just4moms.netExciting News Every Mom Should Know…

[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]

City, Date: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe(SCEE) today announced an exciting update to PlayStation®Plus that guarantees subscribersreceive at least three full games a month from a selection of thevery best titles from the PlayStation®Store. the update will provideusers with a wide variety of the hottest titles, at no additionalcost.

Starting June 6th, there will be an Instant Game Collection of10 games to choose from ready to download and play as part of theupdated PlayStation®Plus subscription, with at leastthree being updated monthly. the amazing launch line-up includesthe brand new Virtua Fighter 5™: Final Showdown, as well as Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD, Renegade Ops™, Chime Super Deluxe, Outland™, Darksiders and Warhammer 40,000®: Space Marine®.

As part of the 10 games available, there will be a PlayStation®Plus Game of the Month. this willchange every four weeks and represent the very best PlayStation®Store has to offer, includingbrand new download-only games and Digital Blu-rays. 

Additionally, as part of their subscription, members will haveaccess to three digital Blu-ray blockbuster titles from SCEE – inFamous™2, MotorStorm: Apocalypse® and LittleBigPlanet™2.

PlayStation®Plus will also deliver some of thebest games in production from smaller, independent developers thatevery member will have the chance to play. the first game to beincluded as part of this new offering is Retro/Grade, the arcade shooter with a twist from 24 CaretGames and will be available later this summer for eight weeks, atno cost to subscribers.

On top of all of the exciting new updates, the PlayStation®Plus service will continue tooffer the same special features, huge discounts and exclusiveaccess that subscribers know and love.

Over the last year PlayStation®Plus has delivered incrediblevalue to its members worldwide. Between June 2011 and June 2012,subscribers have received:

·         Over€150 in games that are brand new to PlayStation®Store and included as part of thesubscription, like Awesomenauts, Trine 2™ and the Simpsons™Arcade

·         Over€450in games from the massive collection of great titlesalready available on PlayStation®Store, like Castle Crashers®, Plants vs. Zombies™ and Far Cry® 2

·         Morethan €1000 in discounts on brand new games at launch,including digital Blu-ray titles from franchises like Assassin’s Creed®, Tom Clancy’s GhostRecon® and call of Duty®, as well as additional money-off PlayStation®Store special offers.

Subscribers also received an array of exclusive features andaccess, including cloud storage for game saves, automatic updateand beta access to titles like Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception™, Resistance® 3 and StarHawk™, as well as a huge collection of exclusive dynamic themesand PlayStation ® Network avatars.

Last year PlayStation®Plus gave members access tocontent valued at over 30 times the cost of their yearly membershipand this will only continue to increase over the coming months.

PlayStation®Plus still costs just£39.99/€49.99 for a one-year subscription or£11.99/€14.99 for a 90-day subscription..

About Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), based in London, isresponsible for the distribution, marketing and sales ofPlayStation®3, PlayStation®Vita, PlayStation®2,PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable) and PlayStation®Networksoftware and hardware in 109 territories across Europe, the MiddleEast, Africa and Oceania. SCEE also develops, publishes, marketsand distributes entertainment software for these formats, andmanages the third party licensing programs for the formats in theseterritories.

More information about PlayStation products can be found at http:/www.playstation.com/www.playstation.com“>www.playstation.com.

PlayStation, the PlayStation logo are registered trademarks ofSony Computer Entertainment Inc. PS3 and PSP are trademarks of SonyComputer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property oftheir respective owners.  

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Hailed by The Huffington Post as "Arcade Fire meets boys raised on gospel and Bruce Springsteen," The Apache Relay are happy to announce their Summer tour dates for the months of July and August. The band will be hitting the road in July beginning with a date at Milwaukee Summerfest on July 5, before heading out on the road supporting Young The Giant for a number of dates and a headline date on July 22 at new York City's Mercury Lounge. For a complete tour itinerary, please see below.

The band will follow up these shows by following good friends Mumford & Sons on their specially curated "Gentlemen of the Road" Stopovers across the United States in August. The Apache Relay are one of the only bands that will be playing at every Stopover. The Apache Relay are certainly no strangers to playing with Mumford & Sons, having joined them onstage at last year's Bonnaroo Music Festival and touring together throughout part of 2011.

