Although none of the musicals were written before 1960, they reminisce on a broad spectrum of 20th-century life.

The season kicks off in September with Jule Styne and Bob Merrill's Funny Girl, the story of vaudeville and radio star Fanny Brice. Barbra Streisand played Brice in the original Broadway musical as well as in the movie version that followed; the role cemented her stardom.

October's show, On the 20th Century, also has ties to musical greats: Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the team behind—among many others—Singin' in the Rain and The Will Rogers Follies (AMTSJ 1997) created the farce set aboard a 1920s luxury train.

In fact, this season has a lot to do with musical legends, as January's offering, Dreamgirls, attests. The musical, by Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger, was inspired by The Supremes' rise to fame during the 1960s. And can you really talk about musical theater these days without the name Andrew Lloyd Webber coming up? Webber took the tale of "The Little Engine That Could" and ran with it in Starlight Express, which opens in February. Performers wearing roller skates portray train engines that grapple with railyard rivalries and romances.

Works written for the theater usually get their turn later on the big screen, but Dick Scanlan, Richard Morris and Jeanine Tesori's adaptation of the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie worked it the other way around. The 1967 film translated so well for the theater it earned six Tony awards last year. Millie, a Roaring '20s tale about a flapper, will hit the AMTSJ stage in April 2004. Speaking of Tonys, closing out the season in July will be the multiple-Tony-winning The Producers, Mel Brooks' musical comedy about a struggling producer and a CPA whose plans to skim investment money from a surefire Broadway flop go very wrong when the show becomes a huge success.

For more information, call American Musical Theatre of San Jose at 888.455.SHOW.