From Shakespeare to 'Shirley Valentine'

Shakespeare & Company's 2009-10 season - the final season planned under the leadership of founding artistic director Tina Packer - features a mix of old and new in an expanded lineup as Packer works with Tony Simotes in his transition to his new role as the Lenox company's artistic director.

The tragedies "Hamlet" (June 26-Aug. 28) and "Othello" (July 3-Sept. 6) return to the Founders' Theatre with much of their original casts, including the family trio of Packer, her son Jason Asprey, and her husband, Dennis Krausnick, in "Hamlet," and John Douglas Thompson and Michael Hammond in "Othello." The comedy "Twelfth Night" follows (July 24-Sept. 5).

The Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre hosts a range of productions, starting with "Romeo and Juliet" (May 21-June 7). The "Diva Series" features three one-woman shows: Annette Miller returning as Golda Meir in William Gibson's "Golda's Balcony" (June 17-July 3 and Sept. 13), Packer reprising her title role in Willy Russell's "Shirley Valentine" (May 27-31 and Sept. 11), and "The Actors Rehearse the Story of Charlotte Salomon" (June 3-14 and Sept. 12) by David Bridel, Penny Kreitzer, and Jonathan Rest, a play within a play about an artist who escapes Nazi Germany to France only to be apprehended by the Gestapo.

Also at the Bernstein Theatre is "Pinter's Mirror: A Slight Ache, Family Voices, and Victoria Station," (June 11-Aug. 2), three one-act plays by Harold Pinter; Donald Freed's "Devil's Advocate" (July 30- Aug. 16), the story of Manuel Noriega's one night of asylum in the Vatican embassy; John Patrick Shanley's "The Dreamer Examines His Pillow" (Aug. 7-Sept. 6), about a father-daughter confrontation; and J.T. Rogers's dark comedy "White People" (Aug. 21-Sept. 4).

After the summer season, which includes the family-oriented Bankside Festival (A.A. Milne's "Toad of Toad Hall" runs June 20-Aug. 29), performances continue through fall and winter with Steven Canny and John Nicholson's quick-change Sherlock Holmes spoof "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (Sept. 26-Nov. 8); the new holiday production "Cindy Bella (or the Glass Slipper)" (Dec. 3-Dec. 20) by Irina Brook and Anna Brownsted, an updated spin on "Cinderella"; and Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (Jan. 29-March 14).

Complete schedule and further information: 413-637-1199, www.shakespeare.org

Gloucester Stage Company's 30th-anniversary season ranges from a musical to comedies and dramas, including the New England premiere of "Sins of the Mother" (Aug. 27-Sept. 13) by founding artistic director Israel Horovitz, with Robert Walsh starring as a fisherman who leaves the tight-knit town of Gloucester when the fishing industry dries up, only to return 10 years later when nobody knows him.

The season kicks off with Clark Gesner's musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (June 4-June 21), starring Shelley Bolman as Snoopy. That's followed by the Neil Simon comedy "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" (July 2-July 19), starring Karen MacDonald; David Hare's "The Breath of Life" (July 23-Aug. 2), with Nancy E. Carroll and Paula Plum as two women who once shared the same man; and Edward Albee's "The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia?" (Aug. 6-Aug. 23), starring Lindsay Crouse and Robert Pemberton in the tale of an architect whose family is thrown into crisis after he falls in love with a goat.

The company also plans special 30th-anniversary events including Carroll reprising her role as a grieving Joan Didion in "The Year of Magical Thinking" (July 12-13); Joanna Rush in her largely autobiographical one-woman show "Asking For It" (Aug. 16-17), and a music event, "Celebrate the Guitar," with guitar maker Ken Parker and guitarist John Hart (July 28).

Complete schedule and further information: 978-281-4433, www.gloucesterstage.org