The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts' 20th anniversary season in 2008-09 will celebrate accomplished Cornellians while taking on the wit of Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare alongside new plays and rarely performed works.

"This is a celebration of the core mission that we have to use the power of theater, film and dance to create real and significant contributions to the educational, spiritual and aesthetic life of the campus and community," said David Feldshuh, artistic director of the Schwartz Center.

The season, announced at a reception Jan. 23 at the center, will engage returning Cornell directors, designers, dancers, playwrights and "successful members of the film community to teach and speak and communicate with our students," Feldshuh said.

The lineup:

• "The Importance of Being Earnest," Wilde's comic satire of upper-crust Victorian society, in which two friends escape family obligations, create chaos and risk all to win their true loves.
• "God's Ear" by emerging playwright Jenny Schwartz '95, to be directed by Sam Gold '00. Schwartz garnered praise from The New York Times for her drama about a family's strained relationships while coping with unimaginable tragedy. An off-off-Broadway success, it will open off-Broadway in April.
• "Love's Labour's Lost," Shakespeare's comedy of temptation vs. sworn self-denial is one of his earliest works and is highly regarded for its wordplay, language and wit. It is also difficult and seldom produced.
• "The Body Project" by Leslie Jacobson and Vanessa Thomas. An intriguing play with music, exploring the disconnect between empowered modern women and their dissatisfaction with their bodies and self-image. Inspired by a book of the same title by Cornell's Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of history, human development and gender studies, the play will be directed by Emily Ranii '07 and was created with assistance from women of all ages in workshops involving improvisation, writing exercises and interviews.
• "The History Boys" by Alan Bennett. The recent Broadway and West End hit play won six Tony Awards and the Laurence Olivier Award. It follows the fortunes of eight bright and funny English boys in pursuit of sex, sports and a spot at Oxford.
• Leonard Bernstein's "Mass," a regional premiere of this rarely performed opera, also marks the 90th anniversary of the composer's birth. An exploration of a crisis in faith and based on a Catholic mass, the production combines music, dance and theater with more than 150 performers on stage, featuring the Cornell Glee Club, a children's choir and multimedia. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and choreographed by Alvin Ailey, "Mass" was the first performance at the Kennedy Center in 1971.

Other events in the works for the 20th anniversary season include a Theatre Studies Symposium -- a weekend of presentations, panels and noted Cornell alumni in theater studies -- and the Heermans-McCalmon Play Reading, with six alumni playwrights as special guests for two days of workshops, readings and performance.

Season subscriptions are available at the Schwartz Center box office or by calling (607) 254-ARTS.