CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In October, America's first regional theater will celebrate a momentous birthday and blow out 100 candles -- figuratively at least, though trying to extinguish that much flame would be a special effect worthy of the stage.

There will be a party, a "homecoming weekend" Oct. 23-25 featuring performances by returning stars and an enormous cake. (No word on whether someone the likes of Alan Alda, who hit the boards at the Play House early in his career, will emerge from its center wearing a Cleveland Play House banner, but a critic can dream.)

But before that three-day bash, artistic director Laura Kepley and her team had to choose the slate that would make up the 100th season. Given the occasion, they felt a little extra pressure, so they started early. Planning began in September 2013, when Kepley succeeded Michael Bloom to become the ninth artistic director in the theater's history.

Kepley turned in a first draft of the centennial lineup last August, right before launching into rehearsals for "The Little Foxes," Lillian Hellman's deliciously melodramatic meditation on greed set in the overheated American South.

"Only two things have changed since then," says Kepley. "That's sort of unprecedented, but this is an unprecedented season."

Some 300 to 350 scripts were read during the selection process, more than the typical 100 considered for other seasons. Also unusual was the number of people -- 35 -- who weighed in on each play that wound up on the 2015-16 schedule.

"I think it's really important that there's consensus around these plays, that there's buy-in," says Kepley. "And it's critical to ask, 'Is this centennial-worthy? Is this 100th-season material?'"

The challenge was to acknowledge the rich legacy of the Play House with an eye to the next 100 years. "We wanted to honor the past, build on our current success and really plant the seeds for the future," says Kepley.

They looked to the founding ideals of the Cleveland Play House -- artistry, community, innovation and ensemble -- to guide them. Kepley and company made "a dream list" of Cleveland Play House alumni they wanted to work with again.

Two-time Tony Award winner Ken "The Game's Afoot" Ludwig and celebrated actor and director Austin Pendleton topped the roster of encore invitees.

Also in the works is a CPH/Cleveland Orchestra collaboration that will feature a world premiere piece for actors and musicians by Quiara Alegria Hudes. The Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright last visited Cleveland in 2012 as the first recipient of the Roe Green Award. That work will debut at the Play House in the spring of 2016, so stay tuned!

But the CPH mission is to foster different voices, too -- a sort of make new friends but keep the old approach. When Rajiv Joseph's play "Mr. Wolf" opens at the Outcalt Theatre in April 2016, it will be the first time CPH has ever produced a work by the Pulitzer Prize finalist who grew up in Cleveland Heights.

Amazing as that seems, it isn't for lack of trying. "Pretty much since I've become artistic director, I've been having conversations with Rajiv, trying to figure the right moment and the right play," Kepley says.

"And it all came together for the 100th season."

Times, tickets and more

All CPH performances are in the venues of the Allen Theatre complex, Playhouse Square, Cleveland. Unless otherwise noted, shows preview the first week (Saturday through Thursday), open at 7:30 p.m. the first Friday, and close on a Sunday. There is one Thursday matinee performance at 1:30 p.m. for each production.

Subscriptions: Subscribers see one show free when they subscribe to all six shows, and season packages start at $226. To purchase subscriptions or get more information, call 216-400-7096 or visit clevelandplayhouse.com.

Single-show tickets: Go on sale in early August, and prices start at just $20. Call 216-241-6000 or go to clevelandplayhouse.com.

The 2015-16 Mainstage season

Sept. 5-Oct. 3, Allen Theatre: "A Comedy of Tenors," written by Ken Ludwig, directed by Stephen Wadsworth. World premiere, co-produced with McCarter Theatre Center.

Three tenors. Three egos. One stage. What could possibly go wrong? Producer -- and former mayor of Cleveland -- Henry Saunders is about to find out as he attempts to stage the concert of the century. But with an amorous Italian superstar and his hot-blooded wife causing chaos on an operatic level, all bets are off.

As opening night draws near, flaring tempers, mistaken identities and bedroom hijinks bring new meaning to the phrase "the show must go on" in this laugh-out-loud farce set amidst the glitz and glamour of 1930s Paris.

The Play House has produced five of Ludwig's plays, two of which -- "The Game's Afoot" in 2011 and "Leading Ladies" in 2004, which Ludwig also directed -- were world premieres. "Tenors" will be the third Ludwig production to start its life on the Cleveland stage.

