BRIEFLY . . .

The San Diego Institute for Arts Education is looking for a few good artists to instruct teachers about dance, theater, music and the visual arts. The institute will hold an orientation at 8:30 a.m. today at the Puppet Theatre in Balboa Park. Sponsored by the Junior League of San Diego, the institute offers students opportunities to develop their creative abilities by experiencing the arts first hand. The program, now in its third year, uses artists to instruct teachers, who teach students, who subsequently view a performance or example of the work they have studied. Institute officials are seeking artists who “devote the major part of their lives to the creation of art.”

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company has selected “Private Lives” as the final play at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre for the season. The show opens Sept 14 and will play through Nov. 12. The Gaslamp has changed the opening of “The Nerd” to a July 27 opening. The play, by the late Larry Shue, the author of San Diego’s most produced play of last season, “The Foreigner,” plays through Sept. 18.

Carlos X. Pena’s The Progressive Stage Company has found a new home for itself in the Gaslamp Quarter. It plans to open a three-play season of West Coast premieres at 433 G St. at 5th Ave. First up is John Patrick Shanley’s “Women of Manhattan,” opening July 7. On tap is “Billy Irish” by Thomas Babe and “The Value of Names” by Jeffrey Sweet.