Opening May 19, George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance will close the Large Stage season at Houston's Alley Theatre. Previews began May 14 for a run through June 13. Shaw's Misalliance is between Hypatia Tarleton, the daughter of an underwear magnate and obsessive bibliophile John Tarleton, and Bentley Summerhays, the callow scion of a cash-poor aristocratic family. Hypatia endlessly yearns for something to happen to her, and she finally gets her wish when an airplane, carrying a rakish pilot and a Polish acrobat, crashes into the Tarleton family estate, revealing and/or generating a half a dozen other romantic misalliances.

Misalliance stars Michael Balcanoff (Lord Summerhays), Curtis Billings (Bentley Summerhays), Judith Lightfoot Clarke (Hypatia), Bettye Fitspatrick (Mrs. Tarleton), Elizabeth Heflin (Lina Szczepanowska), Dennis Parlato (John Tarleton), Robert Parsons (John Tarleton, Jr), actor playwright Kevin Reddin ("Gunner") and Kevin Waldron (Joseph Percival).

David Wheeler directs the classic comedy, which received a recent Broadway staging with Elizabeth Marvel, Brian Murray and Joanna Going.

Other Shaw plays include Pygmalion, Candida and Man and Superman.

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On the Alley's Neuhaus Arena Stage is Travesties, perhaps Stoppard's headiest historical and theoretical soup, which imagines Communist leader Lenin, novelist James Joyce and Dadaism founder Tristin Tzara intermingling in 1917 Zurich society and all colliding in the faulty memory of insignificant, self-aggrandizing diplomat Henry Carr. Gregory Boyd directs.

Stoppard's Travesties will bring the Neuhaus Arena Stage season to a close, beginning May 21 for a May 26 opening and a run through June 13.

For information on both shows, call (713) 228-8421.

-- By Robert Simonson and Christine Ehren