Metcalfe Premiere, Baseball’s ‘Cobb’ Due at Old Globe Theatre

The Old Globe Theatre announced Wednesday that it will present the world premiere of a Stephen Metcalfe play along with the West Coast premiere of Lee Blessing’s “Cobb” as part of its six-play summer season.

“White Man Dancing” will be Metcalfe’s sixth play at the Old Globe. The La Jolla-based author of “Strange Snow” and “Emily,” the latter of which also premiered at the Globe, Metcalfe divides his time between writing plays and screenplays. He has written the movies “Jacknife,” adapted from “Strange Snow,” and “Cousins,” and is now writing a script for director Steven Spielberg.

Thomas Hall, managing director of the Old Globe Theatre, described Metcalfe’s new play as a bittersweet story of “two men who try to come to terms with choices they have to make between their careers, their personal needs and their relationships.”

The play will run June 28-Aug. 19 at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage.

“Cobb,” the story of baseball great Ty Cobb, was deferred from the winter season to accommodate the schedule of director Lloyd Richards, who is due on Broadway with August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” opening in April. “Cobb,” which will be presented June 23-Aug. 5 on the main stage, is a joint production of the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, which will present the play in May. All theaters will share in the profits, though Yale, which did most of the early development of the piece, will get the greatest percentage, Hall said.

Also on the summer schedule are two Shakespeare plays: “Hamlet,” which will run Aug. 25-Oct. 7 on the main stage, and “As You Like It,” at the Lowell Davies Festival Stage, June 17-July 29.

“Our Town,” last presented by the Old Globe in 1975, will play at the Lowell Davies Festival Stage Aug. 19-Sept. 30.

The San Diego premiere of “Heartbeats,” a musical revue about love and marriage by Old Globe acting alumna Amanda McBroom (“The Taming of the Shrew,” “White Linen”), will run Aug. 30-Oct. 21 at the Cassis Carter Centre Stage.

The casts and directors for the plays will be announced later, Hall said.