PLAYING FOR THE HOLIDAYS

The holiday season is upon us - turkeys stuffed with stuffing . . . mailboxes stuffed with Christmas catalogs . . . malls stuffed with shoppers . . . and calendars stuffed with concerts and seasonal cultural events.

How about theater stuff?On the theater front, the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas stacks up as one of the busiest times of the year.

Of the 40 plays opening during the next six weeks, 27 of them have Christmas themes. (The grand total includes three productions opening this weekend - "Just a Little Bit of Magic" at Desert Star Playhouse, "A Christmas Carol Part II or A Dickens of a Christmas" at the Off Broadway Theatre and "Jack and the Beanstalk" at City Rep.) Not included in these figures are five other plays opening right around New Year's - four of which are replacing Christmas productions.

I recently suggested that, perhaps, City Rep could dress up Jack's beanstalk with some colored lights and tinsel - just so it could be categorized as yet another holiday production. But it does fit nicely into the season's "family entertainment" mode.

The big crunch comes the day after Thanksgiving, when seven new plays are opening in the region - four of which are "A Christmas Carol" or variations thereof.

Ralph Rodgers has decided to drop his Scrooge impersonation this year, apparently thinking that four is enough. Instead, his Pages Lane Theatre in Centerville is presenting a revised edition of last season's poignant musical drama: "Joseph and Mary: A Love Story."

Here are a few more holiday theater highlights:

- Two new theaters are opening in time for the holidays.

James Arrington is taking over the long-vacant Queen Theatre in Bountiful, where he'll premiere "The Farley Family Xmas" (yes . . . Christmas with an `X' is a clue that this will be a comical, not-quite-reverential spin on the season).

Dan Whitley, who is widely known for his work as a voice coach and musician (including the SunShade 'n' Rain and Rocky Mountain Thunder singing groups), is renovating the vacant Power Plant disco at the south end of Cottonwood Mall into a theater-in-the-round. He's calling it the Lighthouse Theatre (plugging into the space's original use as a power generating plant) His first production will be "The Christmas Stranger," scheduled Nov. 28-Dec. 20.

Principals in the project, pictured on the cover, include Mikel Baker, left, Sheryl McGlochlin, Bonnie Whitley and Dan Whitley.

- One of the Deseret News' most popular seasonal features, "The Christmas I Remember Best," will be the basis for the Babcock Performing Readers' gathering on Dec. 14 at the Art Barn. A selection of past columns, submitted by Deseret News readers, will be read by those who wrote them.