The Cassidy Theatre (6200 Pearl Rd., Parma Hts.) launches its 2007-08 season with the music business musical Dreamgirls. The show gained a new lease on life when the 1981 work finally made it to the big screen last year starring Beyonce as the Diana Ross type in a '60s female R&B vocal group fashioned after the Supremes, and making a star of Jennifer Hudson as Effie White, the vocal powerhouse sidelined for lacking glamour. At Cassidy, Trinidad Snider, Caron Wykle and Ayeshah Douglas play the trio, with Douglas as White rendering the musical's most memorable song, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." And if the cast and crew already seem familiar to you, maybe your cable has been tuned to local-access program Call-Back, a new series that gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of local community theaters. It has been following the show in rehearsal and you can see the results at cassidydreamgirls.8k.com. It opens at 8 tonight and runs at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through October 14. Tickets: $15-$20. Box office: 440.842.4600. - Anastasia Pantsios

Wednesday, September 26

Purlie Victorious

Karamu House (2355 E. 89th St.) opens its 84th theatre season with Purlie Victorious. Karamu's Artistic Director Terrence Spivey directs the black theater comedy classic about a preacher who tries to gain control of a family inheritance through subterfuge. The family-friendly work opens with previews at 7:30 tonight and tomorrow, with official opening at 8 p.m. Friday. It runs through October 21. Tickets: $10 previews, $20-$25 regular performances. Box office: 216.795.7070. - AP

Thursday, September 27

Cleveland Orchestra, Peer Gynt

The Cleveland Orchestra has barely started its season and already it's rolling out some major fireworks. This weekend's concerts will feature a semi-staged five-act performance of Grieg's incidental music for the Ibsen drama Peer Gynt, conducted by Valdimir Ashkenazy. It will include some major vocal firepower provided by soloists soprano Inger Dam-Jensen and baritone Joshua Hopkins, and the Oberlin College Choir, the Cleveland State University Chorale and members of the Cleveland Orchestra Chamber Chorus, singing in the original Norwegian with projected English subtitles. And it will feature connecting narration (in English) by actor-director John de Lancie. It's the first time the orchestra has ever performed this music in its entirety. There are three performances at 8 tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. Tickets: $30-$83. Call 216.231.1111. - AP

Dear World opens

Kalliope Stage (2134 Lee Rd., 216.321.0870) is among the next batch of area theaters to kick off its season. It does so at 8 tonight with the 1969 Jerry Herman (Mame, Hello, Dolly!) musical Dear World based on Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, with a story involving the attempts of a motley cast of characters to stop an oil company from drilling in the streets of Paris. (Hey guys, I hear there's oil under a ranch in Crawford, Texas!) The show marks the debut of Kalliope's resident professional company. Dear World runs at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through October 21. Tickets: $29-$35. - AP

Celebration of the Cleveland Reader

The second issue of the Cleveland Reader may or may not be available yet, but editors of the free poetry tabloid are throwing a party at 7:30 p.m. at Visible Voice Books (1023 Kenilworth Rd., Tremont, 216.961.0084) with featured readers and an open mic to mark its coming - which will happen any day now. Executive Editor Mike Marcellino - recently a featured writer on outsiderwriters.org - will read in collaboration with artist and abstract noise improviser Abe Olvido. Marcellino, who was an Army combat correspondent in Vietnam, will read poems written during his stint there, some of which, he says, were composed "in a bunker under a blanket with a flashlight under fire." Just exactly what does a person write about under those circumstances? Show up to see and hear. The other featured reader of the evening is the well-traveled poet Ray McNiece. The upcoming issue of Cleveland Reader features the first installment of a serialized short story by Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Mary Weems. Participants in the open mic reading run the risk of having their work selected for the third issue of Cleveland Reader, which will see print in the winter. - Michael Gill

Verb Ballets - Bringing old and new world to the Natural History Museum.

Friday September 28

Verb Ballets

Verb Ballets' two past collaborations with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1 Wade Oval, 216.231.1177) have proved so successful that the Cleveland-based company is back for a third time to perform in the museum's Murch Auditorium. Nature Moves 3 will feature four pieces including a pair of world premieres: "Songs of a Wayfarer" by the company's artistic director, Hernando Cortez, and "Slapping Stones" by Cleveland-born Danish guest choreographer William Anthony. It will also perform "Duet" by the late Heinz Poll of Ohio Ballet, a company premiere, and popular repertoire piece "Bolero," another Poll work. Performances are at 8 tonight and tomorrow with the bar lobby open at 7. Advance tickets: $25 tonight, $40 tomorrow which includes a post-performance reception with company personnel, munchies, an open bar and a DJ. It's $5 additional at the door. - AP

