THEATER PREVIEW:

It’s only April, but Golden West College’s theater department isn’t letting any grass grow under its feet. The college already has announced its plans for the 2009-10 season, which will find most of the shows being staged back in the Mainstage Theater after an extensive remodeling.

“We are delighted with the four shows we’ve selected,” says Tom Amen, who directs most of them. “The season includes an extremely popular musical, an exciting reinterpretation and stage adaptation of a classic novel and two contemporary plays, both Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning dramas.”

Leading off the new season, Golden West will dip its oar into the horror and science-fiction waters with a production of “Jeckyll and Hyde,” the stage version of the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson about a dedicated medico who concocts a potion that turns him into a murderous fiend.

“[Playwright Jeffery] Hatcher’s brilliant take on Stevenson’s original story is everything a psychological thriller should be — slick, provocative, sexy and intense,” says Amen, who will direct. “This is not your grandmother’s Jeckyll and Hyde.”

“How I Learned to Drive” by Paula Vogel is the first Pulitzer winner on the schedule — it won in 1998 — and will be staged by Martie Ramm, who normally specializes in musicals. It’s the story of a woman who learns the rules of the road and of life from behind the wheel of a car.

“It is a funny yet devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling sexual relationship between a young girl and an older man,” Ramm explains. Needless to say, it will be recommended for mature audiences.

Both the aforementioned plays will be produced in November, although dates have not been assigned. Then comes another Pulitzer winner, David Auburn’s “Proof,” which premiered locally at South Coast Repertory. Amen will be in the director’s chair.

“As elegant as a mathematical formula,” Amen says, “ ‘Proof’ is a compelling mystery which David Auburn has masterfully infused with varying degrees of love, anger, compassion and humor.”

The production is scheduled for March.

For the past three decades, “Grease” has been the word for high school shenanigans of the 1950s. The popular musical comedy by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey is ticketed for May 2010 with Ramm again at the directorial helm.

“ ‘Grease’ is an irresistible mix of teen-age angst, 1950s pop culture and fun, fun, fun,” he says. “ ‘Grease’ presents Rydell High’s senior class of 1959 in all its glory.”

Audiences still have two more shows remaining in the current season — “Beyond Therapy” in May and “What the Bellhop Saw” in June, both in the intimate Stage West theater.

At these events, both season packages and individual tickets to the 2009-10 slate will be on sale.

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TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.