Bug, Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Letts’ darkly comic thriller about government conspiracy, kicks off the 2008-9 season at Providence Black Rep. The show, which tells the story of loss and anxiety of those struggling in the margins of society, opens in October.

Then in February, the theater stages the U.S. premiere of Ugandan playwright and Black Rep affiliate artist Charles Mulekwa’s A Time of Fire, a look at violence and power in contemporary Africa. Black Rep artistic director Donald W. King said Mulekwa’s play continues the “important work in telling stories from around the African Diaspora.”

Rounding out the season is August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean, the first installment in his decade-by-decade 10-play cycle dramatizing the African-American experience in the 20th century.

There will also be a December workshop production of Celebrity Club, a new musical about Providence’s legendary jazz and R&B club of the 1950s and 1960s. Readings of new plays in development take place in November, January and March.

Call (401) 351-0353.