Bucks County Playhouse

Heavy winds slammed a tree into the roof of the Bucks County Playhouse, tearing a gaping hole through the ceiling. It wasn't necessarily the wrath of God, but considering the summer-season lineup at the playhouse, one might wonder. And last week's windstorm came just two months after floodwaters filled the theater's basement with mud. "I believe in God, but I don't think he would take it out on my customers," said Ralph Miller, owner of the playhouse, where Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, Nunsense and Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat are in the lineup.

Mention "New Hope" and "theater," and the first place that comes to mind almost certainly will be the Bucks County Playhouse. For years the once-prestigious summer-stock theater had been the only theater in the small Delaware River town. Now, however, there are two, and last night the second theater began a series of plays that its operator hopes will make it as well-known outside New Hope as the playhouse. "I want it to be the kind of theater that sends shows to Broadway," Robert Gerenser said.

Ralph Miller took a deep breath before he walked on stage at the Bucks County Playhouse for its 50th anniversary celebration. For Miller, temporary manager of the theater, Monday was a night of victory after spending a turbulent summer in court trying to save the New Hope theater from foreclosure and suing its previous owners. "All I can say is that I am glad it is behind me. We will be taking title of the property very soon," Miller said. Miller bought the playhouse in 1976, when its owners were considering turning it into a movie theater.

The Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope is up for sale again, casting doubts over its future as a theater. Ralph Miller, who owns the playhouse, said he was moving to Florida to start a dinner theater there. He said he hoped that whoever bought the playhouse would continue to operate it as a theater. "It's a commercial property," he said, however, "and if someone wants to do something else with it, they can. " The theater is on the market for $4 million, according to Re-Max Associates Inc. of Warminster, which is handling the sale.

Waiting for the curtain to rise, theatergoers could trace more than 60 years of Bucks County Playhouse shows from signs on the theater's walls listing each season's lineup. "What happened to the signs?" the Playhouse's new owners and operators were asked at last week's open house, when they announced plans to restore the closed theater to "its former glory. " Hugh Marshall has them - at least 20 of them - and he is willing to give them back. "It was after the 2005 flood, and stagehands were throwing out the signs," Marshall said Monday.

How Phyllis Diller will react when she hears that she is up for a gig as a guinea pig is beyond the parameters of my imagination. To be sure, a spokesperson for the Bucks County Playhouse did not put it in precisely those terms. It came out thusly: "We are using this as a test to see what kind of response we get. " The pig or the test, as the case may be, is the decision of the New Hope showplace's Ralph Miller to spice up his usual summer fare of retired musicals and untried talent with a bigtime cabaret act. The Diller show will play New Hope on Monday and Tuesday, June 8 and 9, and then hie up to the Falmouth (Mass.

The actor forever identified as Capt. James T. Kirk arrived in New Hope Tuesday. William Shatner is in town through Sunday to appear at the Bucks County Playhouse in A.R. Gurney's two-person play, Love Letters. Shatner and his wife, actress Marcy Lafferty, who co-stars in the play, were the focus of attention Tuesday night at a brief news conference at the Logan Inn. "It's incredible to have a star of his stature come to the Playhouse," said Playhouse owner Ralph Miller as he introduced Shatner.

Country music star Larry Gatlin is bringing his new musical Texas Flyer to the Bristol Riverside Theatre for its world premiere. Preview performances are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, with opening night set for Thursday. Gatlin also will star in the play, which tells the story of a father and his estranged son in a dying Texas town during the 1950s. "It's a mix of drama, comedy and out-of-your-seat production numbers," said David J. Abers, the theater's company manager.

Using only the words of Charles Dickens, Pascual Vaquer has adapted the classic tale, A Christmas Carol, for the stage. His original production, presented by the Bucks County Center for the Performing Arts, will make its debut this weekend. "I have kept all the 19th-century language. Every line of dialogue was written by Dickens," said Vaquer, of Solebury, who also is directing the play. "It has a wonderful sound to it, and it's perfectly understandable to the modern ear. " The story of the miserly Scrooge, who is transformed after visits from a series of ghosts on Christmas Eve, will be performed tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday at the Phillips Mill Community Association Theatre, which is on River Road about two miles north of New Hope.

Ralph A. Miller, owner of the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, is suing a northwestern Pennsylvania theater, seeking more than $2 million for breach of contract. Miller and two of his corporations are suing the Thomas Struthers Trust, which owns the Struthers Library Theatre in Warren, Pa., and three women who have been involved with the theater there. The suit states that a Sept. 8, 2003, contract with the trust gave Miller a 10-week lease to produce a 2004 summer season.