With the opening of 2nd Story Theatre’s summer season this week comes the return of the downstairs restaurant, which has undergone some tweaking during the season it has been closed.

Gone are elaborate meals, and in their stead a lighter menu of paninis, soups and salads is being offered. The idea was to cut back on the number of cooks working the kitchen. On busy nights in the past, there might be as many as five people preparing meals, and because of that, it became difficult to cover expenses. With this new menu the kitchen staff can be trimmed to two.

The restaurant is only open during nights there are shows, and most everyone eating there has come to see the play, which means there is just one seating, which is not terribly efficient.

“It was an expensive undertaking,” said 2nd Story artistic director Ed Shea. “One seating really didn’t cover it.”

Shea said the restaurant has never made money, but was more a convenience for patrons who liked being able to have a meal before a show and not have to worry about getting to the theater on time.

“It was never fine dining,” said Shea. “It was more the one-stop thing. And people have missed that.”

While the restaurant is open only on show nights, it will be open after performances for a late-night bite. Shea is also counting on patrons eating at the bar with the new menu, and thus opening up more seats.

And he’s talking about adding dishes at some point, perhaps as the winter season rolls around. He’d like to offer “the perfect burger.”

“I think it will continue to evolve,” said Shea.

And speaking of the winter season, Shea has planned a lineup of shows that he believes most people around here have not seen, beginning with I Am My Own Wife, with Shea making a rare stage appearance as the East German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. He also has to become something like 35 other characters during the play.

Shea said he saw the show in New York years ago and was “haunted” by it afterwards.

I Am My Own Wife opens Sept. 25 and runs to Oct. 25.

Next up is an adaptation of Harper Lee’s touching coming-of-age novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. While most people know the story of the stubborn Southern lawyer who risks his career defending a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman, they have not seen it dramatized, said Shea. That show opens Nov. 13 and runs to Dec. 13.

Alan Ayckbourne’s Comic Potential plays 2nd Story Jan. 22 to Feb. 21, 2010. The show is about a young actor working the soaps who falls for an android actor.

Close parallels to the Bernie Madoff scandal are found in the Voysey Inheritance, which opens March 12. For generations the Voysey family business has been cheating its clients. It’s only when young Edward inherits the business from his father that he is shocked to learn the source of the family fortune. As the risk of exposure looms large, Edward’s sense of right and wrong becomes increasingly distorted.

The season ends April 30 with comedian Steve Martin’s adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s 1910 German comedy, The Underpants, a risqué romp about a woman who drops her drawers at an outing for the king. Her husband, a low level bureaucrat, assumes the scandal will ruin him, but the men in the town have other things on their minds.

But before all that, 2nd Story has two summertime comedies on tap, starting this week with You Can’t Take it With You, one of the more popular plays of all time. The catch here is that Shea has turned the three-act play over to three different directors, one per act. Besides himself, Bob Colonna and Pat Hegnauer, who cofounded 2nd Story with Shea, will be pitching in.

When Tony Kirby falls for Alice Sycamore, she invites his bourgeoise parents to dinner. But the Sycamores are a tad eccentric, and amid fireworks and an ex-Russian Grand Duchess-turned waitress, the Kirbys learn that love and family are where it’s at.

You Can’t Take it With You opened Wednesday in previews and runs through Aug. 2.

Then on Aug. 12, more summer fare is in stock with Harvey, the tale of affable Elwood P. Dowd and his 6½-foot invisible rabbit.

Tickets are $10 for tonight’s preview, and $25 otherwise. Call 247-4200 or visit www.2ndstorytheatre.com.

cgray@projo.com