Religion and politics.

Jackie Mason has made a career out of talking about the two things you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company.

“I’m surrounded by Jews wherever I go,” he says. “I’m more Jewish than most of them. I don’t flinch from it. I’ve always made an issue out of it and capitalized on it and I’ve made a comfortable living from it.”

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They’re supposed to be bright and bubbly, the knot of girls rehearsing for this weekend’s performances of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” at Scarsdale High School.

They’re supposed to be as vibrant as the bright yellow “Anything Goes” hoodies they wear in rehearsal.

But, at this particular moment, they’re not.

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With apologies to the fine janitorial staff at Mahopac High School, the stage in the school’s auditorium is looking a bit like, well, Skid Row these days.

There was a wino there the other day, lying in the gutter, singing.

Somebody call security.

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When the house lights dim at Horace Greeley High School for this weekend’s performances of “Into the Woods” – Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical about what happens after “they lived happily ever after” – many in the cast will be adding another Sondheim show to their credits.

That’s thanks in large part to Pleasantville’s Little Village Playhouse, a training center for young actors and singers, where Sondheim is a staple.

In the past 10 years, LVP has presented “A Little Night Music,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Into the Woods,” “Anyone Can Whistle,” “Assassins,” “Pacific Overtures,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Into the Woods” again.

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The worst thing about great theater is the best thing about great theater: What’s here for a moment — the way a smile crosses a woman’s lips, the gleam in a man’s eye — is gone before you know it.

That ephemeral nature is what brings people out to live theater, and it’s why, having only recently discovered the wonder that is the Purchase Repertory Company, I vow not to miss another show there.

Take William Saroyan’s “The Time of Your Life,” performed by the Senior Acting company, through tomorrow in the black box theater at the Purchase Performing Arts Center.

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I received the following notice from Christina Colangelo, of the acting Colangelo Family:

“STAGE DOOR”
By Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman
November 21st and 22nd, 2008
Blind Brook High School is proud to present Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman’s Stage Door.

The play is about a group of young girls who have come to New York to study acting and find jobs and is an exploration of the Broadway-Hollywood culture clash of the mid-30s. The scene is Mrs. Orcutt’s (freshman Nora Fisher) boarding house, where the hopes and ambitions of sixteen young women are revealed. The central plot has to do with courageous Terry Randall (senior Corinne Segal), who fights against discouragement to a position in the theater. She falls for an idealistic young playwright named Keith Burgess (senior Zack Bodinger), who, as the tart-tongued Judith Canfield (senior Lauren Konigsberg) describes him, “starts out on a soapbox and ends up in a swimming pool.”  One of Terry’s fellow aspirants, Kaye Hamilton (senior Stacey Lurie) gives up in despair, and Jean Maitland (senior Kelsey Crandall) goes into pictures, but Terry, with the help of movie producer David Kingsley, (senior Steven Fisher), sticks to her guns.
Stage Door will be performed Friday, November 21st and Saturday, November 22nd at 8 PM at the Blind Brook High School Theatre. Tickets are $10.00 for all performances can be reserved by e-mailing BBHSDRAMA@blindbrook.org or by calling (914) 937-3600 ext 3171.
The cast includes:  Scott Bass, Zack Bodinger, Elaine Chandras, Kelsey Crandall, Alyssa Davis, Mari Diamond, Jordan Drutman, Blythe Duckett, Nora Fisher, Steven Fisher, Sydney Grau, Ali Hartman, Carson Jardine,
Christine Joyce, Tyler Ketchabaw, Lauren Konigsberg, Jacob Kupin, Elana Levy, Stacey Lurie, Kevin Maclean, Jackie Mamorsky, Melanie Mauro, Diksha Nagia, Samantha Park, Alyssa Piperis, Karen Rind-Segal, Corinne Segal, Stephanie Sherry, Zack Taitz, Alex Woychowski.
Blind Brook High School English and Drama Teacher, Christina Colangelo, directs the production with the assistance of Student Assistant Director Eric Schulkin.  The Stage Manager is Eddie Licitra and Jason Kaye is on the light board.

Peter Brancucci knows what he has to do. When Lucille Porto finishes her “Seinfeld” monologue, the retired doctor from Rye Brook stands up, walks forward and belts out Ricky Martin’s “La Vida Loca.”

But somewhere between the first lines and the start of the second chorus — when his female castmates join him — his focus flags and the vida is less than loca.

That’s when director Camille Linen does what she’s done for 27 years at the Port Chester Council for the Arts: Seeing an actor in need of direction, she directs.

