Jeff Daniels, best known for his work as an actor in films like Dumb and Dumber and Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, deserves more attention as a playwright. But don't expect it to happen anytime soon: Daniels, the witty mind behind Escanaba in Da Moonlight and a half-dozen other comic plays, is scheduled to appear in no less than four major films next year. This week, however, his comedy The Vast Difference...

The Plymouth Church on Milwaukee's East Side belongs to the United Church of Christ, but part of it will present itself as a Catholic church for brief, 90-minute fugues between now and the end of the month. Through Sept. 27, the Plymouth Church hosts Spiral Theatre's production of the John Patrick Shanley drama Doubt.

What's the difference between Vince Lombardi and a pit bull? A necktie. Bada-bum. Okay, the joke is starting to get stale, but the new play about former Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi is definitely NOT.

Michael Gotch walks humbly onto the stage in full, modest costume to a set of disembodied doors at center stage. He opens them, smiles and closes them. Then he walks offstage again. Not a word is spoken...

With the Stiemke Theater occupied by a production that requires only one actor, the Milwaukee Rep has freed itself to utilize a large number of Resident Acting Company members for its season-opening show at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. With a cast consisting of some of the best Milwaukee-based professional actors, including Torrey Hanson, Deborah Staples, the Pickerings (James, Rose and Steve), Gerard Neugent and others, the Rep should have a hit on its hands with State of the Union, a political ensemble drama . . .

Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra and First Stage Children's Theater have teamed up for an adaptation of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf that uses dance, music and narration in English, Spanish and sign language to convey the battle of wills between boy and beast. The result of this ambitious endeavor is a sweet production that benefits from being short (35 minutes).

Lombardi: The Only Thing, a biographical play about legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, debuts at Milwaukee's Next Act Theatre on Sept. 11. Playwright Eric Simonson recently revised the script, which premiered in Madison last year. Next Act worked closely with Simonson to amplify the show's impact, says Lombardi director Edward Morgan.

Though Shakespeare often suffers at the hands of modernized productions, Love's Labour's Lost is usually an exception. Many directors have successfully set the play in the not-too-distant past, bringing the action closer to the audience's experience to offer a more accessible reading, but not so close they can't survey the characters and themes with some level of temporal detachment.

The first eight or nine pages of Pat Cook's script are written as casual conversation held by three elderly women in a domestic environment. All three women are talking at the same time- no one's listening. It's a comically surreal way to begin the season in Elm Grove as the Sunset Playhouse opens its production of Those Crazy Ladies in the House on the Corner . . .

Ah, love. It has it ups and downs, twists and turns. And in the arc of romance, the despair of heartbreak can unexpectedly bring about the promise of new love. Isn't It Romantic follows the journey of a modern relationship centered on the timeless music of composers George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Jerome Kern. Playwright/Director David Hunter Koch has created the songbook as a musical revue, which opened last weekend at the Rep's Stackner Cabaret. Singer/performer . . .