They tend to turn up again and again, often returning with interesting new projects and ideas.

That's certainly true for Thomas Northam, a Lake of the Woods musician, playwright and advocate for the elderly.

I first wrote about Northam a few years ago when he wrote the music and words for a play, "Suds," performed by the Lake of the Woods Players at the Orange County lakeside community.

I heard from Northam recently in connection with a new play, "Standing Ovation." It's being presented tomorrow night and Saturday afternoon and evening at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library in downtown Fredericksburg.

The two-act comedy and musical review is about a backwoods preacher who inherits a fortune. Among the holdings, he discovers, is a theater in Peoria, Ill., with an assortment of former entertainment greats on staff.

The preacher decides to use some of his wealth to put on a musical review to give the faded artists an opportunity to have one last bow, one last curtain call, a final standing ovation.

Northam said he wrote the play with many of its 42 players in mind, putting in parts for those who could play the particular celebrities or do justice to favorite pieces of music.

Celebrities featured in the play, directed by longtime Northam collaborator Peg Manuel, include Shirley Temple, Alan Ladd and Gloria Swanson among others.

The show has already been performed in separate runs at Lake of the Woods and at a middle school in Culpeper.

At an early performance, Northam said he was approached by a woman from the audience in her 90s.

"She thanked me for a good laugh and for so many memories the play had helped her recall," said Northam. "We both walked away with tears in our eyes."

"Standing Ovation"--free at the city library with shows at 8 p.m. tomorrow, and at 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday--is just one of the things Northam has cooking.

Another is a recording, on CD and cassette, called "A Tribute To Valor: A Narrative with Confederate Songs."