If you see a bunch of high-spirited men in drag running around City Hall and Front Street at high noon tomorrow, don't call the men in white coats. It's just the cast of Harvard Hasty Pudding Theatricals celebrating what the City of Hamilton has declared 'Hasty Pudding Day', and of course promoting their latest production, 'As the Word Turns', which opens at City Hall theatre on Wednesday evening for a four-night run.

This is the Ivy League thespians' 41st visit to the Island, and 'As the Word Turns' is its 156th production. As always, local fans can look forward to a lively evening of music, mayhem, humour, and of course the legendary kick line.. This year's theme centres around a Spelling Bee, which is actually a plot to steal all the vowels from the English language, thereby crippling defence systems, and leaving the door open for word-greedy communists to paint the town (or the world) red. Double agents and double entendres abound in this colourful tale of love, lies and letters.

But it is not just to entertain theatregoers that Hasty Pudding Theatricals wings its way here every year. Its long history also includes a commitment to charity, so local beneficiaries of the current production will be Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Bermuda, and the Sandys Rotary Club.

In addition, as part of a strengthening of its community involvement programme, the visiting company has also invited a group of teens from Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Bermuda to see the show, and it is also guaranteeing to return to the Sandys Rotary Club $2 on every ticket sold by a Rotarian.

'As the Word Turns' will continue through April 3, with a curtain time of 8 p.m. Tickets ($25) are available as follows: Visitors Service Bureau box office 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. ( 295-1727), from website www.ticketstation.bm with credit card, or at City Hall box office from 7 p.m.