John and Carol Farrell of Freeport, founders of the acclaimed Figures of Speech Theatre, are working with Bates students in a theater production workshop that will culminate in performances of the Asian folk tale Dragon’s Daughter at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 20-22, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 23, in Gannett Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

Performances are open to the general public for $6 and to seniors and students for $3. Tickets will be available from batestickets.com. For more information, please call 207-786-6161. The Farrells’ residency is made possible by the Freeman Foundation.

The Farrells are internationally renowned for adapting folk tales in productions that make imaginative use of masks, puppetry and other traditional stage devices. At Bates, they are conducting an intensive program in a variety of Asian performance genres including the “noh” style of musical theater and “bunraku” puppetry, both from Japan.

They will direct Bates students in Dragon’s Daughter, which Figures of Speech premiered in 1997. Set upon an altar in an ancient temple, the production combines carved puppets with dynamic masked dance and storytelling. It’s the story of a young girl’s experiences as she seeks a secret lake that will save her village from drought.

“A story for our time and all time, Dragon’s Daughter soars with humanity,” a reviewer for the Brunswick Times-Record wrote. “The work transcends the merely dramatic; its content and method achieve a spirituality worthy of its setting.”

Since its founding, in 1982, Figures of Speech has celebrated the value of all cultures through the interplay of puppets, actors, shadows, music and masks. The company explores personal, social and spiritual issues with projects that quietly but emphatically illuminate our relationship to the earth and the balance between individual vision and community obligation.

Figures of Speech has toured all over the world, from Bulgaria to Japan to Peru. Besides performing at venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution and the New Victory Theatre on Broadway, the company retains a strong commitment to teaching and performing in rural schools and theaters throughout its home state of Maine.

The company is a four-time recipient of the coveted UNIMA Citation of Excellence, the highest distinction in American puppet theater, as well as numerous grant awards from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jim Henson Foundation and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

At Bates for the college’s five-week spring Short Term, the Farrells are teaching the annual theater production workshop, this year titled “Cultural Fusion: Asian and Western Theater Styles in Performance.”

Though puppet theater is featured in theater history courses at Bates, this production workshop gives students “the chance to work with well-respected practitioners of the art in a concentrated way,” says Michael Reidy, lecturer and technical director for the theater department. “This course will broaden the students’ view of what makes theater a vital and fascinating form of expression.”

Author of three well-regarded books on acting and theatrical history, Kuritz in recent years has studied filmmaking and film directing at the International Film and Digital Video Workshops in Rockport. “A New Life” will serve to test his abilities as part of the process of developing a new Bates course on acting and directing for the camera.

“More people watch films and make films than watch or make theater,” he says. “More students are interested in film, in how to make films. So I think I should take my knowledge and skill in directing for theater and see how it can be shifted over to film.”

Brown, author of the short story that Kuritz has adapted for the film, was born in 1917 and is a lifelong Alabaman. She uses understated language and minimal word counts to achieve a surprising eloquence in her explorations of the culture clash between the old and new South. “A New Life” was published in the 1986 collection “Tongues of Flame,” which won the 1987 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award.

The story of a young widow whose grief drives her to seek comfort from a group of Christians, “A New Life” lent itself readily to screen adaptation, Kuritz says. It’s short, with a small number of characters and settings, he explains, and “it’s pretty cinematic in its imagery. There’s a lot of dialogue already, and very vivid but brief character descriptions.”

In addition, the rural Southern setting “translates pretty well to parts of Maine,” he says. “I was looking for a story that could be set realistically in Maine.”

Kuritz will take as his cinematic model the classic Hollywood style of such directors as John Ford, Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock — steady camera work, a measured pace and rich compositions. He will shoot the piece in digital video.

Volunteers are crucial to the production of “A New Life,” for which Kuritz has virtually no budget. The situation is ideal, he says, for “people who like making movies and want to network with a place that will be making movies in the future.”

While Bates has no formal film/video production program and few fiction films have been produced at the college, Bates students and faculty have created a number of documentaries. “For the Love of Small Scale,” a documentary about Maine agriculture created by four Bates students, was one of 10 winners in the 2005 Maine Documentary Film Competition, part of the annual Maine International Film Festival.

Kuritz teaches stage acting and directing at Bates and directs one of the theater department’s two annual productions. In fall 2005 he directed “The Taming of the Shrew,” and his previous directorial projects include the musical “Swingtime Canteen” (2004), Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan” (2002) and a stage adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (2001).

A Lewiston resident, he is the author of “Fundamental Acting: A Practical Guide” (Applause Theatre Books, 1997), “The Making of Theatre History” (Prentice Hall, 1987) and “Playing: An Introduction to Acting” (Prentice Hall, 1982).

A dizzyingly humorous web of disguise, intrigue, mistaken identity and sexual confusion, “Twelfth Night” follows twins Viola and Sebastian, who are shipwrecked off the coast of Illyria. Both are saved, but each thinks the other has drowned. A kindly sea captain helps Viola to disguise herself as a man and find her way to the household of Count Orsino. There, passing as a man, she is taken into the service by the lovesick Orsino, who sends her to court Olivia, a beautiful young woman who mourns for her recently dead father and brother. Viola, however, falls in love with Orsino and only reluctantly woos Olivia. Olivia flatly rejects Orsino’s overtures, but immediately falls in love with the disguised Viola.

