1999-2000 will be a season of firsts for Dallas' WaterTower Theatre. This will be the first season for new artistic director Terry Martin. It will also be the debut season for WaterTower's Stone Cottage New Works Festival and a new cabaret series.

Martin, chosen from a pool of sixty applicants, co-owned an acting studio in New York City, acted Off-Off-Broadway, and was an associate producer with the Village Theatre Company before moving to Dallas. Martin, who will most likely direct four of the six plays in WaterTower's 1999-2000 season, had directed at Plano Repertory Theatre and the WaterTower Theatre, while winning a Dallas Theatre Critics Forum award for acting in 1998.

WaterTower's annual Stone Cottage New Works Festival will run July 8 24. 2000's fest will feature readings of C.J. Critt's romantic comedy Algonquin, Natalie Gaupp's look at black and white big band members, Big Band; and Gretchen Smith's fictionalized account of Edith Wharton's life during the writing of "The House of Mirth," Lily.

WaterTower will also offer a cabaret series including Tom Grounds (Sept. 23-25), The Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth Company (Feb. 10-12) and Colleen Mallette and her The Lemaze School of Singing Presents: How to Birth a Song (March 23-25).

The Theatre's 1999-2000 season includes Alan Menken-Howard Ashman's Little Shop of Horrors (Oct. 21-Nov. 6), Steven Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Jan. 20-Feb. 5, 2000), Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical (Dec. 2-18), Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (March 2-18), Golf With Alan Shepard (April 20-May 6) and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill (June 1-17). For tickets ($22-$12), call the WaterTower Box Office at (972) 450-6232. The WaterTower Theatre performs at the Addison Theatre Centre at 15650 Addison Road.

--By Christine Ehren