Guthrie Theatre artistic director Joe Dowling has announced a 2000-2001 season featuring works by Shakespeare, Albee, Ibsen, Stoppard and Kaufman and Hart as well as a new adaptation of Anouilh’s Leocadia and a new translation of Lorca’s Blood Wedding.

The Guthrie Theater season comprises Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood, Lillian Garrett Groag’s new translation of Lorca's Blood Wedding, Minnesota playwright Jeffrey Hatcher’s translation and adaptation of Jean Anouilh's Leocadia (into To Fool the Eye) and a holiday run of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

The season kicks off on July 8 with Shakespeare's comedy of mistaken identities, Twelfth Night, which will be directed by Joe Dowling. Twelfth Night runs July 8-Aug. 6 and returns Jan. 12-28, 2001. Just as he did with his 1997 staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, director Dowling transports Twelfth Night to an unexpected new setting -- the last days of the Roaring Twenties.

The Ibsen drama, Hedda Gabler, follows with an August 19 opening. Hedda Gabler will be helmed by David Esbjornson, who also directed the Guthrie production of Summer and Smoke. Hedda, which runs Aug. 19-Sept. 17, is the story of a “proud, ambitious and magnificently manipulative woman” who is boxed in psychologically and socially by repressive social conventions of the 1890’s.

Next is the Oct. 7 opening of To Fool the Eye an adaptation of Anouilh's Leocadia. The story involves a love sick prince and a young woman who happens to look like the mourning monarch’s late love, Leocadia. Directed by John Miller Stephany, To Fool the Eye, runs Oct. 7-Nov. 5 Guthrie’s holiday production, Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, begins performances Nov.18. Dickens’ 1843 tale has been adapted by Barbara Field and will run Nov. 18-Dec. 30.

The Bard’s Twelfth Night returns to the repertory Jan. 12, 2001, followed by Albee’s Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which begins performances again on Feb. 24.

George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s 1930's favorite Once in a Lifetime, starts June 2, 2001. This final production of Guthrie’s mainstage season, Once in a Lifetime will be directed by Douglas Wager, who staged the Guthrie productions of You Can't Take It With You and Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness.

Off the mainstage and at the Guthrie Lab, a three-play subscription season is planned.

Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love runs Oct. 20-Nov. 19. This play reveals and explores British poet A.E. Houseman's unrequited passion for an Oxford classmate. Audience support has been strong for The Invention of Love during recent London, San Francisco and Philadelphia runs.

Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding runs at the Guthrie Lab Jan. 26-Feb. 18, 2001. Family vendettas, bloody revenge and a sexually charged mix of prose, verse and fiery flamenco make up this production. Blood Wedding features a world premiere translation from Argentinean Lillian Garrett-Groag and direction by Chilean Marcela Lorca.

Suzan-Lori Parks’ new play In the Blood will run April 20-May 13, 2001, at the Guthrie Lab. Transforming Hawthone's Hester Prynne into Hester La Negrita, playwright Parks delves into society's blatant double standards for race, morality and gender.

The Guthrie Lab is located at 700 North First Street in the Minneapolis Warehouse District. The Guthrie Theater ticket office is located at 725 Vineland Place, in Minneapolis. For more information or to purchase tickets or subscriptions, call (612) 377-2224 or (TTY) 377-6626. Outside Minnesota, call toll-free at (877) 44-STAGE or 447-8243.

-- By Murdoch McBride