ROMANCE, MOLIERE AT OLD GLOBE ’86

“Cymbeline,” Shakespeare’s rarely seen romance about a legendary British king, will lead the Old Globe Theatre’s return to its classical forte next summer when the theater will stage four classics, a world premiere and a contemporary comedy.

The season will feature two other Shakespeare plays, “Julius Caesar” and “Much Ado About Nothing; Moliere’s “Tartuffe”; a world premiere by Stephen Metcalfe, “Emily”; and “Beyond the Fringe,” a comic revue written by Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore in 1961.

The emphasis will be on comedy, “a delicious respite . . . with edge and purpose,” Globe artistic director Jack O’Brien said in a prepared statement.

“Beyond the Fringe,” a satirical revue that spawned such television programs as “That Was the Week That Was” in Britain and Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In” here, will open the season at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, running June 4 through Aug. 31. A director has not been announced for the show, which was first produced at the Globe in 1972.

“Tartuffe,” perhaps Moliere’s most popular comedy, about a lecherous rogue in the guise of an ascetic, will be directed by Globe executive producer Craig Noel and runs June 6 through Aug. 31, in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.

Joseph Hardy will direct “Cymbeline.” It will be produced in the Old Globe Theatre and run from June 11 through Aug. 31.

“Julius Caesar,” the primary dramatic offering of the summer, will be performed in the round on the Carter Stage from July 18 through Sept. 21. A director has not been announced.

The warring lovers Beatrice and Benedict will return to the Globe in “Much Ado About Nothing,” for a run in the Davies Festival Theatre, July 20 through Sept. 21. No director has been announced.

“Emily,” commissioned by the Globe, will run from July 25 through Sept. 21 in the Globe and is about a “modern young woman, a successful stockbroker, and the way she handles her romantic entanglements.” O’Brien will direct.