By Jackie Demaline / Enquirer staff writer

I Am My Own Wife, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play, gets its Cincinnati premiere in March 2005 as the centerpiece to Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati's 2004-2005 season.

IF YOU GO

What: Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati 2004-2005 season Where: 1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine When: 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Holiday evening show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets: Subscriptions $120-$130 adults, $99 seniors and fulltime students. Individual tickets: $28 adults, $25 seniors and students go on sale later this summer. 421-3555.

Next season, which includes the regional premiere of docudrama The Exonerated, made up of interviews with former death row inmates, "is a re-commitment to our location" at 12th and Vine streets in Over-the-Rhine, says Ensemble producing artistic director D. Lynn Meyers.

"And it's an election year, there are so many issues being discussed. I see this season as taking a stand."

The season

Sept. 8-26 - The Exonerated is culled from 40 interviews with death row inmates who were eventually proven innocent and released. Variety called it "an artful and moving evening ..."

Watch for a collaboration with University of Cincinnati College of Law and The Ohio Innocence Project. Speakers will include Barry Scheck, who founded the national Innocence Project in 1992. Details to be announced.

Oct. 13-31 - Thirty Ghosts is a world premiere by Robert Lewis Vaughan, whose Praying for Rain played ETC in 2002. The title of the contemporary ghost story is taken from a quote by sci-fi grand master Arthur Charles Clarke: "Behind every man now alive stands 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living."

Dec. 1-28 - Sleeping Beauty last held the holiday slot in 2000.

Princess Briar Rose, three funky fairies, a mean dragon, a meaner fairy queen and a rockin' prince are all part of David Kisor and Joseph McDonough's musical adaptation of the fairy tale classic.

Jan. 26-Feb. 13 - Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends) is now in an acclaimed New York revival.

It sets a successful but dissatisfied artist on a visit with a former love to help him rediscover his soul and redefine his art.

March 2-20 - I Am My Own Wife tells the remarkable story of how playwright Doug Wright went about composing the story of Charlotte von Mahsdorf, a German transvestite who survived the Nazis and Communism.

April 20-May 8 - While We Were Bowling is a comedy set in the '50s with a family torn between breaking a bowling record and breaking hearts.

It's by Carter Lewis, who authored 2002 Ensemble hit Women Who Steal.

Construction on the new Gateway project, including parking and housing directly across from the theater, could impact Ensemble's Theatre of the Mind reading series and the annual Off-Center/On-Stage series of workshop productions, says Meyers.

"I'd like to do three or four" Off-Centers, she says, but the affordability of parking (including hiring security) on off-nights is likely to be an issue.

At the moment only River of Freedom, a musical by local songwriting team Janet Vogt and Mark Friedman about the writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is planned.

The performance dates are to be announced.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com