Minneapolis's Theatre in the Round Players has selected an even dozen of classic and contemporary plays for its 1998-99 season, including everything from Albee to Ayckbourn, Simon to Shaw.

The season is already underway with Jon Robin Baitz's A Fair Country, which opened July 10. The tale of ethics and family strife in and out of South Africa runs through Aug. 2. Pam Nice directs.

Bagnold's The Chalk Garden follows (Aug. 14-Sept. 6). This psychological drama concerns a troubled adolescent and Miss Madrigal, a mysterious governess who tames her emotions. Lynn Musgrave is the director. More intrigue is found in M. Butterfly (Sept. 18-Oct. 11), David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning drama about a French diplomat who has a 20-year affair with a Chinese opera singer who is not all she appears. The play's director is Joel Sass.

Musgrave returns to stage Edward Albee's searing A Delicate Balance (Oct. 23-Nov. 15), a play about marriages, friendships and other relationships and where the responsibilities of human interaction begin and end. The holiday season brings the light comedy of Ernest Thompson's On Golden Pond (Nov. 27-Dec. 20). Wendy Resch directs this sentimental tale of a couple facing the winter of their years.

The remainder of the Theatre in the Round season is as follows: Jake's Women (Jan. 8-31, 1999) by Neil Simon, directed by Peter Moore; Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (Feb. 12-Mar 7, 1999), directed by Craig Johnson; Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves (Mar. 19-Apr. 11, 1999); A.R. Gurney's Sylvia (Apr. 23-May 23, 1999); and Shaw's Heartbreak House (Jun. 4-27, 1999). For information on the season, call (612) 333-2919.

-- By Robert Simonson