School ties

Top Straw Hat

by Carolyn Clay

GENERALLY SPEAKING, the Straw Hat Trail is a place to trot the tried and true. But at the Williamstown Theater Festival this season, there is an admirable number of dark horses ambling the path. This is the most interesting and possibly the riskiest summer-theater season around. It's the second for producer Michael Ritchie, formerly a New York and Williamstown stage manager, and you have to take your straw hat off to him.

Not that the WTF was ever a place where Carousel turned and Sylvia roamed. Its founder and first artistic director, Nikos Psacharopoulos, was a charismatic presence, working the theater lawn on opening nights in his tux and sandals. He attracted prestigious, rather than Love Boat, stars and produced epic compilations of Tennessee Williams and the Greeks, along with name-studded productions of Chekhov. After Psacharopoulos's death, in 1989, the reins went to longtime Williamstown presence Peter Hunt, both a director and a designer. Hunt was based in Los Angeles, far from the New-York-theater-talent pool, and during his tenure summers at Williamstown were respectable but a tad sleepy. (Can you say James Whitmore in Inherit the Wind?) Ritchie has brought cresting playwrights and directors to the idyllic Williams College venue where manicured campus meets air conditioning. And this summer he has put together a season that, in addition to a couple of rare revivals, includes four premieres and even an adaptation of Carlo Gozzi's Princess Turandot.

On the Adams Memorial Theatre Main Stage, The Film Society is followed by Sidney Kingsley's Dead End (July 9 through 20), the New York-set 1935 drama that gave birth not only to the 1937 film that starred Humphrey Bogart but to the collection of films that featured the East End Kids and the Bowery Boys. Nicholas Martin directs a large cast that includes Robert Sean Leonard, Campbell Scott, Marian Seldes, and Party of Five star Scott Wolf. Barry Edelstein then marches the chocolate soldier of Shaw's Arms and the Man across the stage (July 23 through August 3), perhaps to appease the "festival" set. That's followed by James Naughton's production of Charles MacArthur's 1942 political farce Johnny on a Spot (August 6 through 17), which is set to star master clown Bill Irwin. As a finale, Lawrence Sacharow, who directed the award-winning original production of Three Tall Women, helms the American premiere of the Moscow-set Misha's Party (August 21 through 31), by Richard Nelson and Alexander Gelman. Nelson is an American who has been more extensively produced in England, notably at the Royal Shakespeare Company; his previous works include Two Shakespearean Actors and Some Americans Abroad.

On the smaller Other Stage, to which the WTF has traditionally relegated contemporary works, new gives way to old-and-glam when Joanne Woodward stages Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde, August 13 through 24 (already sold out). But first comes the world premiere of Cuban-American playwright Eduardo Machado's Stevie Wants To Play the Blues, a 1940s-set work with an original jazz score by Geri Allen, now through July 13. That's followed by Broken Sleep (July 16 through 27), a bill of three plays by Donald Margulies, whose Sight Unseen won an Obie; the title work is a 20-minute musical with score by the talented Michael John LaChiusa, who won Obies for Hello Again and First Lady Suite. And from July 30 through August 10, the Other Stage is home to the world premiere of Dreading Thekla, a dark comedy by Albert Innaurato, who's best known for the Broadway hit Gemini.

There are also new-play readings, beginning with Charles Higham's comedy His Majesty Mr. Kean on July 5, plus a series of Monday Special Events, a collaboration with the Williams College Museum of Art called Museum Pieces, and a series of late-night cabaret shows. For the outdoor Free Theater production, which runs July 24 through August 2, Darko Tresnjak directs his adaptation of Princess Turandot. All in all, the WTF season is about as far from traditional summer stock as that is from Princess Leia.

Tickets for the Williamstown Theatre Festival Main Stage are $17 to $35. Tickets for the Other Stage are $14 to $16. Call (413) 597-3400.

-- CC