Mumford & Sons selected The Apache Relay to join them along the GOTR Stopovers, saying "Nashville is well represented at the GOTR stopover and people may love it for being a country music town, but what do people know eh? The 'Shville is a rock n roll town. each member of The Apache Relay maybe pitiful examples of 'southern gents' but they embody that rock n roll. Their album American Nomad is sick, not just in the rock n roll sense of the word (vomit, to clarify) but in the hipster sense too (awesome, to clarify). Listen to them now and start believing."

The Apache Relay's last album, American Nomad, was produced by Neilson Hubbard and features tracks penned by lead singer Michael Ford Jr. The album also offers The Apache Relay's cover of Bruce Springsteen's "State Trooper," a song that has become a staple for the band. "We all were influenced by Nebraska, and we played the song out of necessity in the very beginning because we didn't have enough material to fill the set," says Ford Jr.

Since the release of American Nomad, The Apache Relay continued their regiment of non-stop touring, amassing a fervent fanbase and performing over 100 dates in 2011 alone, including the aforementioned spots opening for Grammy nominated Mumford & Sons, and a breakout performance at Bonnaroo Music Festival. 2012 has seen the band continue to tour in support of American Nomad, having already played at SXSW, Canadian Music Fest, and Newport Folk Festival.

American Nomad is available in record stores everywhere, on iTunes or on The Apache Relay's website, www.theapacherelay.com.

7/5 -   Milwaukee,WI @ Summerfest Henry Maier Festival Park

7/6 -   Kansas City, MO @ Power and Light District *

7/10 – Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room *

7/12 – Rochester, NY @ Party in The Park *

7/14 – Toronto, CA @ Edgefest

7/16 – new York, NY @ Central Park Summerstage *

7/17 – Wallingford, CT @ The Dome at Oakdale *

7/19 – Buffalo, NY @ Thursdays at the Harbor *

7/20 – Baltimore, MD @ Power Plant Live *

7/22 – new York City, NY @ Mercury Lounge (Headline show)

7/21 – Montauk, NY @ SPIN's annual Surf Lodge Concert Series

7/28 – Newport, RI @ Newport Folk Festival at Fort Adams State Park

8/4 – Portland, ME @ Gentleman of the Road Stopover ^

8/11 – Bristol, TN @ Gentleman of the Road Stopover %

8/18 – Dixon, IL @ Gentleman of the Road Stopover #

8/25 – Monterey, CA @ Gentleman of the Road Stopover ~

* with Young the Giant

^ with MUMFORD & SONS, ST. VINCENT, DAWES, THE MACCABEES, SIMONE FELICE, HAIM

% with MUMFORD & SONS, DAWES, JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE, JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD, THE VERY BEST, SIMONE FELICE, HAIM

# with MUMFORD & SONS, GOGOL BORDELLO, DAWES, ABIGAIL WASHBURN, THE VERY BEST, HAIM

~ with MUMFORD & SONS, GOGOL BORDELLO, TWO GALLANTS, GROUPLOVE, THE VERY BEST, HAIM

Amidst a sea of seemingly bleak posts, and granted, deservedly so as we have hit a very rough patch, one way of showing that there is in fact some diversity, that …
blogzilly.blogspot.com/2012/06/play-date.html

Easily one of the most anticipated pool play games of the 2012 Euro Cup, this group C matchup pits the 2008 Euro Cup Champion and 2010 World Cup Champion Spain against 2006 World Cup Champion Italy. It’s a matchup of two of Europe’s perennial soccer powers, and with the weaker Croatia and Ireland as the other teams in Pool C, this game will likely determine who takes first and second in the group.

Spain comes in as the favorite, and deservedly so. they are the reigning Euro Cup champs and return the nucleus of the team that won in 2008. Italy faces a tough challenge in their opening game. Here are the match details and the major factors affecting both sides. 

Where: Arena Gdansk—Gdansk, Poland

When: Sunday, June 10th—6:00 PM local time, 12:00 PM EST

Television Broadcast: ESPN

Live Stream: ESPN3.com

Factors affecting the game:

Which Mario Balotelli will we see on the pitch?

Balotelli has the reputation of being a bit of a wild-card. on one hand, he is an incredibly talented forward capable of catalyzing the Italian offense. on the other, he is an extremely aggressive player with an attitude that occasionally gets the best of him (see here).

Alex Grimm/Getty Images

Throughout the Euro Cup, he will be taking the pitch in front of hostile crowds. Adding to the intrigue, Balotelli has publicly said he would walk off the field if the fans began using racial taunts. the UEFA responded this would result in a yellow card.

