The good folks at Orlando Shakespeare Theater have announced their lineup for the 2010 Harriett Lake Festival of New Plays, commonly (and affectionately) known as PlayFest.

The event will run from April 2-11, and as previously reported, the keynote event will feature actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. In what the Shakes is billing as an “Inside the Actors Studio” type of interview, Jim Helsinger will talk with the actor about his career. That event takes place at 7:30 April 10 in the Shakespeare Center’s Margeson Theater. Tickets are $50, $75 or $100; there are $25 student tickets available, too. Call 407-447-1700 or go to orlandoshakes.org for more info.

As for the rest of the lineup, times and dates are yet to be announced.

But for you planners out there, click through to read the list of events:

NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK ROLLING WORLD PREMIERE

‘ Shotgun’

By John Biguenet. Directed by David Lee.

Four months after Hurricane Katrina, a white man and his teenage son rent half of a shotgun duplex apartment from an African American woman and her father. Seething racial tensions bubble to the surface when love begins to bloom.

WORKSHOP

‘Heavier Than’

By Steven Christopher Yockey. Directed by Patrick Flick.

This mash-up of Greek myths unfolds inside a sprawling labyrinth where Aster the Minotaur contemplates turning 30 and pines for his long-absent mother while navigating a deceptive chorus, a plotting sister, a masochistic, sexually obsessed boy with wings and the impending arrival of warriors out for blood.

READINGS

‘The Weird Sisters’

By Zack Calhoon. Directed by Patrick Braillard.

Muriel, Seonaid and Rhoswen, three women rebuked and thwarted by Duncan’s diseased, Scottish government are brought together by need, by revenge and by design.  Meet the witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Zack Calhoon’s prequel, The Weird Sisters, before they took their revenge; before they cast their first spell.

‘Glassheart’

By Reina Hardy. Sponsored by Women Playwrights’ Initiative. Directed by Robin Olson.

It’s Beauty and the Beast. But Beauty never showed up. After centuries under the curse, the Beast and his last servant move into a shabby Chicago apartment. In the world of paying rent and taking public transportation, is a happy ending even possible?

‘Once a Marine’

By Kelly Younger. Directed by Richard Perez.

A shell-shocked marine returns home with no recollection of the life, or the wife, he left behind.  The only woman he does remember ­ the one he came back for ­ is his first love of fifteen years ago.  His bittersweet homecoming rekindles that love, and dredges up his most painful of memories. He must choose a future of blissful ignorance or a past of buried grief. But he is not the one who will decide.

‘Citizen Eve’

By Scott Bibb & Jerry Rice. Directed by Kenny Howard.

The witches from Macbeth reveal their show-biz connections in this irresistible brew of uproarious comedy, fearless imagination, Hollywood nostalgia, and all-too-human desires. It’s 1950 and Joe Mankiewicz is toiling and troubling over the script of “All About Eve.” Enter the supernatural and things get even bumpier.  Enter Bette Davis and, well…fasten your seat belt!

‘Time in Kafka’

By Len Jenkin. Directed by David Lee.

A manic recently ex-assistant professor at a small college, his loving wife, Franz Kafka, a European sanatorium, two mercurial con-people, and a time-slip — the present sliding away to 1913 … trains, bars, airplanes, poisoned sausage, The Trial … A fable, a quixotic journey, and a determined yet demented quest for one man’s own truths.

‘Vino Veritas’

By David MacGregor. Presented by Orlando Theatre Project.

On Halloween night, two couples prepare to attend an annual costume party. Though the evening begins as usual, familiar traditions unravel when the foursome shares a bottle of South American ceremonial wine made from the skin of blue dart tree frogs.  Under the influence of this tribal truth serum, what follows is an unpredictable night of unbridled honesty that stretches the bounds of their friendship forever.

‘Daedalus’

By David Davalos. Directed by Kate Ingram.

The (London) Times, January 27, 2010: “Scientists Want to Exhume Leonardo da Vinci to Solve Mona Lisa Mystery”  But why go to all that trouble when you can just see David Davalos’ play Daedalus for the shocking and funny answer? And meet Machiavelli and the Borgias, as well as go for a ride on a 16th-century flying machine, to boot…

‘Night Blooms’

By Margaret Baldwin. Directed by Laurel Clark.

Two families, ­ one white and one black, ­ cope with change in Selma in 1965. On the day of the march, the Stafford household laughs, cries, celebrates a bloom, and waits for news when an unexpected freedom fighter appears on their doorstep. A moving story of ordinary people and extraordinary change.

‘The Truth Will Out’

By Jordan Seavey. Directed by John DiDonna.

In The Truth Will Out, an allegedly closeted national news anchor is confronted and threatened by the accused killer of an African-American gay teenage boy. Tina Turner, Ellen DeGeneres, Edward R. Murrow and Katherine the Great collide with the theatrical doppelgangers of a famous news anchor and his high-society mother in a play that dares to tackle a recent national tragedy while asking some dangerous questions about human behavior and basic human rights.

PLAYWRIGHTS PANEL

What is the Role of Actor in New Play Development

Join authors, actors and directors for a scintillating conversation about new plays and their development

PLAY IN A DAY

Orlando Fringe Festival Artistic Director Beth Marshall brings the Orlando Community together to produce this much beloved, traditional Orlando event.

PLAYWRITING CLASS WITH ARLENE HUTTON
Again, for more information, go to OrlandoShakes.org.