As winter winds down a number of area theater groups are gearing up for the spring, from high school to professional productions and nearly everything in between. Lets start with the students.

• Congratulations to Vienna Farlow, a 17-year-old senior at Southern Cayuga High School, who has been chosen to participate in the Kitchen Theatre's Teen Extreme Play Writing Marathon. She, along with three Ithaca-area students, will meet their actors, directors and mentors and be given the topic they will use as their inspiration for their brand-new play.

At 9 a.m. Saturday, March 1, four teams of playwright/director/actors/stage manager begin an intense eight-hour rehearsal day. Props, costumes and set pieces are gathered, created, thrown together, or just appear!

At 9 a.m. Sunday, March 2, rehearsals continue and technical rehearsals begin. Lighting, sound #- all the bells and whistles are added. There is a technical run-through of all the plays on Sunday at 3 p.m. And then 7:30 p.m. Sunday is opening night! Another show at 9 p.m., and four new plays have come to life on the Kitchen Theatre stage.

This is Farlow's second session with the Marathon. She also had a play produced in the Cayuga Short Play Festival in 2006.

• Auburn High School will present “Grease” this weekend in the high school auditorium. Public performances are at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 29, and Saturday, March 1, with a Sunday matinee performance at 2 p.m. March 2.

• The Little Sisters of Hoboken take their show on the road with the Talent Company's production of “Nunsensations! The Nunsense Vegas Revue.” The musical runs through March 22 at the State Fairgrounds. Call 479-SHOW for tickets.

• “Dead Men Don't Itch,” a comic look at the film noir genre runs March 6 through 15, presented by Cayuga Community College's Harlequin Productions.

• “Doubt” wraps up this weekend and “The Bomb-itty of Errors,” a hip-hop version of Shakespeare's comedy runs from March 13 through April 12, at Syracuse Stage, 443-3275.

Also onstage:

• “Big Head,” Kitchen Theatre Company 607 273-4497, Feb. 29 and March 1 and 2.

• “The Trojan Women,” a new translation of Euripides' tragedy runs through March 15, Appleseed Productions, Syracuse 492-9766.

• Neil Simon's “Rumors,” Feb. 29 through March 15, Baldwinsville Theatre Guild, Baldwinsville, 635-7382.

• “All In the Timing,” a selection of wonderfully funny short plays by David Ives, March 7 through 22, Rarely Done Productions, Syracuse, 546-3224.

• “An Enemy of the People,” Henrik Ibsen's satirical look at government, March 13 through 29, Black Sheep Theatre, Rochester.

• “Safe Sex,” March 28 through April 6, simply new theater, Syracuse, 558-9124.

• “The Princess and the Pea,” through March 29, Magic Circle Children's Theatre, 449-3823.

• “Death Takes a Cruise,” through March 6, Acme Mystery Company, 475-1807.

Local videographer Steve Gage is looking into an adult cast production for DVD of “Don't Go in the Woods!,” the original musical by Auburn's Barbra Murphy presented last month by the Genesee Elementary afterschool theater program. Anyone interested can contact my e-mail and I'll forward it to Barb.

In the meanwhile, play nice.

Tom Woods writes monthly on local and regional theater news. E-mail him at thewoodhead@yahoo.com