Dramatists aren’t taking summer off

CONTRARY to popular belief, the warm weather doesn’t lower IQs and summer fun needn’t be brainless. Happily, theatergoers hungry for a little substance have much to choose from, with a particularly strong lineup of playwrights who adore the sun more for its elucidating light than for its tanning rays.

Sarah Ruhl, an emerging dramatist of note, has joined forces with Cornerstone Theater Company for a production of “Demeter in the City,” a community-based exploration of the myth behind winter’s origin, involving a group of local 20-year-olds, that opens June 10 at REDCAT.

A new play from the man who gave us “Driving Miss Daisy” opens June 11 at the Mark Taper Forum. Oh, there’s another thing to note about Alfred Uhry’s “Without Walls” -- the ever-smoldering Laurence Fishburne stars as a teacher with dangerous charisma.

“God of Hell,” Sam Shepard’s bold grappling with the current state of the national disunion, concludes the Geffen’s season of American greats with an all-too-real expressionistic cartoon directed by Jason Alexander, opening June 28.

Mama’s infamous cart comes rolling out again in La Jolla Playhouse’s timely revival of “Mother Courage,” Bertolt Brecht’s tragicomic masterpiece on the business of war. The production, directed by Lisa Peterson, opens June 28.

Shakespeare, as usual, abounds in the balmy months, with plenty of alfresco offerings throughout the Southland. But for those who prefer their Bard indoors, there’s a rare opportunity to catch “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” a comedy of decorous (and not so decorous) love games that gets dusted off by the Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation on July 8.

“Curtains,” the much anticipated Kander and Ebb “murder mystery musical comedy” that already has much Broadway buzz, opens at the Ahmanson on Aug. 9, with David Hyde Pierce headlining what promises to be an unusually rollicking whodunit.

And at the Taper, Culture Clash focuses its one-of-a-kind theatrical attention on L.A. in a new piece that burrows deep into the power structures of a town not easily parted from its secrets. “Water & Power,” directed by a busy Lisa Peterson, opens on Aug. 6 -- just in time to rev up the dog days.

*

-- Charles McNulty