WORLD TRADE CENTER

Following Paul Greengrass' United 93, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is the second 9/11-themed movie to arrive in the past four months - including A&E's Flight 93 and the Discovery Channel's The Flight That Fought Back, the fourth in the last year - and make no mistake: There will be more. There are so many tales to be told and so many elements of this national tragedy to focus on that, as cinematic subject matter, 9/11 is practically inexhaustible.

About halfway through the overture for the Quad City Music Guild's preview performance of The Wizard of Oz, my friend, sporting a huge grin, turned to me and whispered, "I feel like I'm watching the movie." With the thrillingly familiar strains emanating from music director Valeree Pieper's splendid orchestra, I agreed completely, and it's fair to say that over the next two-and-three-quarters hours, that feeling almost never waned.

Derek Bertelsen, whose production of the musical The Secret Garden opens at St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center this Friday, repeats a common theatrical refrain: "It's hard being a director."

Yet it's important to understand that what Bertelsen probably means is that it's hard being a director when you're his age, as he follows that statement with, "You watch the Tony Awards and, you know, most of the directors winning awards are in their 40s. So you're, like, 'I've got about 20 years. I can fool around.'"

Yes, you read that correctly. The man directing The Secret Garden, with its cast of 19, has to wait nearly two decades before he reaches his 40s. And, for the second year in a row, this theatre major at Millikin University has a rather adventurous idea of what constitutes "fooling around" on summer break.

Calling the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's production of Incredible Sex a hit-and-miss affair is accurate, but that description doesn't do justice to just how sensational its hits are - the show, directed by Patrick Stinson, is more like hit-and-miss-and-hit-and-hit-and-hit. Composed of three one-act comedies by Rich Orloff - two performed in the first act and one in the second - Incredible Sex is so clever, and accommodates the talents of the CAST ensemble so fittingly, that the rare moments where you don't laugh are almost reprieves, and even then, you're probably smiling too much to care.