From Rent to the Bard, the choice is yours your own adventure-we dare ya

Gender-bending intrigue, solve-it-yourself mysteries and settings ranging Victorian Africa to 3a non-geographical location2<Duke1s fall theatrical lineup promises a host of opportunities for comedy, tragedy and everything in between.

Hoof On1 Horn, the South1s oldest student-run musical theater group, will kick off the semester with The Mystery of Edwin Drood in Shaefer Theater. The musical is a play-within-a-play taken from an unfinished Charles Dickens novel, and at each performance the audience will vote on the ending. Auditions for the show will be at the start of the semester and are open to everyone. The show will run parents1 weekend, as will the fall Duke Players and Department of Theater Studies1 offering, Cloud Nine.

Penned by the British playwright Caryl Churchill and under the direction of Jeff Storer, associate professor of theater studies Cloud Nine plays on themes of sexual politics through cross-gendered casting and switches in time and place in colonial Africa, and the second in modern London, while the characters have aged 25 years. If that weren1t confusing enough, after intermission the entire cast switches roles. Although Cloud Nine has already been cast, aspiring freshman thespians can still try out for the department1s winter show, Macbeth.

Can1t wait Otill October? During orientation, Hoof On1 Horn stages a cabaret and Duke Players puts on a production of Christopher Durang1s comedy, The Actor1s Nightmare.

Smaller student-run theater groups, such as Wendell Theatre Group, Where1s Gus?, and Brown & Green, will announce their schedules later in the semester. Wendell is planning an evening of one-act plays, while Where1s Gus? will stage a comedy in the early winter.

If your tastes are more cosmopolitan, check out the Broadway at Duke series, which brings touring companies of (get this!) Broadway shows to Page Auditorium. The fall semester will offer The Scarlet Pimpernel and Fosse, while in January you can catch the rock musical Rent and April brings South Pacific. Organizers recommend buying tickets by Sept. 26, as the shows sell out early. There are also a host of professional theaters in the Triangle, such as Man Bites Dog Theater in Durham and the PlayMakers Repertory in Chapel Hill, both of which offer excellent, cutting edge theater productions at fractional prices.

Finally, if the laugh1s your thing, be sure to look for Duke1s comedy groups. Duke University Improv will be holding its annual orientation show in East Campus1s Baldwin Auditorium, where, besides laughing yourselves silly, you can sign up for the group1s notoriously competitive auditions. Inside Joke, Duke1s sketch comedy troupe, will be performing highlights from past shows in the Marketplace the same week.

And if you don1t make it into the performance group of your choice, fear not. Dawson1s Creek held a host of cattle calls for extras last year, and may do the same again. Forget culture<you could be on the WB!