In it, Ludwig transports two characters from his hugely popular "Lend Me A Tenor" to a Parisian hotel room. (That 1989 Tony winner set in a hotel suite in Cleveland was dubbed "one of two great farces by a living writer" by The New York Times.)

"Ken had whispered about this play to me during 'Game's Afoot,' " says Kepley. When she finally read it, "I just started leaping up and down, and I said, 'Oh Ken Ludwig, thank you!' "

Oct. 10-Nov. 8, Outcalt Theatre: "The Crucible," written by Arthur Miller, directed by Kepley.

In the spring of 1692, tales of witchcraft haunt the village of Salem, Massachusetts. Deep-seated jealousies, lust and greed come bubbling to the surface. As neighbor accuses neighbor, revenge replaces reason, and mere rumors are now damning evidence. No one is safe.

Arthur Miller's controversial classic premiered on Broadway in 1953 -- at the height of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's red-baiting. "The Crucible" won the Tony for best play and opened at the Play House the following year -- and the theater has never done it since.

"There have been several plays we've done three, four, five times," Kepley says. (The most-produced play in CPH history is William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," staged an impressive 11 times.)

Kepley decided it was time to dust off "The Crucible" and "give it a new, fresh, urgent production."

To do that, she'll stage it in the intimate Outcalt Theatre in the round -- "so we're literally turning the theater into a crucible. ... I mean, it is going to be intense -- extreme, physical, visceral. People are going to be everywhere."

The icing on this particular cake is that one of the performances of "The Crucible" will fall on Miller's 100th birthday.

Jan. 9-Feb. 7, Allen: "Little Shop of Horrors," book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken and directed by Amanda Dehnert. Based on the 1960 film by Roger Corman.

In this gleefully twisted hit musical that mixes Motown, B-movies and dentistry, Seymour is a nerdy floral clerk with a knack for plants, but not much else. However, one peculiar seedling he's tending might just be his ticket to fame, fortune -- and the girl of his dreams. There's only problem: This plant has an unquenchable thirst for the red stuff (Type O, A or B ... he's not picky).

No you're not huffing fertilizer -- the Play House is staging "a book musical," something it hasn't done since "The Man of La Mancha" in 2009, also directed by Dehnert. (More typical are revues and the "play with music," such as the recent one-woman show "The Pianist of Willesden Lane.")

So how did a cult movie-turned-musical make the cut as "centennial-worthy"?

"Puppets [played] a huge part in our first 10 years as a theater company," says Kepley. "Everything from Balinese shadow puppets, Bunraku-type puppets and also marionettes."

The first play CPH ever produced was "The Death of Tintagiles" in 1916, a popular marionette play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. But don't expect the carnivorous Audrey II to look like "the sort of pod Muppet" we're used to. Like her approach to classic plays, Kepley is intent on reimagining musicals, too.

(That "pod Muppet" was famously voiced by Levi Stubbs in the 1986 film starring Rick Moranis as Seymour, Ellen Greene as his human lady love Audrey and Steve Martin as a crooning, sadistic tooth man.)

Like mighty oaks growing from acorns, Kepley promises more "Little Shops" to come. "This is sort of a centennial seed that we're planting -- how do we build our capacity to do larger-scale musicals?"

Jan. 23-Feb. 14, Outcalt: "The Mountaintop," written by Katori Hall.

It's April 3, 1968. The Lorraine Motel. Room 306. Tomorrow, it will become the scene of one of our nation's greatest losses. But tonight, it's a road stop in Memphis, Tennessee, just another place for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to lay his head.

A maid enters the room and challenges King, prompting him to confront his life, his legacy and the future of his people. This surreal fantasy delivers a portrait of the man behind the myth.

When "The Mountaintop" appeared late in the planning process, Kepley jumped at the chance to become the first Play House artistic director to produce a work by the hot young playwright.

"I'm thrilled to be introducing Katori Hall, who I think is one of the most important voices working right now," says Kepley. "This was really her breakthrough play."

Hall had just turned 30 when her two-character drama debuted on Broadway -- with stars Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett and music by Branford Marsalis -- in October 2011.

"What the play really gets at is, who is going to take the baton and move the message and the movement -- and our country -- forward?" says Kepley.

