Lucas Verbrugghe

Geffen Playhouse today announced the full cast for its West Coast premiere of Bernhardt/Hamlet, written by Theresa Rebeck (Dead Accounts, Seminar) and directed by Sarna Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George). The production features Diane Venora (Bird, Romeo + Juliet) as Sarah Bernhardt.

To close out its 55th season, Orange County's Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory is mounting David Henry Hwang's intriguing and mysterious play M. BUTTERFLY, using the playwright's much more layered and riveting 2017 Broadway revival as its source material. Marked assuredly by powerful, gripping performances, this admirable OC staging---directed with clarifying precision by Desdemona Chiang that continues through June 8 in Costa Mesa---keeps you at the edge of your seat, as it unpacks a story filled with wobbly uncertainties and vague declarations. A beautifully complex production that echoes sentiments of gender conformity/fluidity crossed with geopolitical issues that still resonate in today's ever-changing world, M. BUTTERFLY---particularly with this strong new update instituted by the original playwright himself---is definitely worth seeing.

David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, a tale of obsession, perception and the allure of fantasy, will conclude South Coast Repertory's 2018-19 season. Hwang's break-out hit-a Tony Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist-is about more than steamy seduction and fantasy; inspired by a true account, it's a compelling story of espionage, East-West relations and betrayal. Desdemona Chiang, in her SCR debut, directs the show on the Segerstrom Stage, May 11-June 8. Tickets are available online at www.scr.org.

Working at the Museum of Natural History has its ups and downs for entomologists Betty and Jeff. As they research the mating rituals of bugs, they find their own complicated relationships increasingly under the microscope. An Entomologist's Love Story is a comic, edgy and explicit look at love in our times.