Italy faces an uphill battle against Spain, but matters could be made worse if Balotelli gets an early yellow and can’t play his usual aggressive style.

Injuries

Spain will be playing without star defender Carles Puyol and goal-scorer David Villa. Sergio Ramos will have to step up to help solidify Spain’s defense, and Fernando Torres will be tasked with replacing Villa’s offensive firepower.

For Italy, defender Andrea Barzagli has been ruled out for the Euro Cup, and it appears Domenico Criscito will fill his role.

While Puyol and Villa are two big names, Spain has a much deeper roster than Italy and should be able to compensate for these injuries. few teams would be able to lose a player of Villa’s ability and be able to plug in a talent like Torres. Italy’s loss of Barzagli could prove more costly, especially against Spain’s offense.

Experience

This Spain team returns most of the core of their 2008 Euro cup team, including stars Iker Casillas, Xabi Alonso, David Silva, Sergio Ramos and Andres Iniesta. and the list goes on and on. These are all players familiar with Spain’s “tika-taka” possession-oriented approach. If La Roja jump out to an early lead, this team is fine with holding onto the ball and milking the clock out.

Comparatively,  Italy also has a less Euro Cup-seasoned team, returning Gianluigi Buffon, Antonio Di Natale and Giorgio Chiellini among others from their 2008 squad. but they lack the depth that Spain has. this will be the first major international competition for young Italian players like Mario Balotelli. It’s difficult to know whether they can maintain their composure on the grand stage and continue to perform.

Cecil HurtSports Editor Published: Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 3:30 a.m. last Modified: Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 12:30 a.m.

Imagine Nick Saban waiting for weeks after the February football signing date to sign not just a player, but an entire 25-man signing class. That is essentially the high-stakes waiting game Anthony Grant played this spring — and on Friday afternoon, it paid off.

The University of Alabama basketball coach played the waiting game with America’s most contemplative major recruit — Devonta Pollard of Porterville, miss.

Pollard waited through the early signing period last November. then he waited through the entire late signing period in April and May. through it all, he rarely eliminated a contending school although a couple eliminated themselves — Mississippi State with a coaching change, Kentucky by signing a bevy of other All-Americans, as usual. But he kept several schools under consideration for months — Texas, Missouri, Georgetown — and as late as his Friday afternoon announcement, he was adding an LSU hat to the table for a decision that, he insisted, “I finally made this morning.”

Alabama was around all along, with Grant and his staff painstakingly building a relationship, hosting Pollard and his family at practices and games, relying on personality and proximity, not pressure. Finally, they won out.

Unlike football, a school can have a successful recruiting class with just one player — if he is as good as he appears to be. he also has the Anthony Grant attitude. he talked Friday about blocking shots and rebounding, about “wanting to win all the time.”

If there were any worries abut fitting in, his soon-to-be-teammates Trevor Lacey and Nick Jacobs both took to Twitter shortly after Pollard’s announcement to welcome him as “part of the family.”

How much does Pollard mean to Alabama, potentially? How different will next year’s Crimson Tide be with an 11-man roster including the 6-foot-8 forward, as opposed to a 10-man roster without him? the answer to both questions is “a lot.”

Pollard is ranked the no. 22 prospect in America by Rivals, but it is hard to imagine a half-dozen prospects in the country that would have done more to fill Alabama’s needs. He’s an inside to mid-range scorer, a double-digit rebounder, a shot blocker. Without him, Alabama’s frontcourt would have had to rely on its two full-size imports — Carl Engstrom and Moussa Gueye — and Jacobs.

In order to ramp up the quickness and athleticism, UA would have had to rely on smaller, thinner players like Rodney Cooper and Levi Randolph in frontcourt roles. Pollard, though, is athletic enough to play a small forward, with the size to play poor forward.

If he adjusts quickly to college basketball, he not only serves to fill the shoes of JaMychal Green — not as an identical fit, since they are different players, but as an offensive option — but he also frees Grant to use ever more pressure on the perimeter.

It had to have been a harrowing wait for Grant, who probably won’t have a comment for a day or two when paperwork is in hand and an official release is forthcoming. it was high-stakes poker, but Grant never flinched — and Alabama’s outlook for next season is far brighter because of it.

Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil@tidesports.com or 205-722-0225.

