More theatre: The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble presents Romeo and Juliet in the arboretum.

The Department of Theatre and Dance this week announced its “most bountiful and inventive season yet,” including two hit Broadway musicals (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and The Who's Tommy), a Sideshow Physical Theatre world premiere and visiting artists’ original pieces.

The 2010-11 season also brings the Edge Performance Festival, a new event with six elements taking place over two weeks. The festival comprises four department mainstays (some reformatted and renamed) and two new programs:

• THIRDeYE Theatre Festival — still featuring undergraduate playwrights, but with readings instead of staged productions

• Solo Explorations — Master of Fine Arts thesis projects

• First-Year Director-Choreographer Project — formerly known as the Director's Showcase

• Annual undergraduate dance performances — formerly called the Main Stage Dance-Theatre Festival

• Cabaret (new) — featuring graduate and undergraduate students in two evenings of music, poetry and more

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (new) — late-night move presentation, with singalong

FALL QUARTER

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee — Tony Award-winning Broadway musical (2005), about a competition that is riotously out of control with supernatural trances, magic body parts, ulterior motives, and peer and parental pressure. Two-time Granada Artist-in-Residence Mindy Cooper, a 25-year Broadway vetera, is the director-choreographer. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Sept 16-18 and 23-25, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 19 and 26. Main Theatre. See separate story.

Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love — The department’s Sideshow Physical Theatre presents the world premiere of a new work, devised and performed by Bella Merlin. The professor of acting follows the tumbling thoughts of Tilly Wedekind, wife and muse of the celebrated German playwright, Frank Wedekind (Spring Awakening and Lulu). Weaving together biography, personal letters, drama and original songs, Merlin traces the Wedekinds’ passionate marriage leading to Tilly’s attempted suicide and Frank’s premature death. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 14-16, and Wednesday-Saturday, Oct. 20-23; 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17 and 24. Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Gallathea — Written by John Lyly and directed by Professor Peter Lichtenfels. This Elizabethan play, set in modern day and dominated by Diana, Venus and Cupid, asks the question: “What is it like to portray a woman's society.” Said Lichtenfels: “Early modern ideas about men, women, and the flexibility of gender are both remarkably similar and completely different to ours today. The similarities help us to think about gender and sexuality through the differences of a society and culture from over four hundred years ago — with thought-provoking and challenging perspectives on what many people today take for granted.” 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 11-13 and 18-20, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14. Main Theatre.

Hinterland — By Granada Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough. The British playwright describes Hinterland as “a journey to the wild edge, the place where things change; a poetic radio drama taking the listener into a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice; a new play about imagination and transformation; a fusion of wild savage earthiness and magic realism.” 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, Dec. 1-4, and 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4. Main Theatre.

WINTER QUARTER

Body of Knowledge — Original choreography by graduating Master of Fine Arts candidate Karl Frost of Body Research Physical Theater. According to a Department of Theatre and Dance news release, Body of Knowledge “sits in the territory between somatic psychology, experimental theatre and human ecology.” The audience wanders the stage with the performers as they explore the relationship of their bodies and minds to the environment and one another in an immersive audio and video installation incorporating scenes from nature, the human constructed environment and lands severely modified by human action. “The work juxtaposes scientific knowledge to the emotions we feel in response to what we know, see, and physically experience.” Friday-Saturday, Feb. 11-12 and 18-19, and 2 p.m. Feb. 13 and 20. Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

The Flood (working title) — By Granada Artist-in-Residence Dominique Serrand of Theatre de la Jeune Lune fame, who also directs this newly devised work. It takes the structure of an oratorio built from song, dance, story and character, and explores the epic forces of a flood. Just as William Faulkner’s novella Old Man used the Mississippi flood of 1927 as the backdrop for his story, here the key elements of Faulkner’s story form the point of departure: two convicts set free by the rising of the river, a young pregnant woman marooned in a tree, a riverboat full of refugees, a deer swimming for its life, the birth of a child, the bursting of the levees and the reconciliation of the river meeting the sea. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, March 3-5, and Friday-Saturday, March 11-12; and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 6 and 13. Main Theatre.

SPRING QUARTER

The Edge Performance Festival is scheduled over two weeks, with some events occurring on the same evenings. Friday-Sunday, April 15-17, and Wednesday-Sunday, April 20-24. Various times and locations to be announced (with the locations to include the Main, Arena and Wyatt Pavilion theatres).

Moby Dick Variations (working title) — By John Zibell, graduating MFA candidate in directing. Moby Dick Variations, like the novel Moby Dick, is about perspectives and is a polycultural, polytheistic, polyrhythmic, polyvocal, nonlinear exploration of being in the universe. Set in the here and now, it investigates the disappearance of the human animal from the natural landscape. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, May 5-7 and 12-14, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 8 and 15. Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

The Who’s Tommy — Cooper gets the call again to direct a UC Davis musical, in her third stint as a Granada artist-in-residence. The Who’s Tommy is the show that finally brought Broadway into the rock era, winning five Tony Awards. The show revolves around a young pinball champion who descends into a catatonic state, then rises to fame and life realizations. It includes the classic rock hits “Pinball Wizard,” "Tommy Can You Hear Me?" and “See Me, Feel Me-Listening to You.” It is based on The Who's double album rock opera Tommy, first performed by The Who in 1969. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, May 19-21 and 26-28, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22 and 29. Main Theatre.

UC Davis Film Festival — 11th annual, produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance and presented by the Varsity Theatre in association with UC Davis Technocultural Studies and co-sponsored by Film Studies and Art Studio. The festival gives students the opportunity to showcase their short films and receive feedback from faculty who are professionals in film, television and new media. Check out winning films from prior years. 8:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, May 25-26. Varsity Theatre, 616 Second St.

AT A GLANCE

TICKETS for all events except the film festival are available in advance through the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or mondaviarts.org. Tickets for all events except the film festival will be sold at the door at slightly higher prices, if tickets are still available.

FILM FESTIVAL tickets will be available in advance, starting May 18, at the Varsity Theatre, and also will be sold at the door.

DISCOUNTS: A 10 percent discount is applied to orders for 15 or more tickets for a single performance. Groups of 25 or more receive a 10 percent discount plus two free tickets.

For high school and youth groups of 10 or more, tickets are available for $5 apiece ($10 for musicals), at the request of teachers and group leaders. To make arrangements, call the Department of Theatre and Dance publicity office, (530) 752-5863. 

Further student discounts are available for UC Davis students, for productions that are required as part of class curricula. Instructors must contact the production office, (530) 752-7090, to arrange for the discounted tickets.

Seniors qualify for reduced-price student rates.

All performance dates and venues are subject to change.

More information.