Hay Fever
By Noël Coward, directed by Warner Shook
October 2-25
Notes: Shook continues his mission to reanimate the gay old comedies (The Women, Private Lives, etc.).

August: Osage County
By Tracy Letts, directed by Anna D. Shapiro
October 27-November 1
Notes: Steppenwolf's epic gallows comedy of family-dysfunction—suicide, drug abuse, incest, infidelity, aging, etc.—comes to the Paramount, co-presented by ACT Theater [I was wrong: ACT is offering specially priced tickets but not co-presenting], Broadway Across America, and STG.

Opus
By Michael Hollinger
October 30-December 6
Notes: Mr. Hollinger's Opus concerns classical musicians who squabble their way towards a gig playing the White House.

Equivocation
By Bill Cain, directed by Bill Rauch
November 18-December 13
Notes: A new play, co-produced with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, about King James commissioning Shakespeare to write a piece of propaganda. Integrity vs. survival, etc., etc. Rauch is the artistic director of the OSF and has directed all over the damn place.

Speech and Debate
By Stephen Karam
January 15-February 21
Notes: Adored by the New York Times (not Isherwood or Brantley—Caryn James). A comedy about three high-school rejects (nerd, frump, gay) and a predatory teacher and "the borderland between late adolescence and adulthood, where grown-up ideas and ambition coexist with childish will and bravado."

Glengarry Glen Ross
By David Mamet
February 5-28
Notes: Always be closing! See about the Rep's latest cutbacks here (smaller-cast plays, co-productions, and a 32-hour work week for full-time staff).

Fences
By August Wilson, directed by Timothy Bond
March 26-April 18
Notes: For those who care, Timothy Bond is African-American (and some people really, really care).

An Iliad
Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson
April 9-May 16
Notes: Denis O'Hare is a two-time Tony Award winner: one for Take Me Out in 2003, the other for Assassins. O'Hare also played Senator John Briggs in Milk, who you may recall from this memorable chunk of dialogue:

State Senator John Briggs: It's time to root them out.
Tom Ammiano: And how are you going to determine who's a homosexual?
State Senator John Briggs: My bill outlines procedures for identifying homosexuals.
Tom Ammiano: How? Will you be sucking them off?

Absent: the hillbilly musical-pastiche production the Rep's been using to noodle for dollars in the past few years—Fire on the Mountain, that John-Denver-holiday-concert business. This year, the Rep has abandoned its most cloying habit.

All told: Conservative, but not dull. They've programmed plays with built-in audiences (a play about Shakespeare! Coward + Shook! Mamet! Fences!), but you'd be a fool not to, given the New Economy. And some—August, to a lesser extent Speech and Debate—are national conversation pieces that should be seen in Seattle.