Williamstown Theatre Festival Announces 2005 Schedule July 6 August 28

Roger Rees, Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), has announced details for the Festival's 2005 Season, running July 6 through August 28. The summer season will be the first under the leadership of Rees, who began his tenure as Artistic Director on January 1 of this year. The season will also mark the much-anticipated debut of WTF's new performance venues in the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College. The Festival's Main Stage will now be housed in a new 550-seat multi-level auditorium while the renovated Adams Memorial Theatre will be the new home of the Nikos Stage, WTF's second performance space dedicated to new plays.

The Main Stage season will begin July 6 and include Oscar Wilde's social comedy Lady Windermere's Fan, Caryl Churchill's political drama Top Girls, Tom Stoppard's farcical On the Razzle, and Bus Stop - William Inge's mid-twentieth century American romance. "Opening a new performance space in your first season as Artistic Director would be on anyone's dream list," 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 theatre – Etan Frankel, Lucy Prebble, and Oni Faida Lampley. "As Artistic Director, I feel an obligation to help foster truly talented young theatre practitioners," Rees commented. The three playwrights represented on the Nikos Stage this year each possess a distinctly unique voice and perspective on the human condition, and I believe their plays speak to our time."

In addition to the Main Stage and Nikos Stage seasons, the Festival will include the popular late-night cabaret, Free Theatre, Greylock Theatre Project and many other activities to round out the summer. Casting for all productions will be announced at a later date.

2005 Main Stage Season

LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN by Oscar Wilde, directed by Moisés Kaufman (July 6 – 17).

Determined not to trust her husband when circumstances suggest he's been unfaithful, the effortlessly desirable Lady Margaret Windermere – modern, independent and deliciously free of self-doubt – resolves to leave him flat. But the true nature of her husband's relationship with the "other woman" is very different from what young Margaret assumes it to be. The play is Oscar Wilde's first comedy and, more than a century later, a provocative season-opener for WTF's 2005 season in the hands of cutting-edge director Moisés Kaufman.

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