Theater: Rising Above the Murmur

The best plays at Louisville's Humana Festival radiate promise

The theater community has found a new rite of spring. On the last weekend of March, some 400 professionals—actors and agents, playwrights and directors, critics from every major U.S. publication and from a dozen foreign countries—convene in Louisville in hopes of seeing early productions of significant American dramas. The optimism is often justified. Since its inception six years ago, the Humana Festival of New American Plays has introduced, among other works, The Gin Game, Getting Out, Crimes of the Heart, Agnes of God and Lone...