Curtain rises on new works, companies, experiments

''New'' is the operative word for the 1998-99 theater season.

Professional companies Playhouse in the Park and Ensemble Theatre are offering prime regional premieres including off-Broadway smashes Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and How I Learned to Drive (Playhouse) and A Question of Mercy and Full Gallop (Ensemble).

For something completely different, watch for the return of Ensemble's Off Center/On Stage series with three new (or new to Cincinnati) works in a festival format in January.

The long-awaited local premiere of Tony Kushner's dazzling Angels in America will come in two parts (autumn and spring) at University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, where the musical theater department also is offering a pair of regional premieres: Broadway's Cyrano and a fabulous '40s riff on Gilbert and Sullivan, The Hot Mikado.

There are new, small, want-to-be professional companies waiting to debut: Ovation Theater, Stage First and New Edgecliff (in order of their debuts), joining infant Cincinnati Public Theater at Aronoff Center for the Arts' Fifth Third Bank Theater.

The Broadway Series is debuting a second touring series, Broadway at the Taft, which will include the regional premieres of Broadway dance hit Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk and the latest report from wacky Tuna, Texas, in Red, White and Tuna.

Fifth Third Bank Broadway Series is trying out ''interactive'' theater in the form of Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding away from the Aronoff Center at the Mitchell Ohio National Guard Armory in Norwood in an unusual-for-Cincinnati three-month run.

Back in the Aronoff's Procter & Gamble Hall, audiences will see Footloose -- almost as soon as it opens on Broadway -- and Tony-winning Ragtime.

The season gives local playwrights a chance to show off new work. Mary Tensing will have two premieres, opening the Children's Theatre season with the holiday-inspired Thanksgiving Eve, then going on to Ensemble for Ice Floe, an adult look at aging.

Following last year's wonderful holiday musical The Frog Princess, the show's creators, David Kisor and Joe McDonough, will be back with Alice in Wonderland (with Bob Rais joining the collaboration).

Downtown Theatre Classics will also have a holiday musical, It's a Wonderful Life. It's a regional premiere by creators with a Cincinnati connection, Susan and Philip Kern. (He was a music director for Hot Summer Nights in the early '90s).

And, finally, Cincinnati Shakespeare will offer an expanded schedule of classics, a bold 35 weeks of performances in its new-since-spring home at 719 Race St.