Also this issue: Star Turn The NY season is off to a celeb-packed start.That's not always a good thing. -Toby Zinman Tune In This just in: Hairspray's not the only musical on Broadway this season. -David Anthony Fox Stones in His Pockets -Toby Zinman Philadanco -Janet Anderson Kumquat Dance Collective -Janet Anderson Sex Workers Art Show -A.D. Amorosi Waking Dreams -Kristina Weise The Trojan Women -David Anthony Fox

November 21-27, 2002

artpicks

CafŽ Puttanesca

Revisiting history seems to be one of Michael Ogborn's favorite flights of imagination. While his last musical, Baby Case, which premiered at the Arden last year, turned a cool, wryly cynical eye on the details of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, his next project is to open up post-war Amsterdam café society: Café Puttanesca brims with the exuberant optimism of a nation living in an age of new peace. Currently in developmental workshop headed by the Arden's Terry Nolen, the tale follows the thrills, longings and melancholy of the congregants at the street tables of the eponymous establishment, singing the days and nights away. "It's bawdy, it's raucous," says Nolan of the work-in-progress, which will be on view at a public staged reading this week. Where Baby Case reassessed history, Café Puttanesca, in its blend of cabaret, comedy and storytelling, tries not to dismantle our nostalgia, but extrapolate it. Ogborn's working relationship with the Arden (which brings his labors to his native city) reflects the challenge of generating new work: As Nolan puts it, the experimentation is all worth it for the moment "when you try something new and you see that it's working."

Sat., Nov. 23, 2 p.m., free, Arden Theatre Co., 40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122.

—Juliet Fletcher