Mary Zimmerman is back at the Lookingglass Theater in Chicago after making a splash (no pun intended) on Broadway with Metamorphoses. The director, a member of the Lookingglass company, returns to restage The Secret in the Wings, a collection of five fairy tales, in the mid-winter slot in 2003.

The Secret in the Wings retells the mostly forgotten stories of "Three Blind Queens," "Allerleirah," "The Princess Who Wouldn't Laugh" and "Silent for Seven Years," alongside a twisted version of Perrault's "Beauty and the Beast." Metamorphoses, Zimmerman's Broadway debut, had an early staging at Lookingglass before playing other resident theatres prior to Off Broadway's Second Stage in fall 2001. It then spilled over to Broadway's Circle in the Square, where it is currently an audience favorite. Her other directed adaptations include The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci and The Odyssey.

Although he's known mostly for his role as Ross on "Friends", David Schwimmer will direct a new version of Race, Studs Terkel's classic treatise on black and white relations in America, in summer 2003. Schwimmer, a co-founder of the Lookingglass, will work with adapter Joy Gregory ("Felicity") on creating a diversely-cast 20-member piece culled from the many monologues Terkel collected on the subject of race.

Kicking off the season is a remounting of Hard Times, beginning in fall, 2002. The co production with The Actors Gymnasium, won five 2001 Joseph Jefferson Awards, including Best Production, Best Director-Play and Best Adaption. Based on the Charles Dickens novel, Hard Times brings a bright circus girl into the dull grey lives of a Victorian mill-town family, turning the Gradgrind's miserable world upside down. Heidi Stillman, who adapted the novel, will return to direct.

For information on Lookingglass Theater, call (773) 477-8088. The new Lookingglass Theater is located at Michigan Avenue and Pearson Street. The Lookingglass is on the web at http://www.lookingglasstheatre.org. — By Christine Ehren