The American Conservatory Theater announced their 2012-13 season today, and it includes a new translation of Elektra which will feature Olympia Dukakis and be directed by artistic director Carey Perloff, and a new production of Tom Stoppard's marvelous play Arcadia, which A.C.T. first presented back in 1995.

Also, they'll be doing Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, starring company member René Augusen as Blanche; an import from National Theatre of Scotland called Black Watch which sounds modern and cool, based on interviews playwright Gregory Burke conducted with soldiers of the Scottish regiment who served in Iraq; a world premiere of a dark comedy by Canadian playwright George F. Walker called Dead Metaphor; and an experimental-sounding "hip-hop opera" called Stuck Elevator, based on the true story of a Chinese restaurant delivery man who was trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours and didn't call for help because he didn't want to be deported.

Additionally, August 3 to 19, they'll be bringing back the popular Humor Abuse, the one-man show by Lorenzo Pisoni about growing up in the Pickle Family Circus which sold out its brief run in January and got one of those little-man-standing-on-his-seat-cheering rating from the Chron.

We'll editorialize for a second and say there aren't any huge surprises here — there's a similar mix of the ancient, the academic, the safe and familiar, and the new and potentially interesting that have characterized many a season at A.C.T. And we know that the enormous theater at 415 Geary is hard to fill — in announcing the recent acquisition of the Strand on Mid-Market, for what will be a more experimental, black-boxy, 300-person theater, Perloff said that "artistic risks on new material and young artists and new forms ... are more challenging to do in a 1,000-seat theater." We're still a little afraid of the foray back to the Ancient Greeks after that Phèdre debacle. And is it too much to ask to bring in a recent, critically acclaimed play from Broadway or Off-Broadway? Like, do we really have to keep looking to Canada for new plays? SHN can't have all of them tied up, and one would think you could fill seats with a new work if people knew they were getting something fresh from the New York stage. Anyway, we're looking forward to that Scottish thing, and we will, as always, keep an open mind.