Best news of the week: The Arts Advocacy Initiative is moving forward on several fronts.

        Starting this month, the initiative plans a monthly series of Sunday salons that will give arts advocates an opportunity to meet with candidates. (Details to come.)

        Jean Siebenaler, running for Hamilton County Commission, was the guest at a trial run last Sunday. Ms. Siebenaler isn't an arts advocate per se, but she talked of “dollars and sense” and about Richard Florida, exponent of “The Creative Class,” and his recent appearance in Cincinnati.

        Wooing a creative job force to Hamilton County is the only way to achieve long-term sustainability, she noted, and arts are a clear route to attracting the best people. Lifestyle matters.

        Local arts advocates clearly have some educating to do. Ms. Siebenaler thought the regional economic impact of arts and culture is $4 million annually. (It's closer to $250 million.)

        A nifty advocacy card — “What's art got to do with it? EVERYTHING!” was among last Sunday's handouts (courtesy of Danute Miskinis). On the flip side are valuable e-mail addresses for arts advocates, including cincinnatiarts.com. That's the place to go for updates on initiative activities and to sign up.

        The initiative is arranging a lobbying workshop with Ohio Citizens for the Arts. The timing couldn't be better (unfortunately) as the Ohio Arts Council will see a 15 percent cut in the new fiscal year that started July 1. (That's 9 percent higher than had been expected. The perilous state economy is the culprit.)

        An “Arts on the Move” project has been announced. Anyone interested in making some noise through art can contact visual artist Aileen May at jamesmay@worldnet.att.net.

        The initiative has completed a facilities survey. Check it out at cincinnatiarts.com.

        "Producers' update: It's official: Lewis Stadlen and Don Stephenson will play Bialystock and Bloom in The Producers when it tours to Cincinnati in October.

        As promised in this column a few months back, Northern Kentucky natives Lee Roy Reams and Angie Schworer will be coming home to playflaming director Roger De Bris and sexpot secretary Ulla.

        Mr. Reams is a College-Conservatory of Music grad and so is ensemble member Kent Zimmerman ('96). If you can bring together a group of 20 or more you can buy tickets now (and not pay the Ticketmaster service charge.) Group sales: 369-4363. Individual tickets go on sale in September: 241-7469.

        More casting news: Cathy Rigby will reprise her role of the Cat in the Hat in the touring Seussical: The Musical.

        Play going: Composer buds Jake Heggie and Stephen Flaherty will be checking out each other's shows this week. Mr. Heggie has invited Ragtime composer Mr. Flaherty to Cincinnati Opera's Dead Man Walking. Mr. Flaherty returns the favor and Mr. Heggie will join the CCM alum at the world premiere revue We Tell the Story at Hot Summer Nights at University of Cincinnati.

        Leaving town: Worst news of the week: actor Nick Rose departs Cincinnati and the ensemble of Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. An annual MVP, he was a company founder who grew into one of the festival's most dazzling assets.

        His ultimate destination is Chicago, and he has promised to return to reprise his leading role in Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol.

        Mr. Rose, Giles Davies and Jeremy Dubin have all decided to leave the core company. They all have big, well-deserved fan bases, and parting will be a not so-sweet sorrow for audiences.

        It's all part of growing up, festival artistic director Jasson Minadakis says. “We want people to have the ability to get out and stretch. They need not to be tired or worn down or burned out. So we try to let go, make sure they have the opportunities they want and bring them back on occasion.”

        Perfectly logical, but I'm suffering separation anxiety. The three actors' contribution to the festival's artistic success has been enormous. It's probably time to tell Brian Isaac Phillips, the lone returning member of the core company, that we're glad he's sticking around.

        New York bound: Also departing: Deborah Ludwig, one of the founders of Ovation Theatre, will head for New York, but you can catch her one last time in Crimes of the Heart.

        In fact she's taking the advice of her Crimes character who at one point says “Take a chance, will you, just take a chance.”

