Spirited July Offerings Run Gamut From ‘Intimacy’ to ‘Fierce Love’

July’s spirited roster of theater events offers “Fierce Love” at Highways, “Intimacy” at L.A. Theatre Works and “Treats” at the Tamarind. This month’s openings include:

Today: Sherry Kramer’s contemporary sex farce “Wall of Water” opens at the Coast Playhouse, with Renee Taylor directing Dorothy Lyman and Robin Strasser.

Today: A pair of original one-acts, Peter Mark Richman’s “A Medal for Murray” and Gene Butler’s “You Can’t Howl at the Moon,” make their debut at the Richard Basehart Theatre in Woodland Hills.

Today: At the Zephyr Theatre in West Hollywood, “Lunchtime,” Leonard Melfi’s hourlong one-act about an unhappy housewife and a furniture refinisher, will also be presented weekdays at 12:30 p.m. with a $1.99 price tag.

Monday: Megan Terry’s prison drama, “Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place,” opens at the Stella Adler Theatre in Hollywood.

Monday: Set in a London flat, Christopher Hampton’s love triangle, “Treats,” opens at the Tamarind Theatre in Hollywood.

Wednesday: Harris Yulin’s “Intimacy,” based on the works of Raymond Carver, premieres in L. A. Theatre Works Playreading Series for two nights at the Santa Monica Guest Quarter Suite Hotel. The cast includes Yulin, Bonnie Bedelia and Hector Elizondo.

Wednesday: Bayard Johnson’s dark thriller “White Death,” set on a small crab fishing vessel in the Gulf of Alaska, opens at Mama Pajama in Culver City.

Wednesday: San Francisco’s radical Pomo Afro Homos arrives with “Fierce Love” as part of the third annual Ecce Lesbo/Ecce Homo Performance Festival at Highways in Santa Monica.

Thursday: Burbank’s Alliance Repertory presents two one-acts, Garry Williams’ “Rain,” which won the first Alliance Repertory playwriting award and is the story of a disabled man who questions his Christian values, and Lewis John Carlino’s “Snowangel,” about a lonely man who hires a prostitute for a one-night fantasy.

Thursday: Shakespeare Festival/LA presents “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. All food contributions (received in lieu of admission) are matched by Vons and distributed to the Salvation Army’s Southern California Family Feeding Program.

Thursday: At Cafe Largo in Hollywood, “The Les Stevens Cocktail Show” bills itself as “a riotous glittering parody of a splashy Nevada-style extravaganza that tiptoes on the tight wire of taste.”

Thursday: A young executive is accused of violence toward a child in “The Next Little Boy” at Los Angeles’ Carpet Company Stage.

Friday: Fernando Arrabel examines the desolate residents of a decaying automobile graveyard in “The Car Cemetery” at the Open Fist Company in Hollywood.

Friday: 18-year-old Felix Cisnero III’s “Me Thinks, Me Knows” deals with the societal effects of God and government at Hollywood’s Harman Avenue Theatre.

Friday: Rue McClanahan tries her hand at playwriting with “Oedipus, Shmedipus--As Long as You Love Your Mother,” the comic tale of a father and son competing for the same woman, premiering at the Golden Theatre in Burbank.

July 14: Impressionist Jim Bailey resurfaces as Phyllis Diller at Carlos & Charlie’s in West Hollywood.

July 15: Scott Douglas DoVale wrote and stars in “Voices in the Dark,” a solo piece about two brothers facing the issue of suicide, at the Santa Monica Playhouse.

July 15: James Leagre plays eight characters in Eric Bogosian’s satire on American life, “Man Inside,” at The Complex in Hollywood.

July 17: Performance artist Charlene Chan brings her “Buzz Off, Butterfly!” to the Ecce Lesbo/Ecce Homo fest at Highways.

July 18: The South African musical “Sarafina!”--conceived, written and directed by Mbongeni Ngema, with additional songs by Hugh Masekela--brings the sounds of the Mbaqanga tradition to the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood.

July 18: The 14th annual Padua Hills Playwrights’ Festival returns to Cal State Northridge’s Art & Design Center, featuring premieres by Murray Mednick, John O’Keefe, Kelly Stuart, Julie Hebert, Robert Hummer, Susan Mosakowski, Leon Martell and Susan Champagne.

July 18: “Lisa Duke: Lost and Found,” a one-woman seriocomic odyssey though romance, career and personal growth, bows at At My Place in Santa Monica.

July 19: Two hospital patients--a construction worker and a Harvard-educated journalist--find themselves at odds in Allison Robbins’ “Metropolitan Prairie” at Friends and Artists Theatre in Hollywood.

July 19: Ed Metzger celebrates Ernest Hemingway’s 92nd birthday with a two-night performance of his solo piece, “Hemingway: On the Edge,” at Group Repertory Theatre in North Hollywood.