FALL is Broadway’s season of giddy optimism, when every press release reads like a prophecy of promise.

So far – give or take any additions or subtractions before curtain time – we have 13 prospects, which can be split into four categories: new plays, new musicals, revivals and one-person shows. Here’s what I’m looking forward to.

PLAYS

This is a no-brainer: Michael Frayn’s “Democracy,” directed by Michael Blakemore -the same team that gave us “Copenhagen” a few seasons back – is an enthralling account of the inevitable rise and strange fall of the West German liberal leader Willy Brandt.

When I saw the play in London – same staging, different cast – I found its painless but provocative politics terrific, with a great flawed hero and an Iago-like villain. The New York cast is led by James Naughton, Richard Thomas, Robert Prosky and Michael Cumpsty. Previews start at the Brooks Atkinson Nov. 2.

A strong contender is August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” (previewing Oct. 22 at the Walter Kerr), the penultimate work in Wilson’s 10-play cycle exploring, decade by decade, the African-American experience during the 20th century. Staged by Wilson expert Marion McClinton, “Gem of the Ocean” has a gem of a cast, led by Delroy Lindo, Phylicia Rashad, Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Lisa Gay Hamilton.

MUSICALS

It’s a one-horse race until the end of the year, when “Little Women” and the Beach Boys musical “Good Vibrations” start previews for their January openings. Until then, “Brooklyn” (Sept. 23) has the field to itself.

Described as a “sidewalk fairy tale” about a young girl from Paris (Eden Espinosa) searching for the father she never knew and landing up in the city she was named for (Brooklyn), it has book, music and lyrics by Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson.

Jeff Calhoun, the wizard behind the recent revival of “Big River,” directed and choreographed.

REVIVALS

More than a third of Broadway’s opening salvo for the 2004-05 season are revivals, both plays and musicals, and even a one-person show.

My pick: the Harvey Fierstein/Jerry Herman musical “La Cage aux Folles” (Nov. 7, the Marquis), in a new staging by Jerry Zaks with choreography by Jerry Mitchell, starring Gary Beach, who won a Tony by “keeping it gay” in “The Producers,” and Daniel Davis, late of TV’s “The Nanny.”

I’m a sucker for Herman’s tuneful score, and Fierstein has done a great job of adapting and adopting the original French movie about two lovable, middle-aged gays running a nightclub in the South of France. It should still be fun.

Its biggest rival will be the Roundabout Theater’s new staging of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures”(Nov. 12, Studio 54), with a book by John Weidman. B.D. Wong stars under the direction of Japan’s Amon Myamoto.

The most intriguing of the play revivals, for my money, is Manhattan Theater Club’s new staging of Craig Lucas’ 1983 “Reckless”(Sept. 23, Biltmore), starring Mary-Louise Parker as the wife who discovers her husband has hired a hit man to whack her. Mark Brokaw directs.

The splendid Edie Falco and Brenda Blethyn star in Marsha Norman’s doom-laden ” ‘Night, Mother”in a new staging by Michael Mayer (Oct. 22, the Royale). And a fine ensemble cast -featuring Tom Aldredge, Philip Bosco and John Pankow, directed by Scott Ellis – distinguish that tub-thumping melodrama, Reginald Rose’s “Twelve Angry Men”(Oct. 1, American Airlines Theater)

ONE-PERSON SHOWS

As Hamlet put it so memorably, “Thrift, Horatio, thrift” – the best reason for this fall’s plethora of one-person shows, five in all.

The one I’m looking forward to most is “700 Sundays”(Nov. 12, Broadhurst Theater), staged by Des McAnuff, simply because it features Billy Crystal, who wrote the autobiographical text with “additional content by Alan Ziebel.”

On the other hand (and critics have more hands than a Hindu deity), I’m also a fan of Dame Edna, whose new show, “Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance”(Nov. 5, Music Box Theater), promises, possums, more of the dizzy same.

Eve Ensler (“Vagina Monologues”) returns as writer/performer with “The Good Body”(Oct. 22, Booth Theater), which seeks to tackle the conformist way women feel they must look.

We also have “Laugh Whore”(Oct. 15, Cort Theater), which is directed by Joe Mantello and features Mario Cantone.

And then there’s a one-person revival, “Whoopi” (Nov. 6, Lyceum Theater), in the 20th-anniversary production, once again directed by Mike Nichols, of the show that launched Whoopi Goldberg’s career.