'THEATER' ONLINE

Theater now has its own home page on the PG Web site. Just go to www.post-gazette.com and scroll down to A&E on the left, and there's the Theater button; or click the blue A&E button up top, or just go direct to www.post-gazette.com/theater.

Once there, you'll find all the recent theater stories stacked up, along with links to such other theater stuff as PG theater trips or our August Wilson coverage. And more blue buttons take you to past In the Wings columns, the high school musical page and the Web-only On Stage journal, just begun.

I appreciate the messages of concern about the loss of my Sunday (formerly Wednesday) On Stage column, but the fact is, if you do go online, the Web-only On Stage Journal has the advantage of more space and flexibility. I intend to post at least twice a week. Check it out.

JOELLE'S ADVENTURE

While playing one of the dancers in "Phantom of the Opera" at the Benedum, Joelle Gates has been staying first in Bridgeville with her grandmother, Valerie Gates, then in Oakdale with her sister, Kristin Mardrick. And Monday, she made another nostalgic visit, returning to perform in the Broadway "Phantom" (where she'd played Meg Giry for nearly four years) on the night it became the longest-running Broadway show ever. More about this online in my On Stage Journal.

Related admission: I can't get that insidious "Phantom" music out of my head. It keeps rattling around, and not just the same tune but a whole bunch of them, as though on random-sort. I attribute this to my having a cold and consequently lowered resistance, but I guess I have to give some credit to Andrew Lloyd Webber. What is it Noel Coward says about the potency of cheap music ... ?

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICALS

The season is upon us. Please e-mail me the names and dates of upcoming high school musicals. We'll publish an encyclopedic list in the paper on Feb. 19, but we will start an earlier version online, since some high schools perform as early as February. Send those listings!

MOVIE MUSICALS

Who in Pittsburgh knows more about movie musicals than Pitt's Jane Feuer, author of "The Hollywood Musical"? At 5:30 p.m. today, she's giving a talk, "Generic 'Evolution': The Contemporary International Art Musical," sponsored by the Pittsburgh Film Colloquium in Cathedral of Learning, Room 1228. The talk is intended for the third edition of her book.

THE BOTTOM LINE (1)

Did you catch the figures in last week's "Bottom Line"? They were 98 percent for "Phantom," 100 for "The Chief" and 98 for "Christmas Catechism"! As I've said, Pittsburgh loves what it knows.

Ken Gargaro of Pittsburgh Musical Theatre reports that the virtual sell-out for "Phantom" "drove ticket buyers" to his "Miss Saigon," and he thinks the sell-out for "Wicked" (coming Feb. 22) is doing the same for his "Jesus Christ Superstar" (Feb. 23).

KITTY SCOOP

PMT reports it has a contract to produce the first local production of "Cats," next winter.

THE BOTTOM LINE (2)

Paid admissions at city's pro theaters for the week ending Jan. 15:

Phantom/Benedum (99.5%) .................22,444

XmasCatechism/City(75%) ......................768

Forever Plaid/CLO (53%) ......................676