Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Art in California will present Academy award winner Tom Stoppard's play, Arcadia, March 25-April 18, opening March 27.

Stoppard and co-writer Marc Norman recently received the Academy Award for the screenplay of "Shakespeare in Love," which also took a Best Picture statuette. Other Stoppard plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Indian Ink, Travesties and The Real Thing.

PCPA director Roger DeLaurier called Arcadia "the best play of the second half of this century...an examination of the transition from the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Reason."

The comedy-drama occurs in an English country manor drawing room, shown both in 1809 and the present day. Events in one century reflect upon and influence thoughts and actions in the next.

Arcadia's cast includes Jack Greenman, David Nevell, Emily Donahue, Michael Tremblay, Polly Firestone Walker and Jeremy Mann. The Tony-nominated Arcadia won both an Olivier Award and a NY Drama Critics Circle Best Play Award.

-- By Rebecca Heller and David Lefkowitz