The weather's getting colder, Toby, but I'm feeling like Sinatra: "Suddenly It's Spring." I caught up with five shows, among them two new ones that are big winners, another a welcome oldie in an enjoyable revival and a fourth that is interesting. (OK, the fifth was a major disaster -- but at least it was major, and likely to keep B'way wags talking.) With all this -- and an anticipated Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone -- well, let's call it a Bronze Age, at least!

I doubt I've heard an audience cheer louder than they did at a recent performance of Scoundrels on an otherwise ordinary Thursday night. And I was right there with them. The show ultimately doesn't cohere, but this tale of double- and triple-cons on the French Riviera provides so much incidental bliss that you won't care. Among the greatest pleasures are David Yazbeck's snappy music and delicious lyrics ("The air is French/ That chair is French/ This nice sincere Sancerre is French So veni, vidi, vici, folks/ Let's face it, je suis ici, folks!"), and a crackerjack cast of comic stars. Veterans John Lithgow, Gregory Jbara and Joanna Gleason sparkle; comely Sherie Rene Scott charms and sings up a storm; and Norbert Leo Butz's Tony-winning performance is, in the best possible way, simply indescribable. (Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200, open run)

This is a bizarre curiosity by Joseph "You Light Up My Life" Brooks, who wrote the songs and script, and also produced and directed. (If you're thinking Renaissance man, please stop.) The central premise asks a question I'm not sure anyone wants answered: Can a struggling musician with Tourette's Syndrome find love with a perky journalist/OCD sufferer? With this treacly mess congealing on the front burner, we also get a heap of side dishes, including a flying gay angel who looks like Vivienne Westwood and is writing an opera about yes, the musician and the journalist. Other issues include tumors and dead children. But don't be depressed! As it turns out, almost everything Helps Us Learn -- except Brooks' book and score (26 pop ballads flew out of my head while I was listening to them). (Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200, open run)

Bellissima! Adam Guettel's gem of a show (an opera, really), is as awe-inspiring as the city of Florence, where (mostly) it is set. Light began as a novella by Elizabeth Spencer, about a protective mother and her beautiful but fragile daughter -- but any tendency toward mawkishness in the original has disappeared in this adaptation (music and lyrics are by Guettel; Craig Lucas wrote the book). Instead, it's a romantic, propulsive vision of love and family that's funny, sad and infinitely touching. The entire ensemble is superbly accomplished (as is Bartlett Sher's direction and Ted Sperling's musical direction), but Kelli O'Hara (Clara, the daughter) and Victoria Clark (Margaret, the mother) are beyond praise. Clark's performance should be remembered among the greatest in musical theater. For sophistication, grandeur and depth, Light may be the finest Broadway musical in a decade or more. Do not miss it. (Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., 212-239-6200, through March 26)

Michael John LaChiusa's musical is about as high-concept as it gets, resetting several Akutagawa stories in a Rashomon for our times. The multiple perspectives here are played out in mini-musicals about sexual intrigue in medieval Japan; a noirish murder in '50s New York; and ultimately a quest for spiritual healing in post-9/11 Central Park. There's elegance to LaChiusa's structure, but the connections between sequences are tenuous. LaChiusa's propulsive score keeps things moving, but (until a couple of numbers in Act 2) isn't memorable. Five actor-singers play all the roles -- Marc Kudisch and Mary Testa do very well, but Idina Menzel doesn't: Her Wicked-style power singing overwhelms the chamber piece, while her acting is curiously bland. In the end, the entire show (under Ted Sperling's fine direction) is visually beautiful, but we're never quite drawn in. (Public Theater/Anspacher Theater, 425 Lafayette St., 212-239-6200, through Dec. 4)

There's a lot to enjoy in Walter Bobbie's revival of the Cy Coleman/Neil Simon favorite about a hooker with a heart of gold. Assets here include Cy Coleman's brassy score and Dorothy Fields' sassy lyrics. Charity has several of the best theater songs of the '60s. (I'd put "Big Spender" and "Baby, Dream Your Dream" at the top of the list.) There's also a mostly terrific cast. Christina Applegate is immensely likeable as Charity, lacking vocal amplitude but compensating with star power. (She's not really a dancer, but she fakes it classily.) Denis O'Hare is adorable as her favorite guy, and her friends -- other, er, dance hall hostesses -- are as tarty as you want them to be. It's a shame that Bobbie's direction is so cartoonish. He should have trusted the show and his performers, because by and large the goods are delivered. (Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200, open run)

Well, David, I'm envious. You had more fun than I did. And what does it say about the state of theatrical affairs when the only really fabulous show I saw was a musical? Well, maybe "fabulous" only applies to musicals. Here's some of what I saw, and I was glad to have seen them, but Sinatra? Springtime? Please.

The current installment of this hilarious satire, written and directed by Gerard Alessandrini, is subtitled Special Victims Unit for good reason. For 20 years, Forbidden Broadway has been parodying Broadway shows; SVU skewers the Disney beast, with its emphasis on spectacle over content -- even the Japanese tourists know it's "tacky and terrible." Hugh Jackman, Yoko Ono, Rosie O'Donnell as the newest non-Jew to join the cast of Fiddler on the Roof ("Cashmaker, cashmaker") and Wicked's wicked backstage rivalry. Kathleen Turner and Cherry Jones go at each other in a spoof of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Doubt, which is brilliant as well as nasty. Many, many other shows come in for their share of the very clever and very pointed fun. The four performers are fabulous. (47th Street Theatre, 304 W. 47th St., 800-432-7250, open run)

A smarty-pants sitcom about incest and bisexuality, this annoyingly shallow play by Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out) is populated by annoyingly shallow performances, including Jill Clayburgh in her Broadway comeback, combined with annoyingly shallow direction by Doug Hughes (who won the Tony for Doubt). All this annoying shallowness is surprising, given the chops here, not to mention disappointing. The plot concerns a very successful middle-aged couple and their three adopted children, two of whom return from a long European trip with shocking news. Richard Thomas tries to make it human, and James Yaegashi as the left-out brother succeeds. The audience yukked it up, loving clever lines like, "You dumb bitch." The explanation of the title, when it finally arrives, makes no sense. (Roundabout Theatre Co. at American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212-719-1300, through Dec. 4)

Maybe tried-and-true masterpieces are a better bet: Sweeney Todd: John Doyle's acclaimed London production of what many consider Sondheim's finest musical comes to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Ten performers play musical instruments, as well as portray all the characters, with two very large personalities in the leading roles: quirky Michael Cerveris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) is Todd, and the inimitable Patti LuPone, veteran Sondheimista, is Mrs. Lovett. Waiting for Godot: A 50th anniversary production of Samuel Beckett's classic from The Actor's Studio. 2006 is Beckett's centenary, so there are likely to be many revivals of his plays, both large and small. A Touch of the Poet: Gabriel Byrne stars in Roundabout Theatre's production of a rarely seen drama by Eugene O'Neill, the American master best known for Long Day's Journey Into Night. Seascape: Two lizards emerge from the sea to chat with two people on the beach in this play by Edward Albee. Following the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, this Lincoln Center production of the winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize is already in previews. The Room and Celebration: This double bill at Atlantic Theatre pairs the first and most recent plays by Harold Pinter (who just won the Nobel Prize). Special Philly Connection: The Other Side, the U.S. premiere of a play by Ariel Dorfman (Death and the Maiden), is directed by Wilma's very own Blanka Zizka at Manhattan Theatre Club and stars Rosemary Harris and John Cullum.