Meanwhile, Molly Ringwald kicks up her brat-pack-groomed heels in the national tour of the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields-Neil Simon classic Sweet Charity (Pantages Theatre, October 11-22). Another hot ticket is L.A.'s first locally produced rendition of the exuberant flapper musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (Musical Theatre West at Long Beach's Carpenter Performing Arts Center, October 21-November 5), while Tony Award nominee Mary Gordon Murray headlines the L.A. premiere of The Musical of Musicals: The Musical (Colony Theatre, October 21-November 19).

There's lots more on the tuner front: The award-winning Rubicon Theatre in Ventura brings us Man of La Mancha (October 5-November 5), the culmination of a season of Dale Wasserman works. A world premiere musical, Janet Barnet and Alice Lunsford's Dvorak in America (Sherman Oaks' Whitefire Theatre, October 5-November 12) tells the story of the famed Czech composer. The gay-focused Celebration Theatre has a promising offering: Splendora (October 27-December 3). The recipient of the 1995 Richard Rodgers Production award, the show, which features music by Stephen Hoffman and lyrics by Mark Campbell, is an edgy tale with a gender-bending twist. Also of note is the return of the tireless hit A Chorus Line (Cabrillo Music Theatre at Thousand Oaks' Countrywide Performing Arts Center, October 27-November 5).

Dramatic offerings are led by the premiere of writer-performer Lynn Redgrave's solo drama Nightingale (Mark Taper Forum, October 4-November 19), in which this renowned member of the Redgrave showbiz dynasty offers a tribute to her late grandmother, Beatrice Kempson. Tony Award winner Judy Kaye and co-star Donald Corren re-create their Broadway triumphs in Souvenir (Brentwood Playhouse, October 12-November 12), Stephen Temperly's play about socialite-singer Florence Foster Jenkins. The West Coast Jewish Theatre premieres Wendy Graf's new work, Leipzig (Lee Strasberg Institute's Marilyn Monroe Theatre in West Hollywood, October 20-December 10), starring Salome Jens and Mimi Kennedy, about a divorced journalist searching for long-elusive answers.

The adventurous Furious Theatre Company at the Pasadena Playhouse Carrie Hamilton Theatre offers the Los Angeles premiere of Craig Wright's Grace (October 4-November 11), a darkly funny story about three dead bodies discovered in a Florida condo. Burbank's Victory Theatre stages Arthur Miller's Broken Glass (October 6-November 26) about the long-held secrets of a fragile Jewish marriage, while veteran actor Cliff Osmond takes on the role of Willy Loman in Miller's classic Death of a Salesman (Odyssey Theatre, October 19-December 3).

Hollywood's Open Fist Theatre presents Autobahn (October 13-November 25), a cycle of short plays by renowned playwright-screenwriter Neil LaBute, revealing the undercurrents of modern relationships. The America Play (Pasadena's Theatre@ Boston Court, October 5-November 19), by acclaimed playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, is about an African-American man pursuing his dream of impersonating Abraham Lincoln. The fourth in the series of "Gary Plays" by the award-winning Murray Mednick of Padua Playwrights is Out of the Blue (Lost Studio in Hollywood, October 13-November 4), set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Family fare includes a new musical adaptation of the fairy tale The Ugly Duckling (Theatre West, October 14-February. 24) and Santa Monica Playhouse's Absolutely Halloween (through October 29), about the adventures of a young girl on All Hallow's Eve.