Scandal’s Kate Burton Is a Spy, Barrett Foa Pulls a Fast One & More Cross-Country Highlights

This week’s regional theater guide highlights the stage returns of three TV actors, as well as musical productions featuring two very different audience favorites. From sunny California to the mountains of Massachusetts, five of the most intriguing shows around the nation are spotlighted in our summer-fun Countrywide Guide.


WILLIAMSTOWN, MA
That’s Burton, Kate Burton
Three-time Tony nominee Kate Burton (known to TV audiences as scheming vice president Sally Langston on ABC’s hit Scandal) leads the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of Tom Stoppard’s espionage thriller Hapgood. Evan Yionoulis directs this Cold-War play about a British female intelligence chief working to expose a double agent while balancing her life at home. Hapgood runs through July 21.


LOS ANGELES, CA
Marin Ireland Can See the Future in Bruce Norris’ Latest
You don't have to be a mathematician to see A Parallelogram, the latest from Clybourne Park's Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bruce Norris. The play stars Homeland vet and stage treasure Marin Ireland as Bee, a woman who can see the future and possibly alter it before it happens. August: Osage County Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro directs a cast that includes Marylouise Burke, Carlo Alban and Tom Irwin. Catch this Parallelogram at the Mark Taper Forum through August 18.

STORRS, CT
TV and Stage Star Barrett Foa Brings “Trouble” to River City
Barrett Foa returns to stage as slick conman Professor Harold Hill in Meredith Willson’s classic musical romance The Music Man. Foa, who headlined Avenue Q and Spelling Bee before landing a lead role in TV’s NCIS: Los Angeles, co-stars with fellow Broadway vet Courtney Balan in the Connecticut Repertory Theatre production, running July 11-July 21. That's Barrett with a capital B and that rhymes with G and that stands for go!


SACRAMENTO, CA
Philip Boykin & Jennifer Cody Are Rolling on the River
Opera vet and Tony nominee Phillip Boykin treats audiences to his rendition of “Ol’ Man River” as California Musical Theatre’s Music Circus presents the Tony-winning classic Show Boat through July 14. The masterpiece about the lives of performers on a Mississippi riverboat is chockfull of New York actors, including Jennifer Cody, George Lee Andrews and Sharon Wilkins. Don’t miss the boat with this limited engagement.


CHICAGO, IL
Chicago Gets Rocked by an Angry Inch
For its inaugural production, the Windy City's Haven Theatre presents John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch. This 1998 musical about an East German transgender rock star is heading to Broadway with Neil Patrick Harris in the lead, but the “wicked little town” of Chicago is getting her first. Directed by Kyle Trent and starring Ryan Lanning and Lauren Paris, Hedwig runs at Theatre Wit through August 11.