Sebastian unwittingly steps into the fray while walking the streets of Illyria. Olivia takes him for his disguised twin sister. Unlike Viola, who has rejected all of Olivia’s overtures, Sebastian is only too happy to accept the lady’s proffered love. Jealousy and confusion ignite passions before true identities are revealed and romance reigns.

The production is suitable for children, according to director Martin Andrucki, professor of theater at Bates, and features costumes combining elements of the revolutionary era in France with details derived from contemporary avant-garde fashion. The set design bridges periods, suggesting “a futuristic dystopia and an early industrial landscape,” Andrucki said. The sets and costumes have been designed by Ellen Seeling, assistant professor of theater at Bates.

Greta Hammond, a senior from Hiram, Maine, plays Viola; Adam Thompson, a senior from Portland, Maine, plays Sebastian; Milena Zuccotti, a senior from Brooklyn, N.Y., plays Olivia; and John Forest, a sophomore from Nashua, N.H., plays Count Orsino.

“Tales of the Lost Formicans,” told by aliens who look just like people, is a warm, quirky story of a family trying to cope with the father’s case of Alzheimer’s disease. Question-and-answer sessions will follow the Nov. 7, 8, 13 and 14 performances.

Directed by William Pope.L, a performance artist and lecturer in theater at Bates, all performances will be in Schaeffer Theatre. General admission is $6 and $3 for students and seniors. The Schaeffer Theatre box office opens one hour prior to performances. Call 207-786-6161 Monday-Friday, 3-5 p.m. for more ticket information.

Chapter Two, one of Simon’s more autobiographical plays, traces the limbo period in George Schneider’s life, between bereavement for lost love and the excitement of new romance. George is devastated when his wife of 12 years dies, and it isn’t until he meets the spunky, dynamic actress Jennie Malone that he faces the prospect of enjoying life again. Encouraged by their love-starved, dysfunctional confidantes, the story of George and Jennie ranges from high-spirited hilarity to painful sentimentality.

Next in the Theater at Bates series will be Constance Condon’s comedy Tales of the Lost Formicans, Nov. 6-8 and 12-15 in Shaeffer Theatre.

Set in the late 1860s in the Wyoming Territory, two women head into the American frontier in search of adventure and romance and encounter the hardships of pioneer life in this have-and-have-not story. “Abundance percolates with dark laughter . . . this is the author’s most provocative play in years,” The New York Times said. Henley won the the Pulitzer Prize for her play Crimes of the Heart.

Directed by Bates senior Elizabeth Moreau of Standish, the Bates production features junior Milena Zuccotti of Brooklyn, N.Y., as Macon; sophomore Greta Hammond of Hiram as Bess; senior David Barish of Larchmont, N.Y., as Jack; sophomore Jon Adler of Newton, Mass., as Will; and sophomore Dan Gavin of Norwood, Mass., as Elmore.

Next in the Theater at Bates series is the Bates College Modern Dance Company’s Annual Spring Concert of New Works, March 27 and 28 at 8 p.m., and March 29 at 2 p.m. in Schaeffer Theatre.

Directed by Chris Mathien, a Bates sophomore from Veazie, Maine, this show portrays the plight of Jenny, a young girl who has been sexually abused by her baby sitter. As Jenny relives the moment she shared the secret with her best friend, Deedee, she realizes the difference between secrets that should be kept and those that must be told.

Jenny is played by Katherine Hazard, a sophomore from New York City. Emily Stanton, a first-year student from Eliot, Maine, will play Deedee. First-year student Kate Spencer from Wellesley, Mass., will play Mother and Bernice. Dan Snow, a first-year student from Scarborough, Maine, will play Elrod and Sparky, and sophomore John Payne of Bryn Mawr, Pa., will play Mr. Anderson.

Next in the Theater at Bates series is Anton Chekhov’s tragicomedy The Seagull opening at 8 p.m. on March 5, 6 and 7 and at 2 p.m. on March 8 in Schaeffer Theatre.

“Etta Jenks” by Marlene Meyer is “an ancient story turned into a sardonic, eye-opening plunge into a contemporary netherworld,” wrote Mel Gussow of the New York Times. Paul Kuritz, chair of the Bates theater department, will direct the production, starring Gina McMahon ’97 as Etta and Ben Levy ’98 as Clyde. Etta Jenks is a provincial girl from the midwest who travels to tinseltown to pursue her dream of becoming an actress only to be snared by the worlds of sexual pornography and metaphysical miracles.

Meyer won the Joseph Kesselring Award for “Etta Jenks” and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her other plays include “Kingfish,” produced at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) in the 1988-89 season and by the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1989-90; and “Geography of Luck,” produced by the South Coast Rep and LATC in 1989. Formerly a playwright-in- residence at LATC, Meyer lives in New York City.

The Bates production will feature lighting and technical design by Joshua Williamson, and scene and costume design by Barabara Rogers, assisted by Amanda Trottier ’96, Sheela Madhani ’99 and Vanessa Pino ’98. Zoe Lawson ’98 will be stage manager with assistance from Sara Trachtenberg ’99 and Erika Timperman ’97.

For further information, call the box office, open Monday through Friday from 3 to 5 p.m., at 207-786-6161.