Ron Spencer remembers his days as a young thespian, when “I looked for every possible

TOTS, located in the 600 block of Mass Ave

opportunity to wallow in the sorrows of the day, or the recent past, with authors like O’Neill, Williams, Inge and their contemporaries. Now…not so much!”

The events of 9-11 have had their impact on Spencer’s metamorphosis. “Since that time,” Spencer said, “I have had an intense desire to help us heal in some deeply personal, intellectual and spiritual way. So I instinctively resorted to a technique my mother always employed and that is ‘laughter is the best medicine.’ So simple, so true!”

That philosophy is at the root of the 2010-11 season at Theatre on the Square, where Spencer holds forth as artistic director. Ten plays, 10 comedies, 10 Indiana premieres.

The first offering, “…And Then There Was Nun!,” will open Friday, Sept. 17, at the Mass Ave theater. It launches a season which will also include a holiday tribute titled “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel!,” a new work by Christopher Durang titled “Why Torture Is Wrong…And The People Who Love Them,” and (pending rights), “Jerry Springer: The Opera.”

“For the past several seasons,” Spencer said, “we have made it our mission to bring laughter and lightheartedness to our community.” There have been moments of great drama, he pointed out, in plays such as “Equus,” “Corpus Christie,” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” but Spencer said even those shows had undeniable moments of uplifting humor and humanity.

“I love laughter,” he said. “I love the expressiveness of it, the sound of it, the look of it and – most importantly – the feel of it. So at this stage in the journey, the growth, the life of Theatre on the Square, that is what we are having a glorious time exploring.”

The season opener, “…And Then There Was Nun!,” is a parody of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians.” The play focuses on the Sisters of San Andreas — a collection of very familiar faces. Sisters Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Vivian Leigh, Hattie McDaniel, Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead and Sister Alfred (Hitchcock) have all been summoned by Mother Paramount to a retreat in a secluded mansion where, one by one, they are killed off in the comedic whodunit!

“The Kitchen Witches” centers around Isobel Lomax and Dolly Biddle, two “mature” cable-access cooking show hostesses who have hated each other for 30 years, ever since Larry Biddle dated one and married the other. Aside from Larry Biddle and a passion for cooking, they share another common secret love. And then circumstances put them together on the same show called “The Kitchen Witches.”

Christmas has never been Mary-er than at The Orient Bar and Grill, the setting for “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel!” In this comedy, The Three Queens are hosting a Yuletide bash of epic proportions. celebrating all things gay. Highlights include Santa’s emotional melt-down, Jesus in a make-over by the “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” gang and “Holiday Icon Therapy for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Grinch who stole Christmas and Frosty the Snowman.

“Why Torture Is Wrong…And The People Who Love Them” will help Theatre on the Square ring in the new year with a show which may be destined to be a classic farce from the pen of Christopher Durang. The play tells the story of Felicity, a young woman suddenly in crisis, who learns she has married a total stranger while she was inebriated. Is her new husband, Zamir, a terrorist? Or just crazy? Or both? Is her father’s hobby of butterfly collecting really a cover for his involvement in a shadow government? Why does her mother enjoy going to the theater so much?

The Valentine’s Day season will be celebrated by “A Contemporary American’s Guide To A Successful Marriage © 1959,” set against the backdrop of the late 1950s and told in the “unbelievably upbeat” style of the social guidance films of that era. The play focuses on two Iowa couples who get married “by the book.” A message that marriage today is no more “for better or worse” than it ever was.

In “Superior Donuts,” Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning author Tracey Letts will explore the challenges of embracing ethnicity, the past and the redemptive power of friendship. The story revolves around Polish immigrant Arthur Przybyszewski, who owns a neglected, run-down donut shop in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. His sole employee, Franco Wicks, a street-wise black teen-ager and would-be writer, is determined to bring the business and Arthur back to life.

With book, music and lyrics by Carol Caplan-Lonner, “The Kids Left. The Dog Died. Now What?” a musical comedy that salutes those valiantly struggling with divorce on their hands, gravity on their bodies, grandchildren on their self-images and the dating scene on their egos.

“Assorted Fruits And Vegetables,” written by TOTS Artistic Director Ron Spencer, tackles a spit-fire comedy about life in the first all-gay nursing home in Indiana. When finances and not infirmities land Edgar Eldon Christian in assisted living, he manages to take a page from Dylan Thomas and wreaks havoc on the notion that anyone should “go gentle into that good night.”

With music by Richard Thomas, ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera” will convert Theatre on the Square into an unlikely opera house where triumph, tragedy and trailer trash as high culture meets low culture. Based on America’s most lurid talk show, minus the censor’s beeps, this production will feature transgendered lovers, a housewife would-be pole dancer, the tap dancing Ku Klux Klan, Jesus and Satan. Winner of The Olivier Award, Critics Circle Award, Evening Standard Award and What’s On-Stage Award for Best Musical, “Jerry Springer” has been hailed as the most innovative musical to grace the London stage in 25 years.

The 2010-11 season will end with “Red, White And Tuna,” the third installment of the Tuna trilogy which takes the audience through another satirical ride into the hearts and minds of the polyester-clad citizens of Texas’s third smallest town. Along with Tuna’s perennial favorites, some new Tuna denizens burst into the Fourth of July Tuna High School Class Reunion.

THE 2010-11 season

– “…And Then There Was Nun!” – Sept. 17 through Oct. 16.

– “The Kitchen Witches” – Oct. 22 through Nov. 13

– “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel!” – Nov. 19 through Dec. 19.

– “Why Torture Is Wrong…And The People Who Love Them” – Dec. 31 through Jan. 22.

– “A Contemporary American’s Guide To A Successful Marriage 1959” – Jan. 28 through Feb. 19.

– “Superior Donuts” – Feb. 25 through March 19.

– “The Kids Left. The Dog Died. Now What?” – March 25 through April 23.

– “Assorted Fruits And Vegetables” – April 29 through May 21.

– “Jerry Springer: The Opera” – May 27 through June 25.

– “Red, White And Tuna” – July 1 through July 30.

For more information about any Theatre on the Square programs or to purchase tickets, call the TOTS box office at 637-8085. The theater’s website is www.tots.org.