Theatricum summer 08

Yes, you'll be hearing a lot about upcoming summer and fall season plans from a lot of local companies in the weeks ahead. Tis the season and all that.

Summer at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga is always something of a hoot. You'll always see a Shakespeare play or two, and another classic, and usually something contemporary (though not this season) on that same barely alter-able outdoor set. You'll watch in a lovely outdoor amphitheatre from benches that can send one's backside into the equivalent of cardiac arrest.

This year's lineup includes Shakespeare's "Macbeth," "As You Like It," the perennial "Midsummer Night's Dream" along with Sheridan's 18th century comedy "The School for Scandal" and Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

Now, the announcement I received _ nor indeed, the Theatricum website, www.theatricum.com _ breathes not word one about directors or any casting information. The venue has a stable of classical actors, AD Ellen Geer among them, and they can often draw from some of A Noise Within's players since the Glendale troupe is dark during the summer.

I've got to believe Geer and Co. have somebody formidable to take on James Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey," and I greatly hope they're not going to subject us to four hours of O'Neill-ian misery on those benches. You figure they also have to have a powerhouse Macbeth and Lady M ready to bloody their hands, so to speak.

Period dramas have been done before at the Theatricum, although gussying up that space for Sheridan's comedy of manners, "Scandal," could prove a challenge as well.

It should all be interesting. The season kicks off June 1 with the opening of "As You Like It" and wraps up Sept. 28.