcomings are easily ironed out – and this is not a show about lighting. It’s about sanity, reality, illusion and hope. In the end, Cervantes has given the prisoners something they had no right to expect.

The night belongs to Cuccioli, who does not fail to deliver.

The indelible image is that of an aging knight errant leaning on his lance, singing of impossible dreams. Thursday, in White Plains, dreaming was believing.

And the world, to quote the song, is better for this.

“Man of La Mancha”
Where: White Plains Performing Arts Center, 11 City Place, White Plains
Finding it: Take Mamaroneck Avenue to the intersection with Main Street. Turn right and, at the first light, turn right into the City Center parking garage. Go to the top level. Park and take the walkway across to the PAC, which is next to the movie theater.
When: Through Dec. 16. At 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays
Tickets: $35 to $60 for each show; three-play subscriptions from $75 to $150
Call: 914-328-1600
Web: wppac.com
Next: “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” runs Feb. 28 through March 16; “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” runs April 24 through May 11.