Seattle Repertory Theatre is turning 40 in 2002 and part of the celebration includes two world premieres — When Grace Comes In by Heather McDonald (An Almost Holy Picture) and Things Being What They Are by Wendy MacLeod.

Neither production has dates, but both will play the second stage, the Leo K. Theatre.

When Grace Comes In, a co-production with the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, is a poetic look at an average woman, who finds herself drowning in her everyday roles as wife, mother, friend and daughter. McDonald's prize-winning An Almost Holy Picture is currently playing Broadway with Kevin Bacon as a former priest.

Two regular guys are at the center of Things Being What They Are. When Bill moves into his new condo, his space is immediately invaded by his neighbor, Jack, in this humorous play about the families people form in the midst of crisis. MacLeod is the author of the black comedies The House of Yes, Schoolgirl Figure and Sin.

Also set for the Leo K. is Rebecca Gilman's Boy Gets Girl. The drama about a boring blind date that devolves into a stalking case premiered at the Goodman Theatre in 2001 and transferred to Off Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club. The Bagley Wright mainstage season will open with Michael Frayn's Copenhagen. Also planned are Marivaux's The Triumph of Love, translated, adapted and directed by Stephen Wadsworth, Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet and Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt's Two Pianos, Four Hands. Bruce K. Sevy will direct the last piece, a two-man comedy about the joys and horrors of learning to play piano. Two Pianos played Off-Broadway in 1997-1998 season and was a smash in Canada, from where the creators hail.

The final two Seattle Rep productions have yet to be announced.

Seattle Repertory Theatre is located in the Seattle Center at the corner of Second Avenue and Mercer Street. For reservations, call (206) 443-2222. Seattle Repertory Theatre is on the web at http://www.seattlerep.org.

— By Christine Ehren