Troupe

Restaurateur Cindy Wolf is an expert at keeping a souffle from collapsing, but not a lighter-than-air comedy routine. And Marin Alsop definitely does not encourage improvisation when she is conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. They are just two of the half-dozen local celebrities who will gamely (and, perhaps, foolishly) join members of the nation's most famous comedy troupe on stage in the Head Theater during select performances of " Second City Does Baltimore. " This is the Chicago-based troupe that has launched the careers of such famous funny men and women as Steve Carell, Tina Fey, John Belushi and Stephen Colbert.

From the opening electronic tickertape messages, relaying birthday greetings and instructions on audience behavior, to the deliriously multisensory finale, the Blue Man Group show at the Hippodrome Theatre packs a wallop. It's a big, loud, funny, silly, visually arresting production. There's no point in trying to classify what these performers, with their trademark blue faces and bald, earless heads, do onstage for the better part of 90 minutes. It's much easier to go with the flow — and duck down in your seat when those guys start roaming the aisles.

After spending half of a week trying to grasp the essence, the inner core, the conundrum that is Baltimore, T.J. Shanoff and Megan Grano, two writers for the Second City comedy troupe, were decidedly dazed. "We've met a lot of characters in the past few days," Shanoff said. "I have no idea where I am. " Perhaps that's because he and Grano had just met a woman who spends most mornings scrubbing marble steps. They were on their way to the Cross Street Market, where they would learn the correct pronunciation of "Baltimorons" and "Utz.

The Annapolis Middle School Dance Company hadn't completed its first year of existence when the big stage beckoned. Director Kendra Smith received a call last April from a national tour organization for school performers telling her that someone had anonymously nominated her troupe to perform at a college football bowl game. "You know you're calling Annapolis Middle School, right?" Smith asked, knowing that such honors are usually reserved for high school programs. But she was assured that the caller had indeed specified her group and its performance at the Anne Arundel County Public School Dance Festival in February.

The Annapolis Middle School Dance Company next year will become the state's first middle school to perform in a college football bowl game when it takes the field at halftime of the Orange Bowl in Miami on Jan. 3. The 12-member dance company will be among 1,000 student performers in the sporting event known for its halftime entertainment. The Orange Bowl game will be played at the 75,000-seat Sun Life Stadium, which is also the home of the Miami Dolphins and Florida Marlins. "We are very proud and excited to represent our school and all of the dancers in our country," Annapolis Middle dance company director Kendra Smith said in a statement Friday.

Aboard the North Avenue bus — The woman in the khaki cutoffs with the close-cropped hair might not have expected her "American Idol" moment to occur while she was riding the Number 13 bus. But if that was the venue chosen by Providence, she was determined not to miss her chance. "You should put me in your play," she told the pair of twenty-somethings seated across from her as they bent over a laptop, conferring seriously. She'd never met Ira Gamerman and Jayme Kilburn before they happened to share the same ride.

When two Baltimore-area theater troupes recently announced next season's lineup, beneath the dry specifics of cast size and copyrights, audience size and budget constraints, two different pictures began to emerge. One company — the Single Carrot Theatre — is leaping forward, while the other — Howard County's Rep Stage — appears to be treading water. For the second year in a row, Rep Stage is shortening its season and doing fewer productions. In a way, any head-to-head comparison is impossible.

So many shows, so little time. Washington theater troupes have begun releasing their schedules for next season, and they contain the usual tantalizing mix of old favorites and promising new shows. Not all troupes have announced their 2010-2011 seasons yet, but the highly idiosyncratic list of highlights below is intended to help jump-start the planning process. For more details, go to arenastage.org, kennedy-center.org, shakespearetheatre.org and signature-theatre.org. Touring Broadway shows Once again, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has nabbed the traveling versions of the biggest hits on the Broadway stage of the past few seasons, with "Hair" (Oct.

The What Improv Group?!?!, the improvisation group of Howard Community College's Student Arts Collective performs at 8 p.m. Friday in the Horowitz Center's Smith Theatre, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway. Tickets are $10, $8 for students with ID. Call 410-772-4900.