Playhouse to present Shear and Leight plays

Claudia Shear will star in her play “Dirty Blonde” at the Pasadena Playhouse next fall, in a 2004 season that also will include a new play by Warren Leight of “Side Man” fame.

Playhouse artistic director Sheldon Epps will direct Leight’s “James and Annie” (Aug. 20-Sept. 19, 2004), an interracial love story in the post-World War II era. It has been produced only once, earlier this year at a small theater in Cincinnati.

The season will open with a revival of Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly” (Jan. 16-Feb. 15), followed by Shear in her Mae West play “Dirty Blonde” (March 5-April 4). Another production of “Dirty Blonde” is currently at the Old Globe in San Diego, starring Kathy Najimy.

“Enchanted April” (April 30-May 30) is Matthew Barber’s dramatization of an Elizabeth von Armin novel about four Englishwomen in ‘20s Italy. This will be the West Coast premiere. The play was nominated for a Tony Award this year.

“110 in the Shade” (June 25-July 25), the 1963 musical based on N. Richard Nash’s “The Rainmaker,” with a score by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, will be staged by David Lee.

An open slot (Oct. 8-Nov. 7, 2004) may be filled by the playhouse’s postponed revival of the musical “House of Flowers,” Epps said, if enough co-producing partners can be found to help pay for it. If not, the slot probably will be filled by a nonmusical play, he said.