There aren't many Broadway openings over the summer, but that doesn't mean you won't have a chance to see stars on stage. This July and August, several familiar names are due to appear in off-Broadway, regional and festival productions. USA TODAY takes a quick look at a few who will spend the lazy season treading the boards (and one working behind the scenes).
Richard Chamberlain and Brooke Shields
Show:The Exorcist, a world-premiere adaptation of the William Peter Blatty novel that inspired the film, by Agnes of God playwright John Pielmeier.
Roles: Shields plays Chris MacNeil, an actress whose cute young daughter has started to act rather strangely. (Notably, Pielmeier's script doesn't call for head-spinning or pea-soup eruptions.) Chamberlain is cast as Father Merrin, the wise old priest who tries to save the girl's soul.
Related experience: Chamberlain played a priest who befriended a girl in the 1983 TV miniseries adaptation of another novel, The Thorn Birds.
Where and when: Now at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Peter Dinklage
Show: Bard Summerscape's all-male production of Moliere's satire The Imaginary Invalid.
Role: Dinklage plays the wily and resourceful maidservant Toinette, who helps out his hypochondriac master's daughter.
Related experience: In 2008's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Dinklage played the wily and resourceful (but male) dwarf Trumpkin, who helps out Prince Caspian.
Where and when: Opens Friday at Bard College's Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Westfeldt
Show: New York Stage and Film's workshop of Stephen Belber's new play, The Power of Duff.
Roles: Kinnear plays Charles Duff, a mid-market TV anchor who, despite his ambivalence about religion, has a spiritual awakening on the air and begins publicly exploring faith. Westfeldt is Sue, his highly professional, unhappily married co-anchor, who is moved to question her own beliefs.
Related experience: Kinnear anchored TV's Talk Soup in the early '90s, a gig that allowed him to express plenty of ambivalence.
Where and when: Performances begin July 18 at the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Amy Adams
Show: Shakespeare in the Park's revival of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical Into the Woods.
Role: Adams plays the Baker's Wife, who longs to have a child; unfortunately, she and the Baker have been rendered infertile by a vengeful witch's curse. While trying to break the spell, the couple crosses paths with various fairy-tale characters.
Related experience: Adams played an aspiring chef in the 2009 Nora Ephron film Julie & Julia.
Where and when: Previews begin July 23 at the Public Theater's Delacorte Theater in New York's Central Park.
Bradley Cooper and Patricia Clarkson
Show: The Williamstown Theatre Festival's new production of Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man.
Roles: Cooper plays the title character, John Merrick, whose life as a severely disfigured man in Victorian England inspired the play. Clarkson portrays Mrs. Kendal, an elegant actress who befriends him.
Related experience: Cooper performed the part of Merrick for his senior thesis at the Actor's Studio Drama School.
Where and when: Performances begin July 25 at the WTF's Nikos Stage in Williamstown, Mass.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Show: The American premiere of Nick Payne's If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet.
Role: Gyllenhaal plays Terry, described in a press release as "a heartbroken drifter with the mouth of a sailor." Estranged from his family, Terry re-emerges suddenly and strikes up a friendship with his teenage niece, an overweight girl who has been targeted by bullies.
Related experience: Gyllenhaal played a drifter of sorts in 2005's Brokeback Mountain, and he's an uncle in real life — to sister Maggie Gyllenhaal's two young daughters.
Where and when: Previews begin Aug. 24 off-Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre.
Woody Harrelson
Show: The American premiere of Bullet For Adolf.
Role: Harrelson co-wrote, with longtime pal Frankie Hyman, and directs a comedy about two Midwesterners who in the summer of 1983 get involved with a mysterious New Yorker who's running from his past.
Related experience: Harrelson and Hyman actually worked construction together in the summer of 1983, and the characters are based on people they knew. The events are fictional, though; in a statement, Harrelson described the play as "seven per cent history and 93 per cent embroidery."
Where and when: Previews begin July 19 off-Broadway at New World Stages.
