In the years before the Civil War along the Mississippi river, thoughts, dreams and judgements can be as murky as the river's waters, especially when you're a boy just trying to find your place in that world. So why not make the best of it, and sing about it while you're at it?

"Big River," on stage at Footlite Musicals, tells the story of that boy, Huckleberry Finn, with songs written by the old "King of the Road," Roger Miller.

I remember back in the days when you usually had four channels of TV, that a show would run through the fall, until interrupted by Christmas stuff, then start again through spring with reruns of the fall's episodes. This meant that you got a chance to see what you missed the first time. Nowadays, it's all timed around "sweeps" months.

But I couldn't help but think of those good-ol'-days when I recently went to the revivals of "Southern Baptist Sissies" at Theatre on the Square and "Avenue Q" at the Phoenix Theatre in downtown Indy.

Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre has brought back that old con-man Professor Harold Hill to steal our hearts with a production of the classic musical "The Music Man."

Curt Dale Clark seems born to play Hill, smoothly delivering the music salesman's lines like the thought of them himself, and exuding enough charm to get away with anything. In his presence, absurdities like making townsfolk forget their objections by breaking into four-part harmony makes perfect sense.

Theatre on the Square presents the U.S. premiere of Canadian playwright John Spurway's "Between Friends," the story of what happens when a person changes, but his best friends haven't.

Duncan and Sophie (played by Gary Jay Coffman and Jade Coley) have been married just under a month and Duncan's old friends Bill (Collin Poynter) and Wally (Christopher Hansen), whom he hasn't seen in six months, are coming to visit.

Acting Up Productions, which is based in Greenfield, is staging the drama "A Steady Rain" today through Sunday, April 1, at the Wheeler Arts Center, 1035 Sanders St., near Fountain Square in Indianapolis.

Correspondent Wendy Carson went to see a preview and gives this review:

"Harold and Maude," just opened at Buck Creek Players, is a dark delight. The play is based on the 1971 cult classic film about a death-obsessed young man who finds romance with a lively free-spirited septuagenarian.

The play "Freud's Last Session" brings together two great minds, each at opposite points in their lives. Sigmund Freud, at the end of an illustrious career, his body coming apart from cancer (while the world is about to tear itself apart in World War II), is weeks away from dying by his own hand. He invites to his home C.S. Lewis, a man already recognized for his intellect and writings, but still years from penning his greatest works, the "Narnia" series.

As the clock ticks down the minutes to St. Patrick's Day, it seems a good time to discuss the newest album by Bruce Springsteen, "Wrecking Ball" -- which crashed into the music stores and supermarket shelves last week.

What this has to do with an Irish holiday is that Springsteen's new collection of songs rests somewhere between Thunder Road and your favorite shamrock-decorated pub -- The Boss has discovered "kilt rock."

From time to time you hear about someone seeing what possibly looks like the image of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast or the bark of a tree, and -- though most people scoff -- a large number of the faithful converge on the location to see it for themselves, hoping to get a profound spiritual experience. Since it's no longer back in the days of the sacred vision at Lourdes, the Church doesn't take these things too seriously, leaving them to the "Weird News" reporters of the media. Still, what would you do if one of these "visions" happened to you?

That's the situation that the play "Messiah on the Frigidaire," now on the mainstage at Theatre on the Square, addresses.

It takes a lot of courage to mount a production of "The Full Monty" -- the hit Broadway musical based on the hit movie -- but bravery apparently isn't in short supply at Footlite Musicals, where the risk is definitely paying off.

"Monty," is the story of out-of-work blue-collar men who resort to putting on a male striptease show to raise some much-needed cash. The movie took place among the closed factories of England's industrial northern cities; the musical Americanizes the story, setting it in Buffalo, N.Y.