        “It's my time to envision a different life for myself,” says Ms. Ludwig, 36. “I wish I were eight years younger, but I'm not. What I don't want to be saying to myself 10 or 15 years from now is, "Why didn't you do it?' ”

        She'd actually planned on making a New York move in 1998, but Ovation came along and Ms. Ludwig decided to stay and see what happened.

        Crimes, a Pulitzer Prize winner for playwright Beth Henley, is a sad and funny comedy about three Southern sisters. Corinne Mohlenhoff and Amie Bello play Ms. Ludwig's siblings.

        Ms. Ludwig admits to a five-year plan for New York that includes, classes, mailing resumes, auditioning, getting an agent, getting hired and even writing her own show — a one-woman musical about actress Betty Hutton.

        Even in Cincinnati, she notes, she's “made things happen for myself,” including helping to establish Ovation and pushing stellar vehicles for herself, including Lanford Wilson's Moonshot Tape a couple of years back.

        “I can be relentless when I want something,” she promises, laughing.

        Crimes plays Friday through July 20. There's a pay-what-you-can performance at 8 p.m. Thursday Tickets: 241-7469.

        ACT winners: There were a lot of winners at last weekend's ACT-Cincinnati conference: 240 Orchid Awards were shared among almost 50 productions in southwest Ohio's active community theater 2001-02 season.

        Cincinnati Music Theatre's She Loves Me won a whopping 25 Orchids, 10 percent of the awards. Michael Morehead led the way for individual artists with four Orchids for directing and sound and lighting design. Dee Anne Bryll and Dave Radke won three each, one for co-choreographing Guys and Dolls for Footlighters.

        Ms. Bryll seems to have a golden touch: her Orchids were for Guys and Dolls, A Piece of My Heart and Rumors. Excerpts of the first two shows will continue on to statewide competition at OCTAfest (Ohio Community Theatre Association) over Labor Day weekend. Rumors is the OCTAfest alternate.

        Congratulations to the shows that move on to state competition: Camping with Henry and Tom (Mariemont Players), FM (Falcon Players), Guys and Dolls (Footlighters) and A Piece of My Heart (Drama Workshop).

        "Weight' wait is over: Eating disorders — chronic dieting, anorexia, bulimia — are the subject of The Weighting Game by Jennifer Dalton and Sarah Mann-Drake, opening Friday for a two-weekend run at Gabriel's Corner.

        Game has made an occasional public appearance over the last year as it's been developed. This is the official premiere, co-produced by Know Theatre Tribe.

        Weighting is written in a game show format. Both women had eating disorders in junior high school, when Ms. Dalton dreamed of being a model and Ms. Mann-Drake a ballet dancer.

        They also did research and discovered that self-starvation has been an issue at least since the Middle Ages.

        Video segments by Marc Siemer point an accusing finger at media's culpability. Susan Hill and Tara Guilfoil co-star with the authors.

        Women's Theatre Initiative will hold a talk-back after the July 19 performance.

        Know Tribe: 513-300-5669 (KNOW).

        Know will hold auditions from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and July 20 for In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe and touring show Free: The Tireless Voices of America. An Asian actor, aged 20s-40s, is especially needed.

        For information call or e-mail knowtribe@hotmail.com.
       E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/demaline

Special Section: Rosemary Clooney Remembered
Opera carries on nun's message
Sister Helen Prejean speaks on . . .
KIESEWETTER: Fall prime-time will be (bleeping) different
'80s box set is totally righteous
Get to it
DEMALINE: Sunday salons lure political candidates
Favorites fill theater seats
Museum buys self portraits from Jim Dine
Bastille Day deserves fare with French accent
MARTIN: Shrimp and Grits is Southern comfort food
Serve it this week: Goat cheese
DAUGHERTY: $7 a pack might be the price for peace of mind
Collector has turned Erlanger home into playful pigpen
John Frankenheimer, director, dies at 72
Potter imposter hits China