Holy Ghosts

How religious faith enhances or damages lives is a never-ending debate and it's one taken up by Romulus Linney's dark comedy Holy Ghosts, the latest offering at the Beck Center for the Arts (17801 Detroit Rd., Lakewood). In it, a woman tries to escape a bad marriage by fleeing to a fundamentalist church in the impoverished deep South, a church peopled by societal discards looking for a way to get by. It opens at 8 tonight and runs at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through October 21. Tickets: $17-$28. Box office: 216.521.2540. - AP

Kalman & Pabst Fine Art Sale & Celebration

Local commercial photography studio Kalman & Pabst Photo Group (3907 Perkins Ave., 216.426.9090, kpphoto.com) mounts a two-day exhibition in which the studio's staff will display the work they do for themselves rather than for clients. There's an opening reception from 5-10 p.m. tonight; the work will also be on view from 5-9 p.m. tomorrow. It's free. - AP

Fine Print Fair

The Print Club of Cleveland's 23rd annual Fine Print Fair opens with a benefit preview from 5:30-8:30 tonight for those who want to get a first crack at the multitude of works on paper, along with food and drink. The $85 ticket is good for admission all weekend to the event taking place at Tri-C East's Corporate College (4400 Richmond Rd., Warensville Hts.). Fourteen galleries from around the country will be offering a variety of prints, photos and drawings from around the world, covering the last five centuries, and there will be lectures and experts on hand to guide novices and experts alike. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. tomorrow, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $10, good both days. Proceeds benefit the print department of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Go to clevelandart.org/printclubcleveland for info. - AP

Cabaret Sampler

Mary Ellen Mark Her street kid at 13.

Two years ago, choreographer/director Lora Workman and musical director Charles Eversole came up with the idea for a showcase for talented area cabaret performers. This year's third annual Cabaret Sampler opens at Kennedy's at Playhouse Square (1519 Euclid Ave.) at 8 tonight and runs Friday and Saturday for four weekends through October 19-20, with each weekend featuring a different group of performers - three doing 15-minute sets and one doing an expanded, fully produced show. Tickets: $20. Call 216.241.6000. - AP

The God Committee

The God Committee, opening tonight at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre (40 River St., Chagrin Falls, 440.247.8955, cvlt.org) and performed by the theater's high-school/college-age acting troupe, isn't the usual community theater froth. It grapples with a life-and-death ethics issue: When a heart becomes available for transplant, which of several candidates should get it? In it, medical personnel, hospital authorities, a social worker and a clergyman all weigh in. It's sponsored by the nonprofit tissue donation group LifeBanc (lifebanc.org) and there will be talk-backs following each performance to discuss tissue donation. It opens at 8 tonight and runs at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through October 6. Tickets: $10-$14. - AP

Saturday, Spetember 29

Birth

Karen Brody's theater piece Birth covers the maternity experiences of eight mothers in widely differing situations. It's intended to educate about and improve birthing options which is why it's being produced by the Northeast Ohio group BOLD (Birth on Labor Day), part of a worldwide effort to improve maternity care. The performance at 7 tonight at the Lakewood Masonic Hall Ballroom (15300 Detroit Ave.) benefits the Ohio Midwives Alliance. It's $12 advance, $15 at the door. Go to brownpapertickets.com/event/19030. - AP

Sunday, Sptember 30

Mary Ellen Mark lecture

Mary Ellen Mark's classic black-and-white documentary work depicting two decades in the life of a Seattle street child from fresh-faced kid of 13 to thirtysomething impoverished single mother of multiple children was the 1998 winner of the Akron Art Museum's annual Knight Prize for Photography. With her work currently on view in Prized Images: The Knight Purchase Award for Photographic Media 1991-2006 in the museum's brand-new galleries, Mark comes to the museum (One South High St., 330.376.9185) to deliver the Knight Award Lecture at 2:30 p.m. today. It's $10, $5 for members and students. She'll sign books following the lecture. - AP

Wednesday, October 3

Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet

The Cleveland Museum of Art's Viva! And Gala Around Town series brings the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet to Trinity Cathedral (2230 Euclid Ave.) at 7:30 tonight to play a program of pieces by Ibert, Milhaud, Taffanel, Barber and Francaix. Formed in 1988 as an offshoot of the world-renowned Berlin Philharmonic, its members are also members of the orchestra. Tickets: $30, $20 CMA members. Call 216.421.7350. - AP