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[Pamela Sterling]'s script is so streamlined that, for once, Historyonics' actors play only one character each. This allows for better character development. Sharen Camille, Stephanie Strohman and Carrie Hegdahl look and sound like sisters, and each takes the opportunity to create a strong, distinct personality. For example, when Patrick Bronte (Jerry Vogel), a minister, leads his children in prayer, only Camille clasps her hands; only Anne Bronte (the author of \"Agnes Grey\") found comfort in faith. Strohman, leaning through a doorway, her tense body curved forward like a bowstring, evokes the roiling passions that never found an outlet in [Emily Bronte]'s real life but certainly did in \"Wuthering Heights.\" Historyonics shapes its plays solely from authentic documents. The Brontes, writing ceaselessly, provided plenty of material. But there's a downside: a contrived, \"writerly\" tone trying to pass as conversation. It's a relief to hear anything that sounds ordinary, such as the father's catchphrase: \"Good night, children. Don't stay up too late.\"

* Patton Chiles and the Historyonics players make a commitment to authenticity. Next up is the Amelia Earhart story. This season alone finds two of her plays on the boards, last fall's \"Nicholas and Alexandra\" and \"Go Down, Moses,\" a Harriet Tubman piece that opens in April. And that doesn't include Chiles' children's shows - \"Brick Soup,\" \"Taking a Stand\" and \"My Brother, My Enemy\" - currently touring schools in the St. Louis area. Catherine the Great and Vincent Van Gogh, Thomas Jefferson and Josephine Baker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and James Eades - as writer, director or performer, Chiles has been involved with plays about them all. At the moment, she's wearing her director's cap for \"Beyond the Last Horizon,\" a play about Amelia Earhart that opens tonight. Larry Roberson, author of nearly as many Historyonics mainstage shows as Chiles herself, wrote the piece.

Fort Wayne opened the men's side of the Summit League basketball tournament with one of the most lopsided victories in event history, downing IUPUI 85-47 in the quarterfinals Saturday before a crowd of 3,153 at the Arena.

If gospel music does not particularly speak to you, you can still find much to admire in the performances of the strong cast that director Lee Patton Chiles has assembled. Denise Thimes stars as Mother Ford Smith (who was from St. Louis) along with Jeane Mitchell- Carr as Mahalia Jackson, Monica Parks as Sallie Martin, Hassie Davis in a number of roles and Alerica Anderson as the great gospel composer Thomas Dorsey. He's also pianist for this musically rich production, which includes \"How I Got Over,\" \"Ain't That Good News\" \"Give Me Wings\" and many other songs.

Just as Historyonics Theatre Company was about to go into rehearsal for the last production of its 2004-05 season, artistic director Patton Chiles got some stunningly bad and entirely unexpected news: Historyonics was shutting down. Chiles, 54, has a master's degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Now, she's almost finished a master's of fine arts degree (\"because that's what you need today\") at Lindenwood University. For her thesis, she's mounting a Lindenwood production of a Historyonics' hit, \"American Rosies,\" about women who worked in St. Louis defense plants during World War II. PHOTO; PHOTO - Patton Chiles, longtime head of Historyonics Theatre, directs a rehearsal for \"American Rosies\" in the Jelkyl Theatre at Lindenwood University. Photo by Katherine Bish PHOTO - Patton Chiles talks with Lindenwood University students Maggie Murphy and Mike Perkins during a rehearsal for 'American Rosies.' Photo by Katherine Bish

Eleanor Roosevelt's life has been explored in hundreds of books and articles; it has also been dramatized more than once. Now Historyonics, the Missouri Historical Society's theater-in-residence, adds its interpretation with \"Eleanor: The People's First Lady,\" a thoughtful drama created and directed by Lee Patton Chiles. At Historyonics, a readers' theater, scripts are derived entirely from authentic documents. Because Roosevelt was a prolific, graceful writer, it's not a big problem. Her familiar voice is vividly captured by the star, an actress with the startling name of Victoria Churchill.

Patton Chiles, director of the Missouri Historical Society's theater-in-residence, and her cast of veterans - John Contini, Whit Reichert, Rosemary Watts ([Joe Dreyer]'s real-life wife) and Susie Wall - have a ball re-creating vintage material from the \"Golden Age\" of each medium. Since Dreyer and Chiles simultaneously deride those commercials while exploiting their nostalgic, emotional value, they undercut their own points. Maybe they didn't give themselves enough of a chance to make them. Both Dreyer and Chiles have said that \"Air Waves\" included several plays before the script was cut. A different cut - for example, one that concentrated on radio and another on television - might have provided plenty of entertainment for one play this season and another next year, with less skimping on business, on technology and on memory.

Historyonics' extensively researched plays about historic figures and events depended entirely on authentic sources, such as letters, diaries or contemporary newspaper accounts.

Since this is Historyonics, the Missouri Historical Society's theater-in-residence, you know that director Lee Patton Chiles won't re-create the battle with legions of actors or a lot of gore. The four actors who comprise the English forces don't even hold guns. But Chiles and set and lighting designer Justin Barisonek give them such astonishing choreography -- leaping over each other, huddling together, ducking for cover behind tall pillars that have turned into trees -- that the scene, drenched in red lights, feels terrifying. Through shouts and ominous percussive bursts, [Tolkien]'s wife (Meghan Maguire) stands at the edge of the stage, reciting a poem Tolkien wrote about his wartime experience, the story of a soldier who \"died with the dawn in his eyes.\" [Jason Cannon], who also plays [Lewis], and Christopher Hickey, as Tolkien, anchor the production with a pair of hearty performances. The scene in which Tolkien comforts Lewis on the death of his wife, an awkward sustained embrace between two close friends whose world of the mind has made little room for physical connections, is especially affecting. They get solid support from Larry Roberson as Lewis' brother, Terry Meddows as an Inkling and Jim Kreisman at the piano, playing apt period songs.

Dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham has become a local legend, as well known for her activism as for her artistry. Such bigger- than-life figures tend to inspire vivid theater, and \"Dancing on Air: Katherine Dunham\" is an effervescent celebration of a fascinating life. Dunham, who turned 95 last year and has long been a cultural activist in East St. Louis, is played by two actresses: Vivian Anderson-Watt and Monica Parks. Anderson-Watt is the artist in her early years, coping with stressful family dynamics on the way to embracing her destiny. Parks is the professionally established Dunham, confident in her approach to dance and committed to passing it along.