Michael J. Yarnell, Jenny Guse, and Danny Henning in The Producers Mel Brooks' musical The Producers - currently being produced at the Timber Lake Playhouse - received 12 Tony Awards in 2001, more than any Broadway musical before or since. And so I say this with all the deference and reverence that Brooks' historic achievement deserves: When Timber Lake's Justin Banta was throwing himself around the stage as a mincing Adolph Hitler in the show-within-a-show Springtime for Hitler, I was laughing so hard I almost freakin' wet myself.

West Side Story's Jets Certain theatrical works are so inherently satisfying that they're pretty great even when their productions are only pretty good, and some are so firmly entrenched as classics that nothing less than spectacular will do. West Side Story is the rare piece that's actually both - a thrilling entertainment that many of us have seen way too many times - and the Timber Lake Playhouse's West Side Story is both, as well; it starts out as pretty good passing for pretty great, and ends up spectacular. By its finale, director James Beaudry's offering had morphed into one of the smartest, most impassioned versions of this legendary Bernstein/Sondheim/Laurents collaboration I've yet seen. It just took a while to get there.

Cassandra Marie Nuss, Daniel Trump, and Zach Powell in Dracula The scariest thing about the Timber Lake Playhouse's world-premiere production of Dracula is the set, and I mean that as a compliment. Designed by Joseph C. Heitman, the industrial playing space includes a series of metallic walkways with perilous inclines, some 20 feet above the floor, and the walkways themselves are slightly askew. The best way I can describe Dracula's architecture is by saying that, if the set were an amusement-park attraction, you'd be both ecstatic and petrified about riding it.