THEATERFEST : Pilgrimage : The Solvang summer season will offer something for everyone this year.

It’s hard to contemplate a summer evening in Solvang without thinking of theater under the stars.

Since the opening of the outdoor Solvang Festival Theatre in 1974, the PCPA Theaterfest summer season has offered a half-dozen plays in rotating repertory between the Festival Theatre and the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts headquarters at Santa Maria’s Allan Hancock College.

The professional stature of Theaterfest productions has traditionally attracted talented guest artists (more than 800 actors auditioned for this year’s summer company, according to PCPA artistic director Jack Shouse).

It’s also made Solvang something of a pilgrimage site for theater, and an ambitious rotation schedule allows die-hard patrons to view all six plays in a single week during the season peak in August and early September.

This year’s menu seems certain to offer something for everyone--comedy and drama, musicals and Shakespeare, with an emphasis this time on adaptations from classic literature.

“The Three Musketeers”

July 4 through Sept. 20

The most flamboyantly theatrical entry promises to be Alexander Dumas’ archetypal swashbuckling epic that chronicles D’Artagnan’s evolution from provincial rube to valiant swordsman in the court of France’s Louis XIII. Charles Morey’s adaptation, which is a West Coast premiere, stresses action, romance and slapstick, and seeks to capture the exuberance and lightning pace of the novel. The production will include 28 sword fights choreographed by David Boushey, founder of American Fight Directors and a specialist in sword fighting for stage, film and television.

“Dracula”

July 18 through Sept. 22

The Festival Theatre’s castle decor--with its towers and battlements framing the stage--should provide a suitably Gothic ambience for “Dracula.” Not to be confused with the revisionist version frequenting Broadway and regional stages since the 1970s, this adaptation by Richard Sharp is a faithful transfusion from Bram Stoker’s spine-tingling novel. The population of bats that traditionally flit through the skies during Solvang productions should be in good company for this one.

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”

July 25 through Sept. 21

Thrills may be offered on one evening, chills the next, but there will also be “Comedy Tonight”--thanks to the screwball musical that first introduced that snappy tune. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” also marked Stephen Sondheim’s debut as composer and lyricist, and the unique talents that would eventually propel him to the forefront of musical theater are evident in this early work--lyrics of dazzling cleverness and musical form derived from content rather than being imposed upon it. “Forum” was adapted from the comic plays of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Staged in a style termed “Early Roman Goofy” by director Brad Carroll, it will feature the same technical crew and lighthearted approach as PCPA’s winter production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

“Cabaret”

July 4 through Sept. 21

At the other end of the musical spectrum, we find the tortured German mind-set on the cusp of the 1930s reflected in the darkly seductive setting of a decadent “Cabaret.” In episodes adapted from the “Berlin Stories” of Christopher Isherwood, there’s an unsettling correspondence between the increasingly outrageous intensity of the musical numbers and the disintegration of an entire society. This production, the post-movie revival version restaged by Harold Prince in 1987, features two new songs and a story line that’s less romantic and more complicated and neurotic than the original stage version (the narrator Clifford’s homosexuality is dealt with openly, and the anti-Semitism theme becomes far more pointed).

“Baby”

June 13 through Sept. 16

For something a little more contemporary, this production was held over from PCPA’s winter season. A musical about three modern couples coping with the stresses and joys of approaching childbirth, “Baby” deals with the most basic transition typically encountered in the adult stage of life.

“King Lear”

July 25 through Sept. 22

Our concept of adult transitions might have become a tad facile over the centuries, as Shakespeare’s “King Lear” reminds us. It’s the story of a foolish monarch who must be stripped of his outward identity before he can discover who he really is. Actor-director James Edmondson, on loan from Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival (he directed PCPA’s acclaimed version of “The Normal Heart” this season), will take on the title role in what might well be the blackest of all tragedies.

* WHERE AND WHEN

PCPA’s summer Theaterfest offers six plays in rotating repertory between its two theaters in Solvang and Santa Maria. “The Three Musketeers” and “King Lear” will open in Santa Maria. “Cabaret,” Dracula” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” will open in Solvang. “Baby” will be performed in the Solvang theater only. Solvang Festival Theatre is at 420 2nd St., Solvang 93463. The Marian Theatre is at 800 S. College Drive, Santa Maria 93456. For tickets and other information call (800) 221-9469.