Selective listings from theater critics of The New York Times.

The Tony Award winner Idina Menzel will appear in “Nero” at Vassar College.

The actors union and Broadway theatre producers have reached a tentative agreement for a new 39-month contract that covers Broadway shows and touring productions.Actors' Equity Association and the Broadway League, which represents both producers and theatre owners, had been negotiating past the deadline of midnight Sunday, when the last contract expired.

“Marko the Prince” is an ambitious portrait of a fictional shell-shocked village on the border of Bosnia and Serbia in the summer of 1992.

After two and a half months of talks Actors’ Equity Association reached a tentative agreement with the Broadway League, averting a strike.

The Wilmette Theater hopes to come to the rescue of a beleaguered production of “Ragtime.”

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELLWritten by William ShakespeareDirected by Marti MaradenStarring Daniela Vlaskalic, Jeff Lillico, Juan Chioran, Brian Dennehy**Autumn has come early to Stratford with Marti Maraden's pretty and plaintive All's Well That Ends Well. With sad music, colourless costumes and a mooning cast, the production is so overwhelmingly melancholy that it makes Hamlet seem like a farce.

CONTINUINGCORTEO ***Cirque du Soleil's show centres its acrobatics on an elderly clown whose imagined funeral (more like a carnival) frames a string of circus acts. Because so little mind is paid to story by Cirque directors (Daniele Finzi Pasca, in this case), audiences find the shock and awe of the juggling, tumbling, or tightrope walking decreases at each successive viewing of a show. Still, it would be curmudgeonly not to admit the brilliance of Corteo, and all Cirque creations. These artists are made of electricity, and Cirque has redefined, in the popular imagination, the limits of physical showmanship. To July 20. $42 to $220. Under the Grand Chapiteau, Concord Pacific Place, 50 Pacific Blvd.,

Kristin Scott Thomas will make her Broadway debut in a production of Anton Chekhov’s “Seagull.”

The Wars, the stage adaptation of the Timothy Findley novel about a young Canadian soldier serving during the First World War, led the large-theatre category with three Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards in Vancouver last night. But the play, which had its world premiere in Calgary last year, was shut out of the major awards for acting, directing and outstanding production. The Theatre Calgary-Playhouse Theatre Company (Vancouver) co-production won Jessies for outstanding lighting design (Kevin Lamotte), set design (Allan Stichbury) and sound design or original composition (Scott Killian).

Despite a year of financial and backstage struggles, Toronto's Canadian Stage Company walked off with the lion's share of spoils yesterday at the 29th annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards.

Although the deadline has passed, negotiations on a new contract between the actors' union and Broadway theatre producers are continuing, both sides said yesterday.The contract between Actors' Equity Association and the Broadway League, which represents both producers and theatre owners, expired at midnight Sunday.

Citing concerns about racial sensibilities, officials of the Wilmette Park District in suburban Chicago have canceled a production of “Ragtime.”

The Spoleto festival's first weekend had a heavy dose of theater, with a Gallic complexion to it.

When lovers meet on London’s stages this summer, the odds are it’s not violins they’re hearing. It’s alarm bells.

The Gateway Playhouse’s absolutely first-rate production of “Forbidden Broadway” is in full swing.

Mr. Szajna was a playwright, set designer and theater director who through often nearly wordless productions evoked the beastliness of humanity and the oppressiveness of dictatorship.

Tracy Letts’s “August: Osage County” is a full theatrical meal. His new play, “Superior Donuts,” is a much less ambitious repast.

Hughie By Eugene O'Neill Directed by Robert Falls Starring Brian Dennehy and Joe Grifasi **Krapp's Last Tape By Samuel Beckett Directed by Jennifer Tarver Starring Brian Dennehy**** Brian Dennehy may be a star, but he is not behaving like one at the Stratford Festival. You would have paid full price to see Al Pacino in Hughie in New York or Harold Pinter in Krapp's Last Tape in London, but here Dennehy performs both one-act plays as a double bill. It's a real bargain, allowing you to watch the two-time Tony winner play contrasting roles as a smooth-talker and a listener in the same night.

Fuente Ovejuna By Lope de Vega In a new English version by Laurence Boswell Directed by Laurence Boswell Starring Scott Wentworth, Jonathan Goad and Sara Topham *** For the second time this season, the Stratford Festival has opened a play about war in the Tom Patterson Theatre in which the central character isn't a Shakespearean king, but a group of ordinary citizens. Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna is an intriguing and very entertaining contrast to Euripides' The Trojan Women. It's the first time the festival has mounted a Spanish Golden Age classic, and though it is a quirky, uneven production, it is hoped it will be the first of many.