Calling all theater buffs: You better have been saving up your hard-earned summer job cash, because the fall play season is finally here.

The Town and Gown Players’ “Company” opened Sept. 18 as the first production of the season, and two new productions debut today: the University’s own “Our Lady of 121st Street” and Athens Creative Theatre’s “Cookie Dough’s Not Fattining… ‘Til You Bake It!”.

OUR LADY OF 121ST STREET

Rather than going a more traditional collegiate route of Shakespeare or Arthur Miller, Kristin Kundert-Gibbs of the University Theatre Department has taken on a play about the thievery of a dead nun’s body.

“It’s a dark comedy. It is very funny but it has some very dark themes,” said Kundert-Gibbs. The play is an ensemble piece that deals with each character’s personal quest.

“['Our Lady'] is about people searching for redemption or searching for forgiveness, or to somehow undo and move beyond mistakes of their youth – or maybe even things that have been thrust upon them by circumstance,” Kundert-Gibbs said.

While the play is centered in New York City and features what Kundert-Gibbs called a “fairly rough cast of characters,” Kundert-Gibbs still believes the show has themes that anyone can identify with.

“I think it’s something that everyone goes through,” she said. “You know – we make a mistake, we get stuck somewhere, [and] it’s sometimes very hard to move on.”

The cast is a mix of graduate and undergraduate students, some of whom have already worked in the professional theater world and have returned to the University to start or finish degrees.

“[The actors who have worked professionally] have got some expertise and they’ve really moved and motivated our younger actors,” Kundert-Gibbs said.

“COOKIE DOUGH’S NOT FATTENING. ‘TIL YOU BAKE IT!”

While the title of the play brings to mind images of depressed, middle-aged women, writer/director Terry Powell’s newest production actually focuses on religion.

It tells the story of a Jewish girl and a Catholic girl growing up in New York in the middle of the 20th century.

“It’s a satire on the stereotypes of each religion,” Powell said. “You’re able to laugh with and at yourself throughout the entire thing.”

The play has a heavy basis in Powell’s personal life. She is one of 10 siblings and a self-proclaimed “retired Roman Catholic,” and her husband of 28 years is Jewish.

She contracted local musicians and composers Bryan Shaw and Theresa Ruiz to collaborate with her and then tied the music into the script.

“It just screamed to be a musical,” she said.

After writing nine plays, Powell seems especially proud that this play is an entirely local effort, and while it is based in comedy, it has a strong message as well.

“It packs a real gut punch in the middle . The real reason ‘cookie dough’s not fattening til you bake it’ comes as a real shocker,” Powell said.

COMPANY

This musical comedy-drama is director Amy Miller’s fourth foray into directing with the Town and Gown players, but that by no means makes it a cake-walk.

“It’s a [Stephen] Sondheim show, [and his plays] are notoriously difficult,” Miller said. “This one in particular is very difficult musically.”

The non-linear show centers around Bobby (Drew Doss), a single socialite in his mid-30s looking at the romantic relationships of his close friends and “wondering whether what they put up with to share their life with someone is worth it,” as Miller put it.

A stellar cast is necessary since the show is made up of vignettes of each of Bobby’s friends.

“You have to have a cast of 14, none of which are minor roles,” Miller said.

The show opened last weekend, and Miller said they have received “rave reviews” from regulars and theater newcomers.

“The cast and crew, including myself, are very pleased with the way the show came out and the amount of talent that’s on the stage,” she said.