In the shadows

The Present Laughter company has gone home, the set has been struck, Kiki & Herb have been packed into their coffins and shipped to San Francisco, the celebrities are heading to Williamstown and Fenway Park, and the BU Theatre is dark now until September.

Today the stage was bare - nice and clean, with a newly painted floor - yet dark and very lonely on a steamy July afternoon.

I have to admit that I find that empty stage incredibly exciting - brimming with the potential of something that only imagination can create. As we've spent the last weeks cleaning up and plotting out plans for our 2007-2008 season that potential has come more clearly into focus.

We're going to take you to Scotland on a wild ride across the country in The 39 Steps - a comedy thriller based on Hitchcock's movie version of the famous story of the same name. Then we'll bring you inside the US Army - to a stateside Vietnam era barracks for the explosive Streamers. Next - we'll bring you to a New England college campus for Third. We'll then explore the world of Conor McPherson's Dublin, Ireland in Shining City. And in May we'll visit a perfume shop in Budapest for She Loves Me.

From the South End we'll journey a few blocks to South Boston for world premiere of Ronan Noone's Brendan at the Calderwood Pavilion. In the spring the doors of the Wimberly Theatre will open to Turkey and the war torn oppression of Afghanistan for Sinan Unel's The Cry of the Reed.

Travel from places right next door to across the world in the comfort of our beautiful facilities, experience live theatre, and share in these unique experiences in the ways that you've come to expect only the Huntington to deliver.

That's only some of the exciting potential I see lurking in the shadows of our empty theatre. What are you looking forward to?

That empty theater does not, however, make for very interesting photos. I'll leave you instead with some scenes from the past few weeks. First the final curtain call from Present Laughter. Then a look at the "strike". Finally - Dead Gus makes another appearance. It seems that all that British banter wasn't good for his health. Poor fellah.