Just finished up our first night at the Humana Festival of New American Plays  in Louisville, Ky. — one of the highlights of my theater year, seven plays in three days.

First up was "This Beautiful City," a musical, or a play with music anyway,  a play created from live interviews with people living in Colorado Springs, the evangelical capitol of America. The show was created by The Civilians, the group that created the hilarious "Gone Missing," which we saw last summer at the Barrow Street Theatre in Greenwhich village.

Like "Gone Missing," "This Beautiful City" is played with a minimum of irony, but is very funny at times. I've been to churches like the megachurch New Life, and the group nails both their worship style and the church lingo, and the script doesn't take sides (although the audience surely did), but presents the wacky nature of both the righteous and those who do battle with them.

The story revolves around the fall of Ted Haggerty, the charismatic leader of the New Life church who was brought down by a meth dealing male prostitute a couple of years ago, exploring both the irony observed by outsiders and the pain of betrayal suffered by those who believe.

Performed ensemble-style and including some members of the Actors Theatre intern company, "This Beautiful City" also featured original music and an overhead show that, like much of the script, was too close to reality to be considered parody.

The late show tonight was the  anthology the Actors Theatre commissions each year as a showcase for the intern company. "Game On" is one of the funniest, most energetic of the anthologies I've seen. We were particularly bowled over by the segments written by Rolin Jones (no relation), one a look at the absurdity of extreme sports (like lava hockey), and the other a playground drama involving a pepper-spray wielding fourth-grade tether ball champion taking on a sixth grader. Hilarious stuff, and it turns out that Jones is a writer for "Weeds," one of my favorite series. Contributing writers include Zakiyyah Alexander, Alice Tuan, Daryl Watson, Marisa Wegrzyn and Ken Weitzman, with songs by Jon Spurney. There's also a pre-show entertainment with a guy in a chicken suit and another guy in a non-specific mammal suit. The guy next to me thought raccoon. I thought maybe possum. Barb says badger, and I think she might be onto something, although I heard one of the actors calling it a ferret, but that may have just been an insult.

So far, the Humana Festival is looking pretty good. Tomorrow, four plays!!!