An Open Letter To A.G. Lafley: Holiday greetings, Mr. Lafley, and thanks to you for all Procter & Gamble does for the arts.

I suspect we can also thank you for arm-twisting the Fine Arts Fund into adding a pre-Sampler Weekend Friday night event targeted at young adults. It's long overdue.

Mr. Lafley, please save this effort while there's still a chance.

As you know, the plan is to have a party (6-11 p.m. Feb. 14) in the lobby areas of the cool new loft space Sycamore Place (the former Krippendorf Building at Seventh and Sycamore). Great starting point, especially if you're selling downtown living, which needs to happen.

There will be bands, dancing, poetry readings and maybe some small music and theater performances here and there. There will be snacks and a cash bar. When people leave they'll get a goodies bag that includes the Sampler Weekend schedule and a sampler of P&G products.

BUT. If P&G and the Fine Arts Fund really wanted to be pro-active with the arts, you will find a way to get these next-gen audiences to where the arts are.

Then they'll know about the funky space upstairs at Carol's on Main and the new Blue Wisp. They'll know it's an easy walk from Hamburger Mary's to Ensemble Theatre. They'll see parking everywhere. And, most importantly, they'll see performance that blows them sideways through life. And they will want to see more.

You could still do the P&G product giveaway and give our young adult population a reason to make a habit of coming to live performance downtown.

Is one more Meet Market how you'd unveil one of your Big Wow products?

By the way, young adults aren't the only grown-ups with no kids (whether empty-nesters or just solo) who wouldn't mind participating in a happening evening of performance. (We're what, about 40 percent of the population? Don't sell us short.)

Truth be told, the name, "Arts Bizarre," is a re-tread from the '80s. (The group that hosted it for years is long defunct.)

Procter & Gamble has made Cincinnati the Land of the Brand. Let me throw a title a Texas town has come up with for an event meant to attract a whole new crowd. "Fresh Terrain." Evocative, isn't it?

Be honest. Which one would you head for? (OK, ask your kids.) Not surprisingly, a lot of that much-discussed and sought-after young creative class is headed out of Cincinnati. The fresh terrain of Austin is one of the destinations.

If you want to make an impact that arty partiers will keep talking about - where are the midnight shows? Does the town really have to shut down at 11 o'clock?

What about a scavenger hunt that would get them prowling the arty parts of downtown and being rewarded for their troubles? What about some performance art on the street to give their nerve endings a shake? How about some hands-on art-making experiences?

Wouldn't it have been a rush if there had been a 10-minute performing arts festival? One more night of drinking and mingling won't give the city's young artists the chance to do what they do: engage and amaze us.

Please do for the arts scene what P&G does best. Think outside the box.

West-side stages: The holidays come to west-side stages this week where locally written original musicals take the spotlight.

A musical A Christmas Carol debuts Wednesday at Covedale Center for the Performing Arts (4990 Glenway Ave.)

Carol is as chock-full of favorites as a Christmas stocking: Danny Davies is Scrooge, Ty Yadzinski will sing many songs in the dual roles of Young Scrooge and nephew Fred, and Bill Hartnett plays Marley's Ghost. In a new twist, Charles Dickens joins the action. He's played by Bob Brunner.

Like last summer's center opener West Side Story, Carol had been sold out for weeks.

But - it's magic! - 100 new seats a night are now available for sale. Covedale artistic director (and Carol author) Tim Perrino sends holiday good cheer to the city of Cincinnati for sending elves (er, inspectors) who signed off on building renovations in time for opening night. Call the box office at 241-6550. Carol continues through Dec. 29.

The Fantastic Toy Shoppe makes a return appearance by The Children's Theatre. The family musical by David Kisor and Joe McDonough, the authors of Ensemble's enchanting The Frog Princess (421-3555), opens Friday for a two-weekend engagement at the College of Mount St. Joseph (5701 Delhi Road).

Of course, one magical night the toys come to life. A dancing rocking horse and singing jack-in-the-box are among the toys that try to save a romance between a toy sailor and ballerina.

Home for the holidays to reprise their Toy Shoppe roles are Children's Theatre veterans Brian Kash (who plays the kindly shop owner) and Patrick Toon (who plays the villain.)

These days they're New Yorkers. Mr. Toon has been living in Queens since last January, Mr. Kash and fiancee Rachel Lynch (Oak Hills '93) moved to the Lower East Side last June. (He proposed in Central Park.)

Auditions are the name of the game for both actors. Mr. Toon is a workshop assistant to ceramics artist Joseph Conforti in Soho. Last summer, he performed in the Shakespeare Project in New Jersey and played a transvestite Hispanic maid (with British accent) in the indie film Scallop Pond. (Release date TBA.)

Mr. Kash also had summer stage work. Two on the Aisle, Three in a Van, which premiered at Northern Kentucky University's Y.E.S. Festival of New Plays a few years ago, did a small East Coast tour. Mr. Kash reprised his original role of an obsessive dancer.

These days, he's working at Angus McIndoe, next door to The Producers. It's a great gig, he says. "I hear about everything while I work tables and bartend. The place is constantly filled with casting directors, producers, directors and other actors.

"At the bar, people will talk to you one-on-one. So now at auditions, people are starting to recognize me and I recognize them."

For Toy Shoppe reservations and information, call the box office at 569-8080. Mr. Toon will sportingly don a Santa suit for photo ops before the matinees.

Reindeer tales: A dirty old Santa, a sardonic elf, a Marley's Ghost who shoves Ebenezer Scrooge from center stage - if you're looking for holiday entertainment with attitude, you can find it on a number of the city's smaller stages.

The Eight: Reindeer Monologues continues Upstairs at Carol's (825 Main St.) through Dec. 21 (and what a tale the antlered octet have to tell). Lyle Benjamin, Tara Guilfoil, Gina Cerimele-Mechley and Matthew Pyle are among the talented cast. Tickets $15, call 681-2043...

Friends of Lucy comedy troupe presents Twas a Laugh Before Christmas at the Monmouth Theater (636 Monmouth St.) in Newport, also through Dec. 21. Call 588-0513.

Down the street, NPR commentator David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries and Season's Greetings continue at The Artery (913 Monmouth St.) through Dec. 22 courtesy of New Edgecliff. Call 763-3844.

Cincinnati Shakespeare's terrific rendition of Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol continues through Dec. 29 at 719 Race St. Call 381-2273.

`Gingham Dog': Cincinnati Shakespeare will come full circle to close its 2002-03 season. It opened the season with Brian Isaac Phillips directing an urban, interracial Romeo & Juliet.

Racial relations are also the subject of season ender, Lanford Wilson's The Gingham Dog, which powerfully explores the disintegration of an interracial marriage. It will play May 22-June 15 in the CSF Studio slot. Mr. Phillips directs.

Festival artistic director Nick Rose and Taylore Mahogany Scott (who will reprise solo show The Gimmick in January) play a young couple struggling to save their marriage.

"It's the first play I ever read about interracial relations," says Mr. Phillips. The choice to produce it was inspired "after seeing some of the reaction to Romeo & Juliet, the anger people felt."

If Shakespeare's tragedy is about miscommunication, Mr. Wilson's is about misconceptions, about "the deeply ingrained attitudes people grow up with and find it hard to get over."

(If you, like me, can't get enough Lanford Wilson, May is your month. IF Theatre Collective is scheduled to produce his haunting Sympathetic Magic at Xavier University's Gallagher Center theater starting May 15.)

Starting Jan. 1, CSF will drop its Wednesday performances and ticket prices will drop back to $20 .

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com