Scanning the list of regional stage offerings during these dog days of summer is a dogged business for anybody with a taste for fresh theatrical meat.

        Producers shout “Family, family, family,” but one can't help wondering: Whose family? A lot of the plays and musicals offered made their original debuts between the Truman and Kennedy administrations, with an occasional bow to the early Reagan years.

        Does the much-desired 18-to-49 demographic relate to old shows done in old ways?

        “There isn't anything that's exciting anybody I know,” sighs Benjamin Mosse, 25, artistic director of IF Collective. Mr. Mosse was awarded a coveted slot in Yale University's master's of fine arts directing program and leaves at the end of next month.

        Are local summer producers overlooking a huge potential audience as they pursue “traditional” and probably dwindling summer theater audiences?

        What's the greater risk: Pursuing younger-thinking audiences or not pursuing them?

        Certainly the enormous population bubble that is the Baby Boom is graying, but not in the way our parents did. We don't do anything the way our parents did.

        We drink as much cola as coffee, and our coffee is designer. Casual Friday was invented for us. We drive re-imagined Volkswagen Bugs. Remote controls accommodate our shortened attention spans. We were there for the birth of rock 'n' roll, and the scariest hyphenate any of us have ever heard is “middle-aged.”

        The generations growing up behind us — technology-savvy computer wizards who weekly re-invent pop music — are as different from us as we are from the generation before.

        So why do so many producers of summer theater cling to dying traditions when the aging audience rejects an aging state of mind?

        “I can't fathom it,” says D. Lynn Meyers, producing artistic director at Ensemble Theatre, which is coming off a successful June run of jolly rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

        “We had people who'd never been in the theater before. The audience skewed younger than it does even during the season, and some people came back more than once.

        “Why wouldn't a different audience be out there? They don't just go to oldies concerts at Riverbend, they go to see new movies.”

        Ms. Meyers is so pleased with the Hedwig experiment that she's nosing around for a potential follow-up for next summer.

        She's fresh back from New York where she made a point of seeing Bat Boy: The Musical, the off-Broadway hit that celebrates the popular, longtime cover boy of outrageous tabloid World Weekly News.

        “I didn't love it,” she says, sighing. “I liked the idea, and I liked the crowd (who bought tickets that night).”

        Ms. Meyers expects ETC will be in the midst of major renovations next summer. When the capital campaign collects its final $300,000, the theater will replace the light grid, roof and heating/air-conditioning system.

        “That's not to say we wouldn't produce somewhere else,” she says. “That could be very fun.”

        Playhouse in the Park's savvy summer programming includes a revival of popular Smoke on the Mountain. It speaks to souls of all ages who have a soft spot for gospel, bluegrass and soft-hearted humor and tickle-the-funny bone, ever-hip New Vaudeville clown Avner the Eccentric.

        The theater is being rewarded with enough audiences to extend Smoke through Aug. 12. Box office: 421-3888.

        A rare premiere: The fledgling Women's Theatre Initiative makes its debut this week with what is oh so rare on summer stages in Cincinnati: the regional premiere of a contemporary American drama. By a woman playwright.

        One Flea Spare, by acclaimed Kentucky-born playwright Naomi Wallace, had its debut at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in the mid-90s.

        The Initiative (formerly the Minerva Project) offered a reading of it last fall that far outstripped the Humana production in emotional depth and understanding.

        Both director Mary Tensing and actress Diane Danzi are still with the production, which promises some memorable theater.

        Flea, set during the Plague, holds many allegories as a middle-aged married couple find a pair of strangers taking refuge in their home. They tensely wait out their quarantine, watching for the first signs of the disease and exposing their souls.

        “There's a line near the end of the play — "I have loved them, they have marked me irrevocably,' ” Ms. Tensing says.

        “One of the things Flea is about is how we mark the people we know in life, for good and for bad. We do tend to bring all the hurts from our lives with us. And there is always the opportunity for redemption.”

        One of the most fascinating aspects of Flea is that feminist playwright Ms. Wallace explores the sensuality of a middle-aged woman.

        “There's real eroticism,” Ms. Tensing notes. “That's so rarely allowed for an older woman character. And it happens in the most unlikely place with the most unlikely partner — there's a surprising beauty there.”

        Women's Theatre Initiative debuts under the banner of Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and will be performed at the festival theater (719 Race St.) Wednesday through Sunday.

        Tickets are $10. A portion of Wednesday's ticket sales will go to Crazy Ladies' Bookstore, a portion of Thursday ticket sales will be donated to MUSE. Box office: 381-2273.

        Initiative co-founder Kristin Dietsche is hoping for a show of support for the new project, which has a mission to develop women's voices in theater.

        Among the artists involved behind-the-scenes are set and lighting designer Susan Terrano, costume designer Gretchen Vaughn and sound designer Sunny Rhoads.

        Women's Theatre Initiative will start the selection process for next summer's production with public readings in October and November, details TBA. The Initiative is taking title suggestions; call Ms. Dietsche at 533-9907.

        The project is also hoping to grow beyond an annual event. What happens from here, Ms. Dietsche says, will have everything to do with the enthusiasm, participation and support of the community.

        Debuting in Cleveland: Local playwright Liz Presley-Fields is counting the days to the world premiere of her Not Without Scars in September in the Cleveland area.

        The drama is based on the life of the Rev. Mark C. Olds, who “has had a dramatic life,” Ms. Presley-Fields says. “He comes from Southern sharecropping roots, he lived through the Civil Rights Movement and the Blaxploitation era, he served time in prison, where he was ordained and started his ministry. It's a redeemed life.”

        Ms. Presley-Fields says she was attracted to the project, working with Rev. Olds, partly “because he has a very good grasp of history.” They met when they were both working on a faith-based substance abuse prevention initiative.

        “I really stretched to write it,” she says.

        Not Without Scars opens Sept. 21 at Cuyahoga Community College's Eastern Campus Theatre in Warrensville Heights and continues for three weekends.

        For more information call Ms. Presley-Fields at 569-0342.

        E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/demaline

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