Celebrating its tenth anniversary in the year 2000, the Fountain Theatre has announced its new season. Five productions have been slated, including the West Coast premiere of a new play by Israel Horovitz; the Los Angeles premiere of a play by Pulitzer Prize poet Rita Dove; a drama by the acclaimed South African playwright Athol Fugard; and the 40th anniversary production of a Tennessee Williams masterpiece.

The Fountain's season begins Feb. 10, 2000, with Fugard's The Road to Mecca, the story of an elderly woman who's spent the years since her husband's death transforming her home into a dazzling work of art. The production reunites three actors -- Priscilla Pointer, Robert Symonds and Jacqueline Schultz -- who starred in the Fountain's 1997 award-winning show, Fighting Over Beverly. Stephen Sachs directs.

Next on the slate is Horovitz's new play, Lebensraum (Living Space), which runs May 5-June 23. The work dramatizes the global repercussions that occur when a just-elected German Chancellor attempts to atone for the Holocaust by inviting six million Jews from around the world to "come home" to live and work in Germany. Three actors play 80 roles on a bare stage.

The season continues with Richard Kalinoski's Beast on the Moon, which centers on the struggles of a young Armenian photographer who orders a mail-order bride from his homeland (Aug. 25-Sept. 24); Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana (Oct. 27-Dec. 17); and Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth, a bold and lyrical tale set on a plantation in pre-Civil War South Carolina. Recently presented at London's National Theatre, the Fountain is co-producing the work with BAND (Black Artists Network) with Anthony Harvey directing. Specific dates and venue TBA.

The Fountain Theatre is located at 5060 Fountain Avenue. For tickets and information call (323) 663-1525. -- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent