Annette Bening at the Rep

Film and theater star Annette Bening will appear in an "intimate evening" of public conversation about her career. The event, slated for 8 p.m. May 24, is a benefit for Seattle Repertory Theatre's education programs.

An Oscar nominee for her performances in "American Beauty" and "Being Julia," Bening will be interviewed onstage at the Bagley Wright Theatre by KUOW radio reporter Marcie Sillman. Tickets are $50-$75 (show only), or $250 and up (with reception). Details: www.seattlerep.org or 206-443-2222.

Seattle Public Theatre lineup

This season Seattle Public Theatre has focused on Seattle premieres of recent plays. Next year, the company based at the Bathhouse Theatre at Green Lake will present such well-known works as "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter, "Master Harold and the Boys" by Athol Fugard, Tom Stoppard's "Travesties" and Diana Son's "Stop Kiss." Details: www.seattlepublictheater.org or 206-524-1300.

Adaptations on Ghost Light's lineup

The Seattle fringe ensemble Ghost Light Theatricals will open its 2006-07 season with an adaptation of the Greek tragedy "Phaedra"; and continue with "Complicateth," which pits three adaptations of Shakespeare's plays against one another; and Moliere's "Tartuffe."

Details: www.ghostlighttheatricals.org

Free Shakespeare this summer

Two local troupes that offer classical plays free in area parks have set their summer schedules.

The peripatetic Wooden O company will wax poetic with productions of "Hamlet" and "As You Like It," running July 5-Aug. 2 at various public parks in Seattle, Issaquah, Mercer Island and Lynnwood. Details: www.woodeno.org

And Greenstage's season runs July 14-Aug. 29, with renditions of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Henry VI" at parks in Seattle, Lynnwood, Redmond and Fall City. Details: www.greenstage.org

Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic

Schools take festival honors

Several Seattle-area schools earned top honors for the second consecutive year at the 44th annual Reno Jazz Festival last weekend.

Seattle's Garfield High School big band I won the High School Band AAA division. Garfield came in first last year as well. Shorewood High School, from Shoreline, aced the C Band competition.

Roosevelt High School, from Seattle, tied for first place in the AA High School Choir division. They also won the honor of outstanding high-school vocal ensemble. Pierce College, in Lakewood, was recognized (as it was last year) as the best two-year College Choir.

In the middle-school-combo category, Seattle's Washington Middle School took first place again. Eckstein's jazz band II, also from Seattle, finished second.

Individual middle-school musicians who picked up awards were Eckstein's Andy Clausen (trombone), Eckstein's Cory Dansereau (trumpet) and Washington's Shacolby Jenkins (drummer).

Garfield's Allison Wood (rhythm section/bass) was honored as an outstanding performer in the high-school division.

More than 330 middle-school, high-school and college groups competed at the festival, held at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Judy Chia Hui Hsu, Seattle Times staff reporter

SAM hires deputy director

Seattle Art Museum has hired a new deputy director for education and public programs. Sandra Jackson-Dumont, who currently fills that post for the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York, will begin at SAM in July. She has previously worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art and attended the Getty Leadership Institute/Museum Management Institute.

A native of San Francisco, Jackson-Dumont holds degrees in art history and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and New York University. At SAM she will oversee education and public programs for all the museum's venues.

Seattle architect honored for design

Architect Tom Kundig of the Seattle firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen was honored in the April issue of Architectural Record for his design of the 1,000-square-foot cabin Delta Shelter in Mazama, Okanogan County. The cabin will also be featured in May's Residential Architect magazine. This fall, Princeton Architectural Press will release Kundig's first monograph: "Tom Kundig: Houses," which spotlights five projects, including Delta Shelter.

Sheila Farr, Seattle Times art critic