THEATER:Earlier start times

When theatergoers turn out for the upcoming Broadway musical season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center — which begins Tuesday with “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” — they’ll be getting home a half an hour earlier.

That’s because the curtain times for the Broadway series have been moved from 8 p.m. to 7:30, which should prove attractive to those who attend weeknight performances. And with the opening of the new concert hall across the street, the Broadway shows will run two weeks instead of one from now on.

The opening salvo in the 2006-07 series, the stage-musical version of the movie “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” will play from Tuesday through Sept. 10 in the Center’s Segerstrom Hall. This comedy follows two con artists as they take on the lifestyles of the rich and shameless — and end up with a lot more than they bargain for. Norbert Leo Butz will reprise his Tony Award-winning role in the local production opposite Tony nominee Tom Hewitt.

Molly Ringwald, the cinema princess of all those John Hughes coming-of-age movies in the 1980s, is all grown up, and she’ll star in the title role of “Sweet Charity” Nov. 21 through Dec. 3. This is a popular show, heavy on choreography, that’s made the local rounds, most recently at the Newport Theater Arts Center a few seasons back.

The season’s second newcomer will be “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” in which six young people in the throes of puberty — overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves — learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser. The “Bee” will run from Dec. 19 to 31 and will feature (voluntary) audience participation.

One family-friendly musical follows another as “Annie” returns for its umpteenth visit to the performing arts center. Broadway’s favorite little orphan (along with “Oliver”) will be brightening the Depression from Jan. 30 to Feb. 11.

Another Broadway show inspired by a movie is “The Light in the Piazza,” playing from May 1 to 13. This winner of six Tony awards focuses on a woman and her daughter, vacationing in Italy, who find romance in the Tuscan countryside.

Finally, we get “All Shook Up” from May 20 through June 10. As you might imagine, the score is all Elvis and the plot resembles one of the King’s movies when a guitar-playing roustabout rides into town and turns it upside down with his Presleyesque presence.

These six shows aren’t the only ones being offered for the upcoming season. In the Curtain Call series of one-week engagements, we have “Pippin” playing from Jan. 2 to 7, “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life” from March 20 to 25 and a return visit from “Mamma Mia” Sept. 4 to 9.

For those who like their dancing freed from any plot devices, there will be a bonus attraction, another presentation of “Riverdance,” ticketed from Nov. 7 to 12 of this year. All in all, it shapes up as a pretty active season.