THEATER

Adam Guettel

Musical theater composer, 33

What he’s done: The grandson of Richard Rodgers and son of Mary Rodgers (who composed “Once Upon a Mattress”), Guettel is best known for “Floyd Collins,” co-written with Tina Landau. A musical drama about a man trapped in a cave in 1925 Kentucky and the subsequent media circus, it won an Obie and the Lucille Lortel Award for its 1995 premiere off-Broadway. Guettel has also composed scores for TV documentaries, wrote an opera adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” for Trinity Repertory in Providence, a staged song cycle (“Saturn Returns”) for the New York Public Theater, contributed four songs to Audra McDonald’s current CD “Way Back to Paradise” and spent eight years as a jazz bass player.

Outlook for ‘99: “Floyd Collins” is being co-produced by the Old Globe in San Diego, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; first stop is the Old Globe in February. Guettel is working on a commissioned work from the Lyric Opera of Chicago in association with the Goodman.

Chungmi Kim

Playwright, in her 40s

What she’s done: The poetry of this Korean-born and UCLA-trained playwright has appeared in anthologies, magazines and newspapers, as well as her book “Chungmi--Selected Poems.” She worked as a writer and producer in local TV news in the ‘80s. Her participation in the Mark Taper Forum’s Mentor Playwrights program in 1991-92 led to two staged readings of her work, and she won the grand prize at the annual USC One-Act Play Festival in 1995.

Outlook for ‘99: She’ll get a higher profile with the East West Players premiere of her “Hanako” in April, about the Korean “comfort women” who were prostituted by Japanese forces during World War II. It’ll be one of the rare East West plays dealing with Asian-Asian conflicts.

Mark Ruffalo

Actor, writer, director, 30

What he’s done: Despite brooding good looks that recall a young Brando, Ruffalo convincingly plays the most pathetically lovelorn of nerds in Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth,” the off-Broadway hit that returned this season after an acclaimed showcase two years ago. Few L.A.-trained stage actors have ever scored as dramatically on the New York theater scene as Ruffalo, who earned rave notices and a Theater World Award when Lonergan’s darkly comic study of disenfranchised, dissolute ‘80s youth first opened. The reviews this time around have been just as, if not more, enthusiastic. The Wisconsin-born actor, whose blue-collar Italian family moved to San Diego in the 1980s--cut his teeth in L.A.’s experimental theater, making his acting debut in David Steen’s “Avenue A” at the Cast Theatre and going on to act, direct, write and/or produce there as well as at the Igloo, the Hudson and the Met.

Outlook for ‘99: Ruffalo’s small roles in films such as “Safe Men” and “The Last Big Thing” have led to major ones in three upcoming movies: Ang Lee’s “Ride With the Devil,” Lisa Kruger’s “Committed” and Dan Bootzin’s “Life Drawing.” With increasing opportunities to work in film and theater, the actor, who has a house in the Hollywood Hills, says he is determined to remain a creative hyphenate, actor-writer-director, in both worlds.