Berkeley Rep’s new season

Moreno, Hoch return for Berkeley Rep's new seasonBerkeley Repertory Theatre is throwing itself a year-long 40th anniversary party. Among the guests are Bay Area diva Rita Moreno, making her third appearance on the Berkeley Rep stage, and Danny Hoch (below), the hip-hop theater star whose solo show Jails, Hospitals and Hip Hop was a big hit for Berkeley Rep in 1998.The season, announced Wednesday, opens with George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, directed by Berkeley Rep associate artistic director Les Waters. The play has been produced in every decade of the theater's history.In October comes Haruki Murakami's after the quake adapted and directed by Tony Award-winner Frank Galati.Director Mary Zimmeran, whose Metamorphoses and The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci have been Berkeley Rep audience favorites, returns with the West Coast premiere of Argonautika about Jason, the golden fleece and a host of giants, nymphs, centaurs and sea monsters.Hoch's as-yet-unnamed show arrives in January, directed by artistic director Tony Taccone, and Moreno's (below) star turn as tone-deaf opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins in Glorious! arrives in the spring.Will Eno's Tragedy: a tragedy receives its American premiere in a limited run in March, and the seventh play of the season will be announced at a later date.``Every birthday is a cause for celebration and reflection,'' Taccone said in a statement. ``It's natural to take stock of where we've been, where we are and where we're going. Eclectic by intention, Berkeley Rep celebrates humanity at its most complex and dynamic. We celebrate plays that are imaginative, intelligent and relevant. We celebrate plays that inspire transformation.''Season subscriptions begin at $84. Call (510) 647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org for information.