We’re monitoring other news while liveblogging the School Board meeting; ArtsWest (WSB sponsor) just sent the lineup for its next season:

Here’s the official news release, just out of our inbox:

ArtsWest Announces 2008-09 Season

featuring 5 Seattle Premieres
Including Tony-Winning “The History Boys”
and World Premiere “Black Gold”

Seattle , WA : Celebrating its 10th Season in the West Seattle Junction, ArtsWest is thrilled to present a six play season that features 5 Seattle Premieres – including one Tony Award Winner for Best Play and an award-winning World Premiere – each play pushing the boundaries of the issues, the audience, and the theater itself.

“This season promises to be stimulating and more than a little provocative,” said ArtsWest Executive Director Alan Harrison. “After all, sex, religion, and politics – the key topics explored in these plays – are considered the ‘third rail’ of polite discussion. There is a real danger, mischief, and delight in these scripts that sustains our artistic mission, a mission that is measured by its ability to require conversation. It’s going to be one hell of a good season.”

“I really think we’ve built a season full of heart, comedy, and great conversation starters,” added ArtsWest Theater and Education Director Christopher Zinovitch. “As great as the 07-08 Season has been with shows like Bat Boy and The Retreat From Moscow, I think next season will be even better. I can’t wait for it to start.”

“You can feel an electricity surrounding ArtsWest these days,” said Harrison . “It’s exciting to see so many people from West Seattle – but also from everywhere from Burien to Ballard – choosing to pick up a set of season tickets. The buzz is tremendous.”

Shows:
THE VERTICAL HOUR ( Seattle Premiere)
by David Hare
Directed by Carol Roscoe (The Retreat From Moscow )
September 10 – October 4, 2008

BLACK GOLD (National New Play Network World Premiere)
by Seth Rozin
Directed by Christopher Zinovitch
October 22 – November 15, 2008

PLAID TIDINGS: THE FOREVER PLAID CHRISTMAS SHOW ( Seattle Premiere)
by Stuart Ross
Directed by Jeff Church
Music Direction by R.J. Tancioco (Bat Boy)
November 28 – December 23, 2008

WELL
by Lisa Kron
Directed by Vanessa Miller
January 21 – February 15, 2009

THE HISTORY BOYS ( Seattle Premiere)
by Alan Bennett
Directed by Christopher Zinovitch
March 4 – 29, 2009

GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! ( Seattle Premiere)
by Scott Brown and Anthony King
April 15 – May 17, 2009
Where: ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery
4711 California Avenue SW
Seattle, WA 98116
www.artswest.org

Box Office: (206) 938-0339

From David Hare, the author of last season’s ACT hit Stuff Happens, comes the Seattle Premiere of an electrifying new play: THE VERTICAL HOUR. Nadia Blye is a glamorous and intelligent Middle-East war correspondent turned Yale professor, who believes that America had a moral obligation to intercede in Iraq . She travels to Britain to meet her prospective father-in-law, an eminent physician battling personal demons from his past. The two engage in a life changing debate of personal and political ethics in the age of terrorism. Directed by Carol Roscoe (last season’s The Retreat From Moscow ) this script passionately confronts the very questions that America faces approaching the 2008 elections.

“It’s a lively dissection of how two cultures look at the world’s troubles.” – Peter Marks, The Washington Post

What happens when an African-American man living in Detroit ’s inner-city purchases an oil rig on eBay and discovers one of America ’s largest oil reserves right under his own backyard? Will the poor get rich or will the rich just get richer? Christopher Zinovitch directs six actors playing over 80 roles in the World Premiere of this fast-paced, vaudevillian satire of class, race and greed in a country that will go to dangerous lengths to keep the cheap crude flowing. The award-winning BLACK GOLD (2008 Smith Prize, Best New Play) is the perfect play for the days immediately preceding – and following – the 2008 presidential election.

“[Seth] Rozin has crafted a complicated work for insane times, a new-century cautionary fable that …leaves us laughing all the way to oblivion.” – W. Rosenfeld, Philadelphia Inquirer

Dreaming of a Plaid Christmas? You’re in luck: The hilarious, heavenly quartet is back, singing swingin’ holiday favorites! The Plaids (Frankie, Sparky, Jinx, and Smudge) are transported from the ethereal cosmos to croon their tight harmonic renditions of musical hits from the ’50s and ’60s. Suddenly, as ordered by a heavenly phone call from Rosemary Clooney, they stage a nostalgic holiday extravaganza for world-weary mortals on Earth including a new episode of “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Directed by Jeff Church (from the Las Vegas cast of Forever Plaid), PLAID TIDINGS: THE FOREVER PLAID CHRISTMAS SHOW is an ideal seasonal show with all the trimmings . . .and one the whole family can enjoy!

Acclaimed writer and solo performer Lisa Kron’s newest work is all about her mom…but Lisa doesn’t know that yet. WELL explores the dynamics of health, family and community through the story of one woman’s extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her complete inability to heal herself. In this “solo show with other people in it”, Kron asks the provocative question: Are we responsible for our own illness? The answers she gets are more than she bargained for when the play spins out of control into unexpected, riotously funny territory.

“ONE OF THE YEAR’S TEN BEST!” – Ben Brantley, The New York Times

In THE HISTORY BOYS, an unruly bunch of bright, funny, sixth-form (or senior) boys in a British boys’ school are in pursuit of sex, sport, and a place at a good university . . . generally in that order. They are helped and hindered, enlightened and bemused, by a maverick English teacher who seeks to broaden their horizons, and a young history teacher who questions the methods, as well as the aim, of their schooling. Christopher Zinovitch directs the Seattle Premiere of Alan Bennett’s multiple Tony Award-winning play.

“A superb, life-enhancing play.” – The Guardian

GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! is a loving spoof in which two aspiring playwrights perform a backers’ audition for their new project: A big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg (not Steve Guttenberg from the cinema classic Short Circuit). With an unending supply of enthusiasm, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their crass historical epic, with the hope that one of the producers in attendance will give them a Broadway contract – fulfilling their sky-high, if ill-advised, dreams.

“Uproarious and hysterically funny!” – Associated Press