Now that you've seen Metamorphoses at Playhouse in the Park, meet its creator and ask her "How'd you do that?"

MacArthur "genius" grant recipient (and Tony Award-winning best director - the first woman to win that trophy - for Metamorphoses) Mary Zimmerman gives a free lecture about her splashy adaptation of stories by Ovid at 5 p.m. today from the pool deck (aka the stage) in the Marx Theatre.

Just to break the ice for the Q&A, here's a little background:

A lifetime fan of ancient myth and fairy tales ("I still have the red, blue and green books"), Zimmerman is the daughter of professor parents (her father was a Rhodes scholar) and confesses to being a compulsive reader.

Despite a girlhood of putting on plays in her back yard, Zimmerman didn't start out to be a director because women directors "didn't exist in nature" when she was embarking on a career. She thought about being an actress "but felt I wasn't pretty enough."

Mary Zimmerman

She began her university life with a more practical major "but transferred into theater in a week, because it would have been anguish not to."

In case you're wondering what she's up to next, "I'm retired!" she laughed by phone the other day.

Don't worry, she's kidding even though she's had shows "back to back to back since February." She is taking a breather but she has an invitation to direct Shakespeare (she won't say what or where) in the 2004-05 season.

For information - and reservations for Metamorphoses, continuing through Nov. 21 - call the Playhouse box office at 421-3888.

Open mike

Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival company member and performance poet Mahogany Scott will host a 24-hour open mike at the Greenwich (2442 Gilbert Ave.) beginning at 9:30 p.m. Saturday.

She credits remarks by University of Cincinnati theater professor Michael Burnham at the League of Cincinnati Theatres kick-off party in September for the inspiration. (Burnham eloquently expounded on the theory of "Just do it!")

Scott wants the marathon open mike to be established as a monthly tradition by the time the Cincinnati Fringe Festival debuts in May 2004 (under the auspices of Cincinnati Shakespeare).

The soon-to-be-sleep-deprived Scott is busily booking spoken word artists, musicians, monologists, authors of essays, short plays and what all.

"It's open to anyone," she says. To register your act, call Mark Yates at the Greenwich, 751-2823.

Study of anthology

Women's Theatre Initiative collaborates with several departments at Northern Kentucky University for Strange Fruit, in conjunction with a visit from Kathy Perkins and Judith Stephens who have edited the play collection Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching by American Women.

It's the first drama anthology to address how lynching has been reflected in American theatre and culture. (The plays in the anthology were written from 1916 to the mid-1990s; lynching continued to be a pressing issue in the African-American community well into the 1950s.)

The co-authors will offer a free lecture at noon Nov. 7 in NKU's Corbett Theatre.

On Nov. 8, the initiative joins in with staged readings of Black Souls by Annie Nathan Meyer and Climbing Jacobs' Ladder by Regina Anderson Andrews, with discussion and a reception scheduled from 3 to 5 p.m. in the theater, also free admission.

For information, call Daryl Harris of the Institute for Freedom Studies at (859) 572-1472 or contact him at harrisda@nku.edu.

UC grad cops prize

UC drama grad Stephanie Skaff ('01) is recipient of the Pierre Cardin Theatre Award theater apprenticeship, part of the annual Princess Grace Awards for aspiring young American theater, dance and film artists.

Skaff is living in New York and is a co-founder of the Black Market Group, dedicated to producing original works free to the public. She also performs with Only Make Believe, which brings theater to children.

A native of Perrysburg, Ohio, Skaff appeared at College-Conservatory of Music in shows that included The Grapes of Wrath and Our Country's Good.

'Backstage at the Ballet'

Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan and music director Carmon DeLeone will take folks "Backstage at the Ballet" in a KeyBank Celebrating Self luncheon on Wednesday at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton.

Tickets are $15. For reservations and information call 863-8873.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com