Williamstown Theater Festival Announces 2005 Season

Roger Rees, the new artistic director of the Tony Award-winning Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), has announced details for the Festival’s 2005 Season, scheduled to run July 6-August 28.

The season marks the debut of WTF’s new performance venues in the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College, located on Route 2 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The Festival’s Main Stage is now housed in a new 550-seat multi-level auditorium, and the renovated Adams Memorial Theatre will henceforth be the home of the Nikos Stage. In addition to the Main Stage and Nikos Stage seasons, the popular late-night cabaret series, Free Theatre, Greylock Theatre Project, and other activities will round out the Festival.

This year’s Main Stage productions will be Oscar Wilde’s social comedy Lady Windermere’s Fan, Caryl Churchill’s political drama Top Girls, Tom Stoppard’s farcical On the Razzle, and William Inge’s mid-20th century American romance Bus Stop, respectively directed by Moisés Kaufman, Jo Bonney, David Jones, and Will Freers. Said Rees, “I’ve selected plays that represent a wide range of styles, periods and cultures — productions that will expand upon WTF’s tradition for mounting terrific revivals on the Main Stage.”

The Nikos Stage “First Works” season will feature new plays by three fresh voices in the theater: Etan Frankel, Lucy Prebble, and Oni Faida Lampley. Frankel’s Create Fate concerns a handsome millionaire playboy who’s out to buy himself the perfect girl. Prebble’s The Sugar Syndrome tackles the sordid world of Internet dating as it tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who thinks she’s finally found an honest and direct man — but her correspondent thinks that she’s an 11-year-old boy. Concluding the season will be Lampley’s Tough Titty, a dark examination of breast cancer.

Tickets for the Main Stage productions range in price from $20 to $52, while Nikos Stage tickets are $33 and $35. To request a season brochure or for information on becoming a WTF Member, visit WTF’s official website. Tickets will be on sale via the website as of Friday, June 10. The box office will open for telephone and in-person ticket sales on Friday, June 17 at 10am; to order by phone, call 413-597-3400. Children under 18 may attend the Main Stage shows free of charge on Friday nights when accompanied by an adult, with a limit of one free ticket per full price adult admission. General and student rush tickets are $15 each; tickets for all cabaret performances are $25.