Playbill - Jay Johnson: The Two and Only!, the amiable solo play about Johnson's relationship with the ancient art of ventriloquism, begins a Boston engagement July 12 for American Repertory Theatre.

Playbill - Tony Award winner Frances de la Tour and Clive Merrison, of Broadway's The History Boys, exited the hit production July 9, but shall return.

Playbill - With the "East to Edinburgh" festival July 11-29, Off-Broadway's 59E59 Theaters becomes a way station for eight American shows that will be en-route to the summer Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Playbill - Hometown girl Donna McKechnie, who spent formative years in suburban Detroit, will make a special benefit appearance at the major resident theatre there, Meadow Brook Theatre.

Reuters - After two weeks of watching the tennis from Wimbledon, the thought of an award-winning, highly ingenious and quasi-existentialist play about English refugees in a remote mountain resort seemed like just the thing for a Sunday afternoon.

Playbill - Christopher J. Hanke, the big-voiced actor who played the fresh-faced hero in the much-talked-about 2005 Broadway musical In My Life, will join the cast of Rent Aug. 7.

Playbill - A new not-for-profit group billing itself as ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty) will launch a monthly benefit concert featuring the works of emerging theatrical songwriters in Manhattan.

Playbill - June Allyson, the wholesome, sweet and utterly apple pie star of a series of popular MGM movie musicals in 1940s, died July 8 at her home in Ojai, California. She was 88.

Playbill - Andrea McArdle is Sally Bowles in a rare regional production of the acclaimed Sam Mendes/Rob Marshall version of Cabaret, July 10-22, at the Ogunquit Playhouse, the historic summer theatre in southern Maine.

Playbill - The complete cast of the New York premiere of Bruce Norris' dark comedy The Pain and the Itch has been announced by Playwrights Horizons, which will present the lauded play beginning Sept. 1.

Playbill - A properties artist, that seldom-celebrated member of a theatrical creative team, is at the center of Michael Roderick's new drama, Props, beginning July 17 in the Midtown International Theatre Festival.

Playbill - Shout! The Mod Musical, boasting hip-swiveling hits that made household names of Petula Clark, Lulu and Shirley Bassey in the 1960s, gets its New York City debut July 11 at Off-Broadway's Julia Miles Theatre.

Playbill - Composer Elliot Goldenthal and Tony Award-winning director Julie Taymor will open their new opera Grendel at the New York State Theatre on July 11. The show is part of the Lincoln Center Festival.

Reuters - The last time Jose Rivera wrote about the legendary Ernesto Guevara, he came up with the script for "The Motorcycle Diaries," a look at young Che's travels through South America. And the result? Rivera earned considerable acclaim -- along with an Oscar nomination for best screenplay.

Reuters - Choreographer Twyla Tharp, who brought the music of Billy Joel to the theater with her hit show "Movin' Out," now will bring the songs of Bob Dylan to Broadway.

Playbill - Film duo Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett will star in an upcoming run of August Wilson's acclaimed drama Fences at Pasadena Playhouse.

Playbill - Composer Neil Berg, lyricist Nick Meglin and playwright Dan Remmes have been tapped by producer Jeff Gardner to convert the 1993 hit movie "Grumpy Old Men" into a Broadway musical, it was announced.

Playbill - The Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, begins July 7, offering four new American plays, including three world premieres.