THEATER PREVIEW:Curtain rises on exciting season

It didn’t come easily, but the Newport Theater Arts Center finally has its upcoming season in place.

“It took forever to get the rights to everything,” longtime arts center board member Rae Cohen said. “We started this whole process in November, got rejected on many of our choices and didn’t hear on others.”

Cohen, who’s been with the Newport theater group since the early 1980s, termed the 2006-07 season “the most difficult in getting a season put together. We were laughing that no matter what we plan, we never end up with our first choices.

“We did get ‘Sight Unseen’ this year after being turned down on it last season,” she said. “But it took us 10 years to get the rights to ‘The Little Foxes,’ ” which the theater finally produced last season.

Newport’s new season will open Sept. 15 with James Yaffe’s thriller “The Deadly Game,” directed by Terri Miller Schmidt. It’s a drama about three retired men of law on a remote mountain in Switzerland who amuse themselves by “prosecuting” strangers who drop in. The show will play through Oct. 15.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Puffin,” a British comedy by Arthur Lovegrove, will be the arts center’s attraction from Nov. 16 to Dec. 17. It’s a light, wacky account of romantic entanglements becoming untangled and comes with a Christmas theme. Gigi Fusco Meese will direct.

The aforementioned “Sight Unseen,” which runs from Jan. 26 to Feb. 25 under the direction of David Colley, actually began its life just a few miles up the road — at South Coast Repertory in 1991. It’s a probing account of a renowned artist searching his past for deeper meaning in his life.

William Inge’s romantic comedy “Bus Stop” is up next, and will be familiar to most theatergoers who’ve either seen recent stage productions or remember the Marilyn Monroe-Don Murray movie version. Phyllis Gitlin is directing the show, which plays from March 30 through April 29.

Schmidt will be back in the director’s chair for “Baby,” a musical about three couples facing impending parenthood. It’s been done only once before locally — eons ago in Costa Mesa — and will be staged from June 1 through July 1.

The shows will unfold at the Newport Theater Arts Center, 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach, and further information may be obtained by calling the theater box office at (949) 631-0288.