Grand old theater, shiny new season

  Recessions won’t stop thespians: Las Vegas Little Theatre has assembled its lineup of plays for the 2009-2010 season:
  Ira Levin’s plot-twisty “Deathtrap” concerns a writer who plans to knock off another scribe and steal his script. We writers do that all the time — we're a homicidal bunch, by and large, but still very genial when you get to know us.
  David Ives’ adaptation of Mark Twain’s “Is He Dead,” centers around French artist Jean-Francois Millet, who fakes his death on the theory that an artist’s stock skyrockets after being put under the ground. Sure enough, he becomes a “posthumous” sensation. Twain didn't exactly knock America's socks off as a playwright, which makes this play, if not a classic, at least a curiosity.
  Marc Camoletti’s “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” a sequel to the French playwright’s own “Boeing, Boeing,” is a farce about extramarital affairs and mistaken identities, adapted by Robin Hawdon. Silly people acting silly, but with serious panache.
  “The Shadow Box” is Michael Cristofer’s treatise on dying from the perspective of three terminally ill patients. Not one farcical moment in the entire play.
  “Regrets Only,” Paul Rudnick’s one-liner-laden play, features a married socialite and a gay fashion designer re-evaluating their relationship. Hey, if you were them, you'd re-evaluate, too.
  “I Ought to Be In Pictures,” Neil Simon’s comedy (you were expecting a tragedy?) tells the story of a screenwriter with writer’s block who abandoned his family, only to find his daughter on his doorstep, eager for him to launch her acting career. Kids, huh? Wanting something from Daddy just because he split and left her fatherless? What an ingrate.
  That’s the season, for which You Ought To Be in the Audience.