Rubber Repertory's "Biography of Physical Sensation." Photo by Jessica Alpern.

Blorg! I should have known when I came up with this idea for a weekly column about what your intrepid Culturbots will be seeing and doing that it was going to take some real effort to put it together, but damn.

Andy’s mission this fall, if he’s never said it outright, is to hit basically the entire run of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, which this week includes both Ballet Preljocaj‘s Empty moves (parts 1 and 2) (tickets) and the Ridge Theatre‘s Persephone (tickets). French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj is one of those people with an amazing reputation, but I have to admit (based on little besides seeing some video) that Preljocaj, like the other French choreographers I’ve seen recently (including Christian Rizzo, David Wampach, and Francois Chaignaud) seems a little too in love with pure formalism and abstraction for my taste. But I reserve judgment till I see it tomorrow (ah, the joys of being a plus-one!).

Sadly, I will not be seeing Persephone, which really does make me sad, because I’ve had a crush on Julia Stiles since 10 Things I Hate About You. So, um, yeah, even uber-artsy people get to have their Hollywood crushes, right? Anyway, the realization of the Persephone myth as a fin de siècle Nineteenth Century spectacle does sound pretty cool. I’m sure Andy will be weighing in tomorrow seeing as how that’s where he is tonight.

The show that seems to have more than a couple people in the Culturebot newsroom buzzing is The Fortune Teller at HERE Arts Center (tickets $25/$50), where apparently both Andy and Julia can be found this week. And come on, marionettes are sort of creepy in their own right, but make it a story about seven strangers coming to unnatural ends in the creepy mansion of a deceased millionaire, and you’ve got some excellent Halloween fare.

Aaron, for his part, will be hitting three shows: the inimitable Justin Bond for the closing weekend of Re:Galli Blond (A Sissy Fix) at the Kitchen (tickets $15), and then off to the Incubator Arts Project, née the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator, for Little Lord‘s (oh my god I am so) THIRST(y) (tickets $14/$18), and finally Them at PS 122 (tickets $15/$20), which both Andy and I have previously gushed over.

Little Lord is a company that mashes up and adapts classic theatre texts to their own low-tech, homemade ends, presenting oddball spectacles like their version of Babes in Toyland, which played at the Ohio’s Ice Factory series last year. THIRSTY(y) is based on a play by Eugene O’Neill, and may or may not have something to do with race. And as for Justin Bond, well…it’s Justin Bond. Seriously. We have an interview with him about the show you should read, but it’s going to kick ass.

Alyssa’s going to be at Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at the City Center (tickets $24-$110), but she really wants to call everyone’s attention to Enda Walsh’s Penelope at St. Ann’s Warehouse (tickets $35-$55), which she saw last week along with Maura H. A visiting production from the Druid Theatre Company, it’s a modern twist on the end of the Odyssey. And it looks quite cool.

Maura, for her part, will be writing up Penelope for us this week, as well as taking herself to Second Stage Theatre for the revival of Arthur Kopit’s Wings, starring Jan Maxwell and gushed all over by Ben Brantley in the Times.

As for our intrepid Austin correspondent, Timothy Braun, he’ll be filing reports this week on the Rubber Rep‘s Biography of Physical Sensation (tickets $15-$25). It’s a fascinating show that looks to re-define audience participation by inviting its 40 spectators each night to experience someone else’s life through the five senses, an experience carefully crafted by the ambitious company.

And as for me? I have some half-formed plans to catch Patricia Hoffbauer’s new multi-part work showing at Danspace, which Maura D. promises to cover in depth, as well as Jane Comfort’s Faith Healing at the Joyce Soho.