Book-It Repertory Theatre's new-season lineup

"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," the best-seller by Western Washington-based writer Tom Robbins, will get the Book-It Repertory Theatre treatment this fall when the Seattle troupe opens its 2008-09 season with a theatrical adaptation of the freewheeling novel (Sept. 16-Oct. 12).

Book-It's mainstage season — five plays compared with this season's four — is set to continue with a pair of American classics: Willa Cather's Nebraska pioneer saga, "My Ántonia" (Nov. 25-Dec. 21) and Herman Melville's whale tale, "Moby Dick" (Feb. 10-March 8, 2009).

Also planned is a dramatization of "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears," Dinaw Mengestu's award-winning debut novel about an immigrant Ethiopian grocer in Washington, D.C. (April 14-May 9).

Book-It will close the season with "Night Flight," French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's fictional account of pilots who carried night mail from Chile and Paraguay to Argentina in the early days of commercial air transport (June 3-14).

"Night Flight" will be presented at the Moore Theatre in a shorter run than the other four works, which will be offered at Center House Theatre in the Seattle Center.

Book-It All Over, the theater's educational touring program, next season will take several other shows to schools, libraries and community centers around the state, including "La Mariposa," by Francisco Jiménez; "Chicken Sunday," by Patricia Polacco; and "The Jungle Books," by Rudyard Kipling.

Mainstage subscription packages go on sale May 6; $72-$180 (206-216-0833 or www.book-it.org). Single tickets will be available in August.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com