Feb. 27-March 20, Allen: "Luna Gale," written by Rebecca Gilman, directed by Austin Pendleton.

How do we make the right decision when there are so many competing choices? It's the sort of quandary that seasoned social worker Caroline faces every day. But her newest case is proving to be her toughest yet, and the fate of baby Luna Gale hangs in the balance. This riveting, suspenseful and topical play plunges us headfirst into the turbulent waters of parenthood, faith and love.

Like Hall's "The Mountaintop," "Luna Gale" will mark the debut of one of America's most buzzed-about playwrights at the Play House.

"I couldn't believe that we hadn't done any of her plays," says Kepley, a fan of the Pulitzer Prize finalist for years -- she has a stack of Rebecca Gilman plays on a shelf in her office to prove it. (Gilman is the 2015 Roe Green Award Winner.)

"She writes suspenseful, taut, psychological thrillers that are about ripped-from-the-headlines concerns and issues," Kepley continues, "but I think 'Luna Gale' is her best work to date."

"Luna Gale" made its world premiere at Chicago's Goodman Theatre in January 2014.

Another coup is its director, Austin Pendleton, a Warren, Ohio native whose parents met at the Cleveland Play House (his mother, Frances, was an actress; his father, Thorn, an admirer). Brother Alec is CPH board chair. Pendleton's acting credits include everything from highbrow films such as "A Beautiful Mind" to cavorting with Kermit in "The Muppet Movie" and voicing Gurgle in "Finding Nemo."

He also directed Elizabeth Taylor as the voracious Regina Giddens in the 1981 Broadway revival of "The Little Foxes" and is helming the spring production of "Hamlet" starring Peter Sarsgaard at New York's Classic Stage Company.

Pendleton hasn't worked at the Play House since appearing as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in "Amadeus" in the 1983-84 season. He did, however, catch Kepley's "Little Foxes" last fall, a performance that stoked his interest in coming back to direct.

"We're thrilled," says Kepley.

April 2-24, 2016, Outcalt: "Mr. Wolf," written by Rajiv Joseph, directed by Giovanna Sardelli.

Your whole world can change in a blink of an eye. For Michael, it happened when his teenage daughter, Theresa, went missing. For Theresa, it was when she was found.

The South Coast Repertory commissioned the mysterious tale of adaptation and survival from Joseph, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his play "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," starring the late Robin Williams.

After making its world premiere at the Costa Mesa, California theater this April, "Mr. Wolf" will head to Cleveland for its second production, directed by Joseph's longtime collaborator, Giovanna Sardelli. (Sardelli delivered a superlative production of "The Whipping Man" at the Play House in 2012.) Joseph will be on hand as the play is built in Cleveland.

"The first 15 pages are some of the most exhilarating writing I've ever read," Kepley says.

Special non-subscription holiday engagement

Nov. 27-Dec. 23, Allen: "A Christmas Story," written by Phil Grecian, based on the motion picture written by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown and Bob Clark, directed by John McCluggage.

One boy. One holiday wish. One sore tongue. The record-breaking show returns to the Play House stage in all its pink-bunny-suit, glowing-leg-lamp, triple-dog-daring glory.

This feel-good Cleveland classic about a boy and his beloved Red Ryder air rifle, back for a third consecutive appearance since 2013, is responsible for bringing thousands of newbies to the nation's first regional theater each year.

Special non-subscription engagement

May 2016, dates to be announced, Allen: "Steel Magnolias," written by Robert Harling, directed by Kepley.

At Truvy's beauty shop in Louisiana, the women are all sass and brass. Through clouds of hairspray (it's the 1980s, after all) and over the hum of blow dryers, six Southern spitfires gather each week to gossip and support each other through thick and thin. But those bonds are about to be tested when M'Lynn and her daughter Shelby face a life-changing event.

Brace yourself, honey -- the Play House has never done "Steel Magnolias," a discovery Kepley made as she was combing the theater's archives.

Although she's read the play before and seen its many incarnations, "when I went back and looked at it last summer, I could not stop laughing."

Her husband, the playwright George Brant, asked her what she was reading. "I was like, 'I can't tell you!' " Kepley says. "But I was laughing out loud and then, of course, a complete mess at the end."