Burton and Wong to Star, Turner and Rees to Direct at Williamstown in 2007

Williamstown Theatre Festival has announced its 2007 season, featuring 10 works on three stages on the campus of Williams College in Massachusetts. Among the artists scheduled to appear are Kate Burton, starring in Emlyn Williams' The Corn Is Green; Kathleen Turner, directing Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart; and B.D. Wong, starring in the one-man musical Herringbone, directed by Festival artistic director Roger Rees.

The season features three world premieres: the plays Dissonance by Damian Lanigan and Villa America by Crispin Whittell, and the musical Party Come Here, with a book by Daniel Goldfarb and music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum.

In addition to presenting work in its usual performance spaces, the Main Stage and Nikos Stage, the Festival plans to presents two productions on the Center Stage, a studio theater with an industrial character. The complete schedule is as follows:

June 14-24, Center Stage
B. D. Wong in Herringbone
Book by Tom Cone, Music by Skip Kennon, Lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh
Directed by Roger Rees
Tony-award winner Wong stars in this one-man musical that recounts the childhood of vaudeville wunderkind George after he is possessed by the angry spirit of a toe-tapping midget. This unconventional work deals with the exploitation of child stars and the drive to perform. Adult situations presented.

June 27-July 8, Nikos Stage
Dissonance by Damian Lanigan
Directed by Amanda Charlton
Members of the Bradley String Quartet have their artistic differences. How will they be resolved when one of rock and roll's biggest stars enters their world? Damian Lanigan, novelist and author for BBC Radio, explores the collision of two musical sensibilities in this engrossing new play.

July 4-15, Main Stage
The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
Director to be announced
Concocted criminal charges, wily politicians, love nests and the daily grind of creating and selling newspapers are all in a day's work in the classic Broadway comedy set in a Chicago newsroom. This much-loved work is presented in a crackling and humorous new production.

July 11-22, Nikos Stage
Villa America written and directed by Crispin Whittell
Gerald and Sara Murphy were at the center of the circle of artists, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso, who migrated to France in the 1920s. Set on the French Riviera, this new play commissioned by the Festival and written by Crispin Whittell Darwin in Malibu explores the lives, loves and losses of what Gertrude Stein called "the Lost Generation." The Murphys and their circle will also be celebrated in an exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art opening just before the play premieres.

July 18-29, Main Stage
The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman
Directed by David Jones
Hellman believed The Autumn Garden to be her best play. The setting is a summer resort on the Gulf of Mexico in 1949. Seven friends confronting middle age assess the choices they have made and are about to make. The work is compassionate, savagely funny and perhaps Hellman's most perceptive comment on the difficulties of "the great art of living together."

July 25-Aug. 5, Nikos Stage
Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley
Directed by Kathleen Turner
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this dramatic comedy takes us into the lives of the Magrath sisters. Past resentments bubble to the surface as they are forced to deal with assorted relatives and past relationships while coping with the latest incident to disrupt their lives. The play is warm-hearted, humorous and teeming with humanity.

Aug. 1-12 Main Stage
Kate Burton in The Corn Is Green by Emlyn Williams
Directed by Nicholas Martin
Miss Moffat is a strong-willed Welsh schoolteacher working in a small poverty-stricken coal mining town. Under her guidance, an illiterate teenager, Morgan Evans, transforms from bully to brilliant student. The distinguished lineage of actresses who have played Miss Moffat include Ethel Barrymore in the original Broadway production, Bette Davis in the film, Katharine Hepburn in the made-for-TV movie and Cicely Tyson in the Broadway revival. Now, Kate Burton takes on this classic role. Adding to the poignancy of the teacher-student relationship portrayed, Burton's son, Morgan Ritchie, plays the role of Morgan Evans.

Aug. 7-18, Center Stage
The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, translated by James Kirkup
Directed by Kevin O'Rourke
Three inmates at the Cherry Trees Sanatorium believe themselves to be world famous physicists: Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Johann Mobius. But are they indeed insane? And what are their actual identities: madmen, murderers or scientists? Dürrenmatt's 1962 comedy is a provocative examination of the impact of nuclear science on global power and the moral tolls of sanity.

Aug. 8-19, Nikos Stage
Party Come Here, Book by Daniel Goldfarb, Music and Lyrics by David Kirshenbaum
Directed by Christopher Ashley
A nervous groom, a statue of Christ and a 500 year-old Jewish caveman converge to make miracles happen during a tropical storm on one magical night in Rio. Part farce, part fable, Party Come Here is a musical comedy that promises a collision of cultures as tantalizing as the sexiest city in the world.

Still to be announced is the title of a play running August 15-26 in the Main Stage, to be directed by Maria Mileaf. The festival also offers an extensive schedule of readings, recitals, cabaret and family performances. Among the notable events: On July 30, Roger Rees will present "What You Will: An Evening By and About the Bard," his one-man celebration of Shakespeare's works. Incorporating hysterical, historical and histrionic observations about the Bard by notable personalities, the show comes to Williamstown after its premiere performances March 30-April 1 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.

For a complete schedule of 2007 events at Williamstown, go to wtfestival.org.