Tom Stoppard play to kick off ACT Theatre's 2009 season

A Broadway play by Tom Stoppard — about the politically fraught relationship between a leftist British professor and a Czech student caught up in the rock music sounds and political tumult of the 1960s — will lead off the 2009 season at ACT Theatre in April.

The entire ACT lineup:

"Rock 'n' Roll"

April 10-May 10, 2009

This 2007 work by Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia but emigrated to England as a child, will be given its Seattle premiere in a staging by ACT artistic director Kurt Beattie. The decades-spanning work was nominated for a best-play 2008 Tony Award.

"The break/s"

June 18-July 12

The local premiere of a new multimedia work by dancer-performance artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, a "hip-hop renaissance man" who has appeared in Seattle previously at On the Boards.

"Das Barbecu"

Aug. 6-Sept. 6

The Scott Warrender-Jim Luigs musical, composed of comic "outtakes" of Wagner's "The Ring" in a Texas setting, returns in a staging by its original director, Scott Warrender. A companion piece to Seattle Opera's Wagner-thon "The Ring" (which also returns next summer), this twangy slice of mythic Americana was last revived by ACT in 1995.

"Runt of the Litter"

Sept. 18-Oct. 11

Bo Eason's autobiographical one-man show, directed by Larry Moss, considers the former pro-football player's challenging youth and insights and experiences as a tough defensive back for the Houston Oilers.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde"

Oct. 9-Nov. 8

An adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher of the bone-chilling Robert Louis Stevenson story about a proper Victorian physician, Dr. Jekyll, whose rampaging alter ego is the monstrous Mr. Hyde. Kurt Beattie directs.

One additional show, for a May-June slot, will be announced later. ACT will also mount another season in its Central Heating Lab cabaret series, and present its annual run of "A Christmas Carol," Nov. 29-Dec. 27, 2009.

More details: 206-292-7676 or www.acttheatre.org