Join me in wishing very happy holidays to the folks at City Hall.

Good wishes to you, Mr. Mayor, for recognizing that "our arts community is vital to the success of our city."

Arts supporters may want to toast Councilman John Cranley as the best finance committee chairman ever.

And the best of good cheer to Councilman Jim Tarbell, chair of the arts and culture committee. He says what's happening in Cincinnati right now is "so exciting I can hardly stand it."

"Arts-friendly" is the only word for the city budget, which passed Wednesday and includes $2.2 million in capital investment funding for the arts and $700,000 for community facilities including Music Hall, Cincinnati Art Museum and Cincinnati Museum Center.

The reason the arts received a unanimous thumbs-up from City Council and the Mayor's Office in a tough budget year is simply this: Investment in arts and culture works.

"Ohio is losing its under-40 population faster than any state in the Union," sighs Mr. Luken.

He's hoping some of the young workforce (think: tax base) will stay if Cincinnati gets "more interesting." And there's one obvious place to invest in the interesting - arts and culture, which appeal to young and old, black and white, poor, middle-class and wealthy.

Mr. Luken wants all of those people visiting here, living here, working here.

The one thing he's "hell-bent" on doing, he says, is getting the Art Academy of Cincinnati headquartered in Over-the-Rhine. "It's a home run to have that number of artists going to school and possibly living there."

Mr. Cranley says frankly that he's supporting the arts agenda because "at this time, arts are the No. 1 opportunity for sustained and long-term economic growth for Cincinnati."

What he wants to see, he says, is for the money "to be leveraged to create urban spaces, to make Cincinnati a destination for people to come downtown and Over-the-Rhine to enjoy the arts."

"Cincinnati has a much better story to tell than the one we've told so far," says Mayor Luken.

As you toast 2003 at holiday parties, tell that story. The coming year is going to be an extraordinary opportunity to feel the power of the arts, in the soul and the economic health of the city.

Encourage everyone who makes decisions that Cincinnati needs a coherent plan to show itself off to best advantage in the coming year. And a plan to build on in 2004 and beyond.

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed," says Mr. Tarbell. "There are a half-dozen development interests downtown . . . but they're seldom in the same room at the same time."

Council members have been impressed with the letters (both the number and content) coming in from arts supporters. Keep telling your stories. Don't be afraid to share great arts ideas you've seen in other cities with Mr. Tarbell's Arts and Culture Committee. (If you have any, tell me, too.)

While you're at it, write a Letter to the Editor, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202. There's no better place to state your case for the arts.

The right dress: How hard can it be to put a girl in a yellow dress?

Harder than you might think. In Tony Award-winning best musical Contact, continuing through next Sunday at the Aronoff, a blond girl in a yellow dress is the focal point of the swing dance-drama that is the climax of the show.

Broadway veteran costumer William Ivey Long knew what he needed. "It had to be a flirty, sexy cocktail dress. But it also had to be a dance dress."

He started with one that was "filmy, floaty, very ethereal." Scratch that. The flighty chiffon was uncontrollable. "The male dancers couldn't lift her. She slipped out of their hands. We needed a dress men could get a grip on literally."

So began an experiment with length, fabric, color. How to keep the yellow from not being washed out by strong stage lighting? Sew in sparkles. How to keep the girl from slipping through her partners' fingers? The dress went from floaty to form-fitting.

Nine was already a lucky number for Mr. Long. He won a Tony Award for costuming Nine, and after eight tries it's the ninth yellow dress that gets the job done.

Tickets: 241-7469.

New plays: The lineup for the 27th Humana Festival of New American Plays, (March 2-April 13) at Actors Theatre of Louisville looks like the most promising in years.

The six full-length plays on the schedule are:

The Faculty Room by Bridget Carpenter is about a trio of lost souls teaching high school. Ms. Carpenter broke onto the national scene with the evocative Fall, which was introduced to Cincinnati in a reading by Women's Theatre Initiative.

Slide Glide the Slippery Slope by Kia Corthron reunites twins who have spent a lifetime apart and ask: Is it better to create what you wish for or love what is? Ms. Corthron's powerful girl-gang drama Breath, Boom plays Ensemble April 2-5.

The Second Death of Priscilla by Russell Davis is a fantasia about facing your personal monsters.

Orange Lemon Egg Canary by Rinne Groff is a mysterious love story about a magician and his assistant.

The Lively Lad by Quincy Long is a social satire with original songs by Michael Silversher.

Omnium-Gatherum by Cincinnati native Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros was written in the aftermath of Sept. 11. You first read about it, and an interview with Ms. Rebeck, in this column in September.

Equal parts comedy, tragedy and fantasy, it brings together several fascinating guests for a dinner party hosted by a Martha Stewart wannabe, set somewhere between chaos and the mouth-of-hell.

To be announced: the 10-minute play program, the 16 authors of an anthology about phobias and details of a Spoken Word poetry project.

Tickets are on sale. A new Humana Premiere Pass offers four admissions for $100. Call the box office at (800) 428-5849 or visit the Web site at www.actorstheatre.org.

Gift idea: Here's a thought for last minute giving for everyone who loved Ensemble's 2001 production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Todd Almond (a.k.a. Hedwig) has recorded 9-track A Wind Has Blown the Rain Away, with composer Ellen Mandel setting the poems of e.e. cummings to music. It sounded great on NPR.

The CD is $15 and available through Brite Records at mandelandlydon@earthlink.net.

Best solo: Loveland home girl Ann Randolph is the best in L.A. Her solo show Squeeze Box, which she has performed locally at Playhouse's alteractive and as a fund-raiser for Loveland Stage Co., has just won Theatre LA's Ovation Award for 2002's Best Solo Show.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Ovations are "the most high-profile context for theater on L.A."

Squeeze Box has already been featured on National Public Radio and PBS. My bet is that the best is yet to come.

Casting news: Adam Monley (CCM 2000) plays a title role in a new musical Romeo and Bernadette that opens in Miami in January then moves on to New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse in February with, of course, hopes of crossing the Hudson River into Manhattan. Director is Mark Waldrop (CCM '75)

As for Romeo's chances for a longer life than Shakespeare gave him: librettist/lyricist Mark Saltzman's writing creds include The Adventures of Milo and Otis, Angela Lansbury TV movie Mrs. Santa Claus, and co-authored the musical A . . . My Name Is Alice. He also holds seven Emmy Awards for his work on Sesame Street.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com