San Diego's Globe Theatres aren't sure about their whole 2002 season, but one thing they know for certain is that artistic director Jack O'Brien, currently represented on Broadway with The Full Monty and The Invention of Love, will stage Noel Coward's classic comedy Hay Fever in Feb. 2002. Following the Globe run, the play will travel on to Hartford, Connecticut's Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts and Wilmington, Delaware's Playhouse Theatre.

Coward wrote Hay Fever based on the real-life parties he attended at the home of actress Laurette Taylor (later famous for creating Amanda in The Glass Menagerie) and her husband, Hartley Manners, on the Upper West Side. He moves the action from the city to the country as the sarcastically-named Bliss family gather draft four guests into the clan's war-like gaming atmosphere. The challenges of charades are turned into the ultimate opportunity for one-upmanship.

No casting information has been announced.

The Globe Theatres are on the web at http://www.theglobetheatres.org. The Bushnell Center is on the web at http://www.bushnell.org. The Playhouse Theatre is on the web at http://www.playhousetheatre.com.

— By Christine Ehren