“Let the universe happen!” she says breezily. “You’re gonna get it!”

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The weekend is full of theatrical possibilities. Here’s a sampling:

• Hal Holbrook, pictured, in “Mark Twain Tonight,” Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. $35-55. Paramount Center for the Arts, 1008 Brown St., Peekskill. 1-877-840-0457. paramountcenter.org.

• “Oklahoma!” opens Saturday at Yorktown Stage, 1974 Commerce St., Yorktown Heights. Performances are Nov. 15, 22 and 29 at 7 p.m.; Nov. 16, 23 and 30 at 2 p.m.; Thanksgiving Friday (Nov. 28) at 2 p.m. and Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. $25, $23 for Yorktown residents, $21 for students and seniors, $19 for children under 12. 914-962-0606. www.yorktownstage.org

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Director Mike deLucia writes me this morning to tell me about the following production: Clarkstown South High School, 31 Demarest Mill Road, West Nyack, is putting on “Pride and Prejudice” this weekend — 11/14 and 11/15 at 8, 11/16 at 2. $10, $8 for students and seniors. No reservations required. 914-419-6969.

Just got word last night—after this weekend’s big piece on local theater was closed—  that Rye is performing Neil Simon’s “Rumors” this weekend. Here’s the skinny:

The Parsons Street Players of Rye High School are performing “Rumors” by Neil Simon on Nov. 13 and 14 at 7:30 p.m. There will be a pre-show with two short scenes. $10, $5 for students. The show is at the Rye High School Auditorium (Parsons Street in Rye) and tickets will be sold at the door.

And Rye’s new director, Mike Limone, who fills Helen Cannistraci’s considerable shoes, got in touch to say they’ll be doing “Les Miz” for two weekends, in late February and early March. That’s something new for Rye, as is Limone, who comes to the school from Stamford, Conn.

The last time Eli Budwill was in “Oklahoma!” he was in Oklahoma.

That was August, at Discoveryland in Sand Springs, Okla. — designated the “National Home of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Oklahoma!’” — and Budwill was wrapping up a summerlong run as Curly, the singing cowboy.

“It’s been a tradition for 33 years,” he says. “It’s an outdoor theater with a huge concrete stage. There were real horses. I rode a horse onstage and sang ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’ on the back of a horse. And we had real guns.”

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Jenny Allen has written for Esquire, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Good Housekeeping.

For about six years, she has been doing stand-up comedy regularly.
And for most of those years, she’s also been battling ovarian cancer, enduring chemo, losing and regrowing her hair, enduring the idiosyncracies of her cartoonist-writer husband Jules Feiffer and raising two daughters.

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For Broadway fans, the show is just the beginning.Internet message boards are full of comments — some snarky, some earnest — about this show or that, about out-of-town tryouts and gossip. A theater groupie could keep herself busy night and day feeding a desire for more and more behind-the-scenes dish.When “Wicked” marked its fifth anniversary on Broadway last month, its composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz and book writer Winnie Holzman gathered for a one-night-only event, “The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken,” to share songs and scenes cut from the show before it hit New York. The “Behind the Green Curtain” tour is a popular backstage pass at the Gershwin Theatre, home to the musical about a good witch and a green witch. Read more of this entry »

Local stages are heating up. Opening this weekend:
Armonk Players open Ken Ludwig’s farce “Lend Me a Tenor” tonight, with performances through Sunday, and Nov. 13-15. Curtains are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 4 p.m. $15, $10 for seniors and students. At North Castle Public Library, 19 Whippoorwill Road East, Armonk. armonkplayers.org.
Greenville Community Theater opens Rebecca Gilman’s drama “Boy Gets Girl” tonight, with performances through Nov. 9, and Nov. 13-16. $18, $15 seniors, $10 students. On Nov. 13, all seats are $10. At Edgemont High School Theater, White Oak Lane, Scarsdale. 914-636-2863. gctstage.org.
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A quote from poet John Berryman inspired writer and actress Staci Swedeen: “The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he’s in business.”

“It’s an understatement to say that I’ve been in business,” Swedeen says. “Baby, I’ve been in business!”

In 2003, Swedeen was coming home from running errands when she was bitten by a rabid raccoon in front of her Sleepy Hollow home. She captures the event and its aftermath with comedic flair in “Pardon Me for Living,” her one-woman show on stage for the next two Sundays at Hudson Stage Company in Briarcliff Manor.

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