Has anybody else noticed that this summer has been remount after remount? We've got UMO's El Dorado from 18 years ago and Brian Kooser's Frankenocchio from the early-middle '90s. We got a little Gallagher, plus The Laramie Project from Strawberry Theater Workshop and The Cider House Rules from Book-It.

Even the new shows have felt a little familiar: Steven Dietz wrote another well-made play about people looking for The Truth (this time starring 9/11 conspiracy theories), Mike Daisey brought another dispatch from his inquiries into technology and economy (this time starring Steve Jobs and Chinese factories), and Elizabeth Heffron's futuristic satire felt like a cross between 1984 and Mad Max.

(I'm sorry I missed Kalup Linzy at SAM which sounded relentlessly fresh—you can read Jen Graves on that performance here.)

Here's looking forward to fall, when we'll get Sextet, a new play by Tommy Smith about the doomed love lives of Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg, and Carlo Gesualdo at Washington Ensemble Theatre. And b.c., janvier 1545, fontainebleau at On the Boards by French weirdo Christian Rizzo (involving a bunny mask, black stilettos, and a 16th-century sculpture of a nymph). And a new adaptation of The Scarlet Letter by Naomi Iizuka and directed by Lear deBessonet, both of whom have ties to Anne Bogart and SITI Company (whose shows can be stiff and academic, but discussing their idea of what new theater should look like is always an invigorating—and sometimes exasperating—exercise).

The walk down memory lane has been fun, guys. But I'm ready for something new.