Scene I: Summer Fare

Hollywood thinks the collective public mind is on vacation, but those wanting to use their heads while being entertained have some options onstage, even though the hottest months always herald the slowest season in the theater.

Here are some possibilities on the Orange County indoor stage scene from now until Labor Day.

Classics and perennials

Shakespearean thespians nod to the season’s lightness by offering comedies and a romance rather than histories or tragedies.

“The Comedy of Errors” meets the hustle in a version set in a New York City disco during the 1970s. Huntington Beach Playhouse, Friday through July 2. (714) 375-0696. The Playhouse also presents an outdoor production of “Love’s Labor’s Lost” in Huntington Central Park, July 18-30.

Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company brings an unorthodox “The Taming of the Shrew” to its Empire Theater in Santa Ana, July 28 to Aug. 19, with a woman playing Petruchio and a man playing Katharina. (714) 547-4688. “The Taming of the Shrew,” will be done traditionally by Shakespeare Orange County at Chapman University, June 29 to July 15. Shakespeare Orange County also takes on “The Tempest,” July 28 to Aug. 12. (714) 744-7016.

The soul’s chances for salvation are at issue in “The Castle of Perseverance” in what’s billed as the American premiere of this 600-year-old allegorical morality play from England. It runs through Saturday in an undergraduate production at UC Irvine. (949) 824-2787.

George Bernard Shaw is on tap with “Heartbreak House,” July 14 to Aug. 12 at the Vanguard Theatre in Fullerton (714) 526-8007, and with “You Never Can Tell,” Aug. 11 to Sept. 16 at the Long Beach Playhouse. (562) 494-1616.

A modern adaptation and reworking of “The Lower Depths,” Maxim Gorky’s 100-year-old play about slum denizens, continues at the Empire through Friday. (714) 547-4688. Rude Guerrilla goes from Gorky’s social realism to Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism with “No Exit,” June 23 to July 15 at the Empire.

The new Trilogy Playhouse in Costa Mesa essays a classic, Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Aug. 31 to Sept. 17. (714) 957-3347.

An adaptation of Ken Kesey’s anti-authority drama, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” plays Aug. 18 to Sept. 17 at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills. (714) 777-3033.

A couple of hardy comic standards alight at community theaters, as the La Habra Depot Theatre offers Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” Friday to July 1 (562) 905-9625 and Santa Ana’s Main Street Players stage “You Can’t Take It With You,” July 21 to July 30. (714) 547-1872. Newport Theatre Arts Center offers Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” through July 2. (949) 631-0288.

Contemporary plays

The third annual Pacific Playwrights’ Festival at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa provides a glimpse of works aborning. Two fully staged workshop productions and seven script-in-hand readings are the windows on never-produced plays still being refined. Among the readings are “The Beard of Avon” by Pulitzer-nominee Amy Freed, “Kimberly Akimbo” by David Lindsay-Abaire and “Tom Walker” by John Strand, all of which have been announced as productions in South Coast Repertory’s 2000-01 season. June 15-25. (714) 708-5555.

“Gun-Shy,” a tart comedy by Richard Dresser about two couples who have a failure to commit, not to mention communicate, runs through June 18 at the Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater. (949) 497-2787.

Alternative Repertory Theatre in Santa Ana ends an era with “Psychopathia Sexualis,” the light John Patrick Shanley sex comedy that’s the last show produced and directed by the duo that founded the theater group 13 years ago. Through Sunday. (714) 936-7929.

“The Minneola Twins” by Pulitzer-winner Paula Vogel (“How I Learned to Drive”) traces four decades in the lives of suburban twin sisters; Orange Coast College stages its Orange County premiere, June 22 to July 2. (714) 432-5880.

“Lend Me a Tenor” by Ken Ludwig gets laughs out of a night at the opera gone haywire. Through Sunday at the Curtis Theatre in Brea. (714) 990-7722.

“Steel Springs,” a scorcher of a war story, is the winner of the seventh annual West Coast 10-minute Play Festival; “Six at Eight,” an evening of prize-winning plays from the festival and other shorts, runs through June 18 at the Vanguard Theatre in Fullerton. (714) 526-8007.

Stages, in Fullerton, gets seasonal with “The Last Weekend,” Amanda DeMaio’s play about old friends in a wild beach-side reunion over the Fourth of July weekend. Through June 25. (714) 525-4484.

Six Chairs & a Couple of Artists, a new theater company in Long Beach launched by students and recent alumni from Cal State Fullerton’s theater program, has two plays in repertory: Jane Anderson’s “Defying Gravity,” based on the Challenger space shuttle disaster, and David Mamet’s edgy “Sexual Perversity in Chicago.” “Defying Gravity” ends Saturday; “Sexual Perversity” ends June 25. (310) 226-7075.

“Accidental Dancers,” by Orange County playwright Stephen Ludwig, premieres Friday through July 15 at the Long Beach Playhouse’s Studio Theatre. (562) 494-1616. Donald Margulies’ “Sight Unseen” follows on the Studio Theatre stage, July 23 to Aug. 28.

Musicals

“The Education of Randy Newman,” a new show that traces the acclaimed satiric pop-rock songwriter’s life and times by stringing together more than 40 of his songs, runs through July 2 at South Coast Repertory. (714) 708-5555.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Broadway musical season heats up over the summer, starting with “The Civil War,” in which Larry Gatlin and BeBe Winans head an 18-member cast singing Frank Wildhorn’s contemporary pop songs about the War between the States. Ends Sunday.

“Broadway Meets the Met,” a one-nighter with Carol Burnett, Frederica von Stade and the William Hall Master Chorale, plays the Orange County Performing Arts Center on June 17. The stage adaptation of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” comes to the center July 11-23; “American Beauty” director Sam Mendes’ dark-hued revival of “Cabaret” plays Aug. 8-13, and “Titanic” will have dog days playgoers thinking about icebergs, Aug. 22-27. (714) 556-2787 (Performing Arts Center box office) or (714) 740-7878 (Ticketmaster).

“The Show Goes On: A Portfolio of Theater Songs by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt” offers the lyricist-composer team of “The Fantasticks” and “I Do, I Do!” in the flesh, performing a revue of their songs. Composer Schmidt plays piano, lyricist Jones spins yarns, and three younger singers help the septuagenarian duo. July 8-30 at the Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater. (949) 497-2787.

“Always . . . Patsy Cline” dramatizes the country music great’s hits in this Fullerton Civic Light Opera production, July 14-30 at Plummer Auditorium. (714) 879-1732.

The show-biz saga “Gypsy,” by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, runs through July 2 at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse. (949) 650-5269.