Celebrated stage actor Christopher Plummer will once again tread the boards at the Stratford festival next year, starring with stage and film star Anika Noni Rose in Caesar and Cleopatra, the festival announced Tuesday.

The southwestern Ontario festival's Avon Theatre will also be host to two musicals next season: The Music Man and Cabaret.

Tuesday's announcement comes after organizers announced a name change to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and a renewed commitment to producing the works of the Bard and other classics.

"Our goal for this festival is to illuminate Shakespeare's work and give audiences an exciting variety of theatrical experiences," general director Antoni Cimolino said in a statement.

"We're very proud of the season we’re putting together and also delighted that Christopher Plummer will be joining us again."

The Ontario-born, Quebec-raised Plummer's last major role at Stratford was his star turn in 2002's King Lear, a production that went on to further acclaim during a run at New York City's Lincoln Centre.

He also headlined the repertory theatre festival's Barrymore in 1996. That, too, went on to a Broadway run that resulted in a Tony Award for Plummer.

Last year, he played a small role in Stratford's production of Don Juan.

Caesar and Cleopatra will be only the third George Bernard Shaw play the company has produced in its history.

The title is one Plummer "has wanted to do for some time and I fell in love with that idea," said festival co-artistic director Des McAnuff, who will direct the production.

Rose, last seen in the movie musical Dreamgirls, is also a Tony Award-winner, hailed for her featured performance in the musical Caroline or Change.

Broadway director Susan Schulman, who directed this season's To Kill a Mockingbird at Stratford, will return next year to helm The Music Man.

Up-and-coming director

Cabaret will be directed by up-and-coming director Amanda Dehnert, currently resident director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I.

Tuesday's three titles join a previously announced lineup that includes Shakespeare's Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, All's Well That Ends Well, The Taming of the Shrew and Loves Labour's Lost.

Other titles include The Trojan Women by Euripides, Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega and Emilia Galotti by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

Further titles are yet to be announced.

The 2008 season will the be first under the new leadership structure of general director Antoni Cimolino working with three artistic directors: McAnuff, Marti Maraden and Don Shipley.