What are the Things We Do for Love? Alan Ayckbourn knows, but his answer to the question ends Sept. 2 at the Old Globe. Tony Award winning director Joseph Hardy directs this production on the San Diego's venue's mainstage. Performances began July 23 with an opening July 29. Charlotte Booker, last seen in the Globe's Season '99 production of Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (also directed by Hardy), is featured, along with Monique Fowler, Tom Lacy and Dennis Parlato (Broadway's The Sound of Music, Chess, She Loves Me).

In Love, Barbara, who runs a bit of a boarding house in her Victorian home, allows an old school friend to move in with her lover. The only other tenant, however, is a handyman obsessed with his landlady. Complications result, of course, in this romantic comedy.

Ayckbourn serves as artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England, where 46 of his 49 plays have premiered. More than 29 of his plays have subsequently been produced in London's West End, the Royal National Theatre or the RSC since his first hit, Relatively Speaking, opened in 1967. His plays, including The Norman Conquests trilogy and Absent Friends, have won numerous awards and have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Among Hardy's other Old Globe credits are The Weir, The Miser and The Taming of the Shrew. His Broadway credits include Child's Play (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award) and Play It Again, Sam.

Tickets are $23-$42. The Old Globe is located in Balboa Park. For reservations, call (619) 239-2255. The Old Globe is on the web at http://www/oldglobe.org.

-- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent
and Christine Ehren