Open Circle sets season

Open Circle Theater is planning an ambitious 2008-09 season, despite the fact that the troupe is homeless after losing its cubbyhole performing space to South Lake Union-area development.

The company's shows will be staged at different venues and will include:

• "Center of the Universe," a sci-fi comedy by local author Dustin Engstrom.

• A bill of two one-acts: "The School of Whoredom," an updated version of the racy, Renaissance-era Pietro Aretino comedy; and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," a new adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic.

• "Blood Wedding," Federico Garcia Lorca's poetic drama.

• "The Judy Garland Christmas Special," an encore of the company's campy holiday attraction.

• H.P. Lovecraft's "Necronomicon," another entry in Open Circle's ongoing series of staged stories by a master of the macabre.

The company ends its current season with a free outdoor setting of "Alice in Wonderland" in Seattle's Volunteer Park, July 19-Aug. 10.

Locations for next season and other details will be announced later. More information: www.octheater.com or 206-382-4250.

Heidi Schreck gets Obie Award

Heidi Schreck, an impressive actress who relocated to New York after a strong stint in Seattle fringe theater, earned a coveted Obie Award last month for her standout performance in the experimental Off Off Broadway show "Drum of the Waves of Horikawa."

Schreck, her husband Kip Fagan and their artistic cohort Paul Willis, all working in New York now, were leading lights in Printer's Devil Theatre, which was founded in the Seattle in the 1990s and is still active.

SIS in Minneapolis

SIS Productions, a Seattle troupe in residence at Richard Hugo House, will perform episodes from its long-running stage soap opera "Sex in Seattle" this weekend at the National Asian American Theater Conference in Minneapolis.

SIS also announced it will open its 2009 season with "The Theory of Everything," by noted Bay Area playwright Prince Gomolvilas.

SIS's 2008 season continues with fall productions of more "Sex in Seattle" episodes, readings of Paul Kikuchi's play "Ixnay" and "MMMMM ... A Sampler of 6 Insatiable Plays."

More details: 206-323-9443 or www.sis-productions.org.

Juneteenth at ACT

On June 14, ACT Theatre will hold a gala fundraiser for The Hansberry Project, its African-American drama wing. The event celebrates Juneteenth, a June 19 holiday marking the 1865 emancipation of slaves in Texas.

Tickets for the Juneteenth Gala are $125. On tap: stage readings by local actors William Hall Jr., Reginald Andre Jackson and others; music by the band Good Company; and other festivities.

Get more details from ACT: 206-292-7676 or www.acttheatre.org.

Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic