If you've noticed the surveys and clipboards at performances around town, know that Cincinnati is one of five pilot sites around the United States where information is being gathered. (The others are Denver, Pittsburgh, Seattle and the state of Alaska.)

        The effort is part of Pew Charitable Trusts' national project “Optimizing America's Cultural Resources'' that seeks to strengthen financial and policy support for America's cultural resources. (Five more U.S. sites will be added this year.)

        Being part of the study is considered a Big Thing and involves all of the city's primary performing arts institutions. (Odd note: University of Cincinnati is represented by Raymond Walters College, not College-Conservatory of Music.)

        So what difference is one more survey going to make?

        Cincinnati Opera management is coordinating the local effort, and it has hope.

        “One of the most persuasive things is the arts historically have had an inability to speak as a sector,” the opera's Chris Milligan says.

        Because of this project's collaborative nature, “This may be a way to start to change that.”

        The questions aren't ground-breaking: How valuable are the performing arts to you personally? How valuable do you believe the performing arts are for children living in Greater Cincinnati? What is your primary reason for being at this performance?

        There are 56 questions, and they cover a lot of the territory found in Ohio Arts Council's excellent SOAR (State of the Arts Report) that was largely financed by Wallace Reader's Digest Funds and unveiled last year.

        This time the arts sector is working with nonprofit research leader the Urban Institute, Mr. Milligan points out, so everyone is hoping the statistics will be taken more seriously than usual.

        National results are expected in the fall; in-depth local data isn't expected until fall 2003.

        What's going to stop it from being just one more survey/report that goes on the shelf?

        “Every arts community that's involved is committed to making the results actionable,” the opera's Julie Maslov says. “There's a strong advocacy component.

        “The goal is to influence public policy and public and private fund-raising.”

        Which brings us back to the avenue of good intentions and how this time is different.

        For years, report after report has rolled out, each one carrying remarkable statistics on art's role in education, quality of life, economic development, revitalizing downtowns. Look no further than the well-documented Regional Cultural report and plan.

        “We should sit down and create a strategy, create an advocacy plan,” Ms. Maslov noted.

        With 18 months to prepare, what a waste if they don't.

        The audience surveys will continue through this summer's opera season. There are also organization, subscriber and telephone surveys.

        Understudy makes good: Villa Hills native Angie L. Schworer steps out of the chorus and into the very high heels of blond bombshell Ulla (that's oooooo-la!) to answer the phone for Bialystock and Bloom, a k a The Producers, on tour.

        Ms. Schworer was able to make a persuasive case for the job when she spent a week subbing for Tony Award-winning Cady Huffman and asked all the show's decision-makers to please come see her.

        She'll be showing the hometown crowd what the creative team saw when she (and The Producers) open here in October.

        Arts meeting: City Council's Arts and Culture committee has set 4:30 p.m. April 11 for its next session. Committee chair Jim Tarbell promises the meeting will be devoted to input from members of the arts committee.

        Visuals and handouts are encouraged. Anyone who has a suggestion for a new program is advised to do some homework and explain whether similar ideas have worked in other cities. (Folks who take the mike are asked to keep it to three minutes.)

        Arrangements can be made for video set-up, slide projectors and other special requests. Contact Ron Wahl at 352-6228.

        Singing for charity: After taking a two-year breather, Back to Broadway is rarin' to go again, producer Mary Jo Katona reports.

        “We just needed to take a rest after five years.” More than 10,000 people saw the benefit revue in its final year.

        This year the revue will raise money for groups including Caracole, Children's Hospital, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, St. Xavier High School scholarship fund and the Thomas Rebold Foundation for the Arts.

        Mrs. Katona is working on material but has made no decisions on content yet.

        Auditions are scheduled for 7 to 10 p.m. April 1-2 in the undercroft of St. Antoninus Church (corner of Julmar Drive and Linneman Road in Covedale).

        “We have all our old friends but we hope to get some new people,” Mrs. Katona says. Singers bring music; dancers bring tap shoes. Terry LaBolt will be the audition accompanist so there's no need to worry about wrong notes.

        Audition times must be reserved. Call Mrs. Katona at 941-8808.Back to Broadway returns with several dates between Sept. 13-29.

        Tasty dish: Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd . . . Kentucky Symphony Orchestra has set the cast for its semi-staged concert presentation of Stephen Sondheim's glorious, Grand Guignol of a musical about the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

        Thom Sesma played the title role for Playhouse in the Park a few years back, and he reprises it here. Broadway veteran Barbara Marineau plays his pie-baking partner-in-crime Mrs. Lovett.

        Other principals include Ashley Brown (who gave a knock-'em-dead performance earlier this season as Cunegonde in College-Conservatory of Music's Candide), Scott Hunt, Pat Linhart, Joseph Porkorski and Thomas Sherwood.

        Terry LaBolt will stage the concert. KSO music director James Cassidy conducts.

        Performances are at 8 p.m. April 5-6 in Greaves Concert Hall, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights. Tickets $18 and $13. For reservations and information call (859) 431-6216.

        Another "Squeeze': Squeeze Box played to capacity crowds in Los Angeles and on the Playhouse in the Park plaza when it played for one night in January as part of the alteractive series.

        Loveland native Ann Randolph was smart, saucy and utterly endearing in her one-woman show that recounts her mishap-filled romance with a classical accordionist and weekend backpacker she met through an Internet personal ad.

        You probably didn't get to see Ms. Randolph's first run in Cincinnati because Loveland turned out in force. She returns for an encore at 7 p.m. April 8, and you don't have to be her parents' neighbors or her first-grade teacher to love the show. (It's probably better if you're not.)

        Tickets $10 (students $6). Call the box office at 421-3888.

        Summer fare: Know Theatre Tribe will present the Cincinnati premiere of showbiz satire Anton in Show Business in August (replacing the musical Ruthless!) If you just can't wait, Human Race in Dayton will be performing Anton next month, featuring two of Cincinnati's best actresses, Sherman Fracher and Corinne Mohlenhoff.

        Heavenly play: Ensemble Theatre adds another Off-Center/On-Stage title to the season, picking up Heaven and Hell (on Earth) from last year's Humana Festival of New American Plays.

        Heaven is a comic anthology performed by 22 young actors (probably including some holdovers from ETC's 2001-02 apprentice company).

        Sixteen playwrights — including Jane Martin, Rebecca Gilman and Playhouse veterans Keith Glover and Elizabeth Wong — grapple with vice and virtue and salvation and damnation.

        Dates are May 29-June 9.
       Contact Jackie Demaline by phone: 768-8530; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jdemaline@enquirer.com.

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