HOLIDAY THEATER: THE XMAS FILES

Christmas decorations aren't ablaze downtown yet, but holiday stage productions are about to burst upon the scene with all the exuberance of a bunch of excited little kids scrambling around the tree on Christmas Day.

And leave it to Bob Bedore, local comic/playwright to get this season's parade of holiday plays off to an early pre-Thanksgiving start with his own Off Broadway Theatre parody, "The X-mas Files," followed exactly one week later by Desert Star Playhouse's new melodrama version of "White Christmas."This year, Utah theatergoers will find a batch of old favorites (at least half a dozen variations of that seasonal war horse, Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"), several familiar shows being freshly gussied up and - this year's big surprise - not one but two stage adaptations of "The Nutcracker."

Between now and the first of the year, there'll also be such non-Christmasy fare as "Born Yesterday" by Pioneer Theatre Company, some classic family tales like "Snow White" and "Peter Pan" and a few Christmas gems such as Russell Lee's "The Shepherd's Play," a freshly orchestrated and slightly revamped edition of "The Gift of Christmas" at Promised Valley Playhouse, and two biblical Josephs - "Joseph and Mary: A Love Story," at Pages Lane Theatre in Centerville and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at Dixie College in St. George.

And if you're so busy running from play to play that you don't have time to go Christmas shopping, well . . . you can always wrap up a few tickets or theater gift certificates.

Here's a glimpse at what's coming upfrom now until New Year's Eve, along with a clip-and-save calendar.

- ON YOUR TOES - For years, thousands of Utahns have flocked to Ballet West's traditional classic "Nutcracker," but this year, two theater companies are adding their own spin on the familiar yarn.

The Villa Theatre Playhouse in Springville is premiering what it hopes will become a holiday tradition at that Utah Valley venue. Novelist/playwright Marilyn Brown and composer Anna Molgard have teamed up to adapt the "Nutcracker" ballet story for the stage. It's scheduled to run Nov. 29-Dec. 30.

Meanwhile, Park City Performances, based in Park City's historic Egyptian Theatre, is mounting another stage version of the same story - a 1990 script from a New York publishing house adapted from Hoffman's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," with book and lyrics by Patrick Rainville Dorn.

Directed by Don Gomes, who was originally executive director of PCP, the production will utilize a cast of all ages.

The Villa Playhouse's production is being directed by Mark Shipley.