Tech Search

* CARRIE POTTER AT THE NEW MOON PROM

At Studio Theatre through July 24

This play is not for everyone. If you're sensitive about magic, lesbians or Christianity, you should stay away or... lighten up. As the Landless Theatre Company explains, "It's just a play." Carrie is an outcast at Predestined Magic School (PMS), thanks to her poor magical skills and Methodist lineage. Her only friends are a pathetic house ghost and a butch werewolf. The popular Heathers torment her at school while her mother abuses her at home for Judeo-Christian tendencies. Offering escape is He Who Shall Not Be Named, otherwise known as Jesus Christ. There are references here to satisfy all manner of geeks: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Star Wars," 1980s romantic comedies.

-- Rachel Weiner

Friday at 10:30, Wednesday at 8, July 23 at 6:30 and July 24 at 11:30 a.m. 1501 14th St. NW.

CHART TOPPERS OF 1349!

At the Bedroom at Fort Fringe through Saturday

As storyteller Tim Ereneta performs, the small stage is adorned with only a grinning skull on the seat of a ladder-back chair. This skull, we are told, belongs to Signore Kasem. Yep, that would be Casey Kasem, the DJ whose warm, anecdotal mode presides over Ereneta's hour-long show. Ereneta has Kasem's patter down cold as he introduces the popular tales that once took Europe by storm; he even serves up corny dedications from listeners. And listeners are all he has, naturally. Because this is 14th-century Italy, Ereneta is working in an oral form, and he makes barbed remarks about the evolving but unstable new technology that will eventually change the storytelling biz: print. The old stories are interesting, and Ereneta's methodical manner and quiet wit are a refreshing change of pace.

-- Nelson Pressley