GIVE MY REGARDS TO L.A. LOCAL STAGES OFFER MUCH TO APPLAUD IN 2005.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

So many stages. So many really interesting plays. So little time.

Stash the violins. Mine is the standard complaint of any one person presumptuous enough to claim that he (or she) has ``covered'' the gamut of live stage in L.A. in a single year. Not possible. Too many offerings spanning too much terrain and, in most cases, you've only got three or four performances per week from which to select.

I saw my usual 100 to 125 live shows this year, the bulk of which I shared with my readers. I took vacations and saw more plays. But I also went to a few movies or spent an occasional evening at a concert or (gasp!) at home. My list of highlight theatrical events will therefore contain gaps, since there there are probably a couple dozen plays that I should have seen but didn't. And I've got the entreating publicist pitches to prove it.

I wish more companies would extend the runs of their successful productions. I wish theater paid a decent wage to its artists and designers. I wish the cinema's boon could somehow be tied into the stage's swoon, that for every 10 DVDs consumed, a Netflix subscriber was also required to buy a ticket and attend a play in his city of residence.

Which apparently means I wish I lived on Fantasy Island.

All this said, the 2005 stage year in L.A. was a mighty good year for ...

Solo shows: Given the choice, my preference is usually for a full-length play with, oh, more than two actors. But if a solo act is on the menu, you can't get much better than Jefferson Mays (``I Am My Own Wife''), Sandra Tsing Loh (``Mother on Fire'') Yeardley Smith (``More''), Kate Mulgrew (``Tea at Five''), Heather Raffo (``Nine Parts of Desire'') and Rick Cleveland (``My Buddy Bill''). The bulk of these, it should be noted, bowed at the Geffen Playhouse (or at one of the Geffen's prerenovation satellites), which also offered Tovah Feldshuh as Golda Meir (``Golda's Balcony'').

U.S. vs. Iraq: the drama: We got David Hare's ``Stuff Happens'' before the rest of the nation, as well as ``What I Heard About Iraq'' at the Fountain Theatre. Raffo's ``Nine Parts of Desire'' and the 68 Cent Theatre Crew's satire ``A New War'' waded in these politically shark-infested waters as well.

The Pasadena Playhouse: I seem to say this often. From John Patrick Shanley's ``Doubt'' to a spicy ``Private Lives,'' from Mulgrew as Kate Hepburn in ``Tea at Five,'' to the rarely revived musical, ``Purlie,'' and even the ambitious misfire of the Deaf West collaboration ``Open Window,'' the Playhouse partners smartly, programs ambitiously and stubbornly refuses (OK, except for their annual holiday production) to play it safe.

'Those dancin' feet': Whether you preferred your moves largely conventional (as in ``White Christmas'') like icy hot ballet (``Matthew Bourne's Play Without Words''), from the streets (``Groovaloo'') or tapped and jazzed to extraordinary lengths (``Savion Glover's Iconography''), L.A. stages kicked it nicely in 2005.

Culver City stages: Yeah, we all know about the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson, but has everybody else noticed how very cool Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre programming has become? The highlights of 2005 include stuff for adults (``Apollo Part 2,'' ``all wear bowlers'') and two very strong family offerings under the Performing for Los Angeles Youth (P.L.A.Y.) rubric from Charlayne Woodard (``Flight'') and Nilo Cruz (``A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.'' Down the street, Tim Robbins' the Actors' Gang checked into its new digs at the Ivy Substation with a wicked cool offering of three Japanese tales, ``Blood! Love! Madness!''

Our man B.B. That's Brecht, not King: ``The Threepenny Opera'' cashed in at the Odyssey, South Coast Repertory drew an impressive ``The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' down south, a pair of ``Mother Courage and Her Children'' productions faced down the ravages of war in NoHo and Pasadena, and Pacific Resident Theatre revived ``Happy End'' in Venice.

Jonathan Larson ... and without a 'Rent' tour in sight: Ventura's Rubicon Theatre gave us the West Coast premiere of the late composer's ``tick, tick ... BOOM!'' Stack it next to the cinematic bombast of ``Rent'' the movie, and ``tick, tick'' takes the prize.

Let's also hear it for a few individual achievements:

For Sutton Foster, performing a good portion of ``The Drowsy Chaperone'' with a broken wrist.

For August Wilson, who lived to see ``Radio Golf,'' the completion of his 10-play cycle chronicling blacks in America in the 20th century, but not to see a Broadway theater named after him.

For the Cornerstone Theater Company, wrapping up a different but no less ambitious kind of cycle, the Faith Based Theatre Cycle, by folding 10 religious groups into a single evening in ``A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters.''

For the bravery of L. Trey Wilson's play - and performance - in the Odyssey Theatre's ``Stage Directions.''

For Rebecca Hall (who played Rosalind in ``As You Like It'') and Mark Rylance (the Duke in ``Measure for Measure''), acclaimed British thespians who, for all their laurels, still tour and share their work with the world.

And for any audience member who saw ``Wicked'' at the Pantages Theatre last summer and told a friend, ``Know what? You can do better.'' In L.A., you certainly can. Year after year.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) ``A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,'' left and above, a Center Theatre Group/P.L.A.Y. production at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, was among the year's best family- oriented theatrical offerings.

(3) Sutton Foster and Beth Leavel starred in ``The Drowsy Chaperone'' at the Ahmanson Theatre. Foster, left, performed with a broken wrist for much of the run.