• The 2008-09 PNC Broadway Series was announced while I was away last week, so I learned about it as you do -- in the PG (but online from London, in this case). It certainly looks strong, with the explosive "Spring Awakening," much-loved "Jersey Boys," the return of the ever-green "Wicked" and a tour de force play, "Frost/Nixon." Adding to the excitement are two extended runs, five weeks for "Wicked" (which played here for two weeks two years ago) and four for "Jersey Boys."

Unfortunately, "Frost/Nixon" is going to play the Benedum, not the Byham, as it should. It's enough to make you wish they had left it alone so we could see it at the Public Theater some day, instead. Still, these four titles more than compensate for two familiar revivals, "Fiddler on the Roof" and "A Chorus Line," and one of the sappiest recent musicals, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" -- give those tickets to the kids.

Beyond that, the series (i.e., Cultural Trust, Symphony Society and Live Nation, their 800-pound national partner) have already announced five non-subscription specials, all returns of previous tours, some probably dwindled by then into non-Equity mark-downs: "Mamma Mia!," "Monty Python's Spamalot" (at Thanksgiving, as an alternative to TV football), "Annie," "Movin' Out" and "Rent."

• Registrations are open for "Stars on Broadway," the PG's annual Spring ShowPlane, April 30-May 4. The four-show package includes:

"Boeing Boeing," a 1960s farce given an all-star revival starring England's Mark Rylance, with Christine Baranski, Bradley Whitford ("The West Wing") and Gina Gershon.

"South Pacific," at Lincoln Center, starring Kelli O'Hara and Brazilian opera star Paulo Szot.

"A Catered Affair," a musical by and starring Harvey Fierstein, with Faith Prince and Tom Wopat.

"Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein," starring Roger Bart, Sutton Foster, Andrea Martin and Megan Mullally, with Shuler Hensley as the Monster.

I'm especially excited about "Boeing Boeing," the same funny production I saw last year in London.

The ShowPlane is based in Times Square at the Millennium Broadway Hotel; basic price $2,142 per person, single supplement $721. For fuller info on what else is included and how to sign up, go to the PG theater page or call Gulliver's Travels, 412-441-3131 (outside Pittsburgh, 1-800-848-4084).

• The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has named the following six finalists in its annual $40,000 Steinberg /ATCA New Play Awards, supported by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, limited to plays that premiered outside New York City. The top honoree will receive $25,000 -- the largest national playwriting award. Two others will receive $7,500 each. The winners will be announced March 29 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre in Louisville, Ky.

"The Crowd You're in With," by Rebecca Gilman, debuted at San Francisco's Magic Theatre in November. The play examines three couples at a backyard barbeque who reveal different attitudes toward having children in the 21st century.

"Dead Man's Cell Phone," by Sarah Ruhl, bowed at Washington D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in June. The quirky comedy examines the fallout when a lonely woman takes the cell phone from the body of a dead man she discovers sitting in a cafe and begins answering his calls.

"End Days," by Deborah Zoe Laufer, premiered in October at Florida Stage in Manalapan. Sometimes comic, sometimes moving, the play studies the challenge of maintaining faith in a world dominated by science and fear.

"The English Channel," by Robert Brustein, noted critic and founder of the American Repertory Theatre, debuted in September at Suffolk University and the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha's Vineyard. This droll comedy centers on creativity, inspiration and plagiarism, involving the young Shakespeare, ghost of Marlowe and Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

"Strike-Slip," by Naomi Iizuka, opened last spring at the Humana Festival. It's a cinematic look at seemingly disconnected lives in the diverse, multi-cultural Los Angeles basin.

"33 Variations," by Moises Kaufman, debuted in September at Washington's Arena Stage. Beethoven's fictional creation of 33 brilliant variations on a prosaic waltz parallels a modern tale of a terminally ill musicologist struggling with her own obsession to unearth the source of Beethoven's.

These six were selected (from 28 eligible nominations by ATCA members) by a committee of 12 theater critics from around the U.S. headed by chair Wm. F. Hirschman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and vice-chair George Hatza of the Reading Eagle. Since 1977, ATCA's New Play Award winners have included Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Lee Blessing, Lynn Nottage, Horton Foote and Craig Lucas. Last year's winner was Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's "Hunter Gatherers."

• We've recently run three theater journals online. Andrew Paul's Katowice Journal covers his adventures in Poland directing "Stuff Happens," and the final version contains a number of pictures. Last week I posted my daily London Journal about the PG's Critic's Choice tour (also with a few pictures). And Homestead native Montae Russell has started a journal of his time in Washington, appearing in three of the August Wilson Pittsburgh Cycle plays at Kennedy Center.

You can find all three on the theater homepage, post-gazette.com/theater, which you really ought to have bookmarked.

• Cabaret tonight! One of the benefits of the Cabaret at Theatre Square (655 Penn Ave.) is late-night cabarets by visiting casts. Tonight at 10:30 p.m. the entire "Hairspray" company will do an AIDS/cancer fund-raiser. They promise hilarious numbers from such Broadway musicals as "Wicked," "Annie," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Chicago" and "The Pajama Game," plus pop tunes from the Doobie Brothers to the Pointer Sisters. Bring your cash and checkbooks for signed posters, CDs and one-of-a-kind props. Admission is $10 ($9 with a "Hairspray" program).

• Monday at 7 p.m. the Public offers a free panel of five scientists talking about cloning ad other issues related to Caryl Churchill's fine play, "A Number."

Paid admissions at city's pro theaters for the week ending March 16: