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 "a non-geographical location"--Duke's fall theatrical lineup promises a host of opportunities for comedy, tragedy and everything in between.

Hoof 'n' Horn, the South's 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 parents' weekend, as will the fall Duke Players and Department of Theater Studies' 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--the first act takes place in colonial Africa, and the second in modern London, while the characters have aged 25 years. If that weren't 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 department's winter show, Macbeth.

Can't wait 'till October? During orientation, Hoof 'n' Horn stages a cabaret and Duke Players puts on a production of Christopher Durang's comedy, The Actor's Nightmare.

Smaller student-run theater groups, such as Wendell Theatre Group, Where's Gus?, and Brown & Green, will announce their schedules later in the semester. Wendell is planning an evening of one-act plays, while Where's 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 laugh's your thing, be sure to look for Duke's comedy groups. Duke University Improv will be holding its annual orientation show in East Campus's Baldwin Auditorium, where, besides laughing yourselves silly, you can sign up for the group's notoriously competitive auditions. Inside Joke, Duke's sketch comedy troupe, will be performing highlights from past shows in the Marketplace the same week.

And if you don't make it into the performance group of your choice, fear not. Dawson's 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!