By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

Loveland native Ann Randolph is headed for off-Broadway with Oscar winner (and Mrs. Mel Brooks) Anne Bancroft acting as producer.

Randolph's wry, occasionally doleful, side-splittingly funny and emotionally satisfying one-woman show Squeeze Box has been a hit in Los Angeles, which she currently calls home, and in Playhouse in the Park's alteractive series. It begins previews at Theater Row's Acorn Theater on July 22.

Squeeze Box is inspired by a personal ad she placed five years ago. "I'm always lying in relationships," she told the Enquirer in 2002, when she made her Playhouse debut, "so I decided I was gonna put out there exactly what I wanted."

The bold headline included Beauty, Brains, Brahms, Backpacker and a term that can't be printed here. The ad got big traffic; she fell for a classically trained accordionist.

Randolph creates more than a dozen characters as she recounts a mishap-filled mountain-climbing adventure, and also touches on some of her experiences working at an L.A. women's shelter.

The show is directed by Alan Bailey, also very familiar to Playhouse audiences as the guy who conceived and directed the Smoke on the Mountain musicals.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com