In January, during the final dress rehearsal the night before the scheduled debut of the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences’ production of David Mamet’s The Woods, senior Erin Whitten (top), who had built an honors thesis around her starring role as Ruth, was practicing a fall when she tore both her ACL and surrounding cartilage in her knee. Now, after months of rehab at the Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis (where her “classmates” included a St. Louis Blues player), Whitten and co-star Brian Golden, as Nick, are back, with performances at 8 p.m. May 8-9; 5 and 9 p.m. May 10; and 2 p.m. May 11, in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre in Mallinckrodt Student Center. Tickets are available at the Edison Theatre Box Office. For more information, call 935-6543.