Week 4 has a group date twist for the boat race in Bermuda, according to The Bachelorette 2012 spoilers. Emily Maynard will join her suitors of eight men as they prepare to learn sailing techniques.

Reality Steve blogged that two teams of four will also compete in the boat race. The yellow team has Arie, Jef, Ryan, and Kalon and the red team has Sean, Travis, Chris, and Charlie.

The team that wins the boat race will get to spend more time with Emily while the losing team must head back to the hotel. The yellow team ends up winning.

At the group date after party that evening, one of the men tries impressing Emily by telling her she’s a potential “trophy wife,” but it’s another man who earns the rose from Emily after some smooth talking, according to Top Reasons to love The Bachelor.

Plenty will be spilled on The Bachelorette 2012 in week 4. Ryan makes a shocking statement sure to fire up viewers and a lot more drama will play out as Emily continues her journey looking for love.

Tune into The Bachelorette Monday, June 4 at 8 a.m., ET/PT on ABC.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — UCLA will play its first basketball game in the renovated Pauley Pavilion against Indiana State on Nov. 9 in a nod to the roots of late Bruins coaching great John Wooden.

Indiana State was the only other university where Wooden served as a head coach. He had a 44-15 record in two seasons in Terre Haute before leaving for Los Angeles. Wooden was a native of Martinsville, Ind. He died in 2010 at 99.

The arena is undergoing a $136 million renovation to bring it up to date. The changes include new locker rooms, lounges, a video room, concession stands and restrooms, seats, a scoreboard and 30-inch LED ribbon boards encircling the building’s interior, along with displays showing UCLA’s athletic history.

After the opener, the Bruins will host two games in the Los Angeles regional of the 12-team Legends Classic, which will conclude at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Clemson names Smith as basketball assistant

CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) — Clemson has hired Steve Smith as an assistant men’s basketball coach, ending a nearly two-month search since Rick Ray left to become Mississippi State’s head coach.

SEC, members to donate $100,000 to Summitt’s fund

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference and its member schools are donating $100,000 to the Pat Summitt Foundation Fund to help fight Alzheimer’s disease.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said Thursday that the former Tennessee Lady Vols basketball coach “is an integral part of the Southeastern Conference’s history and we will be forever grateful for her many contributions to this league and to college basketball.”

The Hall of Fame coach stepped down in April, eight months after revealing she had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type. President Barack Obama presented Summitt the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on Tuesday.

The league’s women’s basketball coaches also unanimously opted to continue “We Back Pat Week” each January to raise awareness and recognition to the fund and Alzheimer’s.

Cent. Arkansas announces women’s basketball coach

CONWAY, Ark. (AP) — Delta State coach Sandra Rushing has been chosen to succeed Matt Daniel as the head coach of the women’s basketball program at the University of Central Arkansas. Rushing’s selection was announced during a news conference on Thursday.

Rushing inherits a Sugar Bear program that won the Southland Conference championship and has had three straight seasons of 21 or more wins. at Delta State, Rushing had a 254-58 record in 10 seasons at the NCAA Division II school in Cleveland, Miss., and guided the Lady Statesmen to two Final Fours, six Gulf South Conference championships and six straight Sweet 16 appearances from 2006 to 2011.

Rushing played collegiately at Alabama, where she was a four-time Academic All-Southeastern Conference selection. Daniel left Central Arkansas for Marshall.

Carroll women’s hoops signs two Weber State transfers

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Carroll College women’s basketball coach Rachelle Sayers has announced the signing of two transfer players she recruited to Weber State as an assistant.

Guard Megan Patterson of Columbus and Jordan Pfau of Missoula will join the Saints for the 2012-13 season. Patterson averaged 10 points per game as a junior last season at Weber State of the Big Sky Conference. Sayers says Patterson is an amazing shooter who will make an immediate impact in her final year of eligibility.

Pfau, a graduate of Missoula Loyola, averaged six points and three rebounds per game for the Wildcats as a sophomore. Sayers says Pfau is a tremendous defender and very good rebounder who will contribute right away.

Elsewhere

Myrtle Beach to host Big South hoops tournament

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Presidents of Big South Conference schools have selected Myrtle Beach, S.C., as the new host for their men’s and women’s basketball tournaments for the next three years beginning in 2013.

The games will take place at Carolina Coastal’s new on-campus Student Recreation and Convocation Center. The decision came Thursday during the conference’s annual spring meetings in Hilton Head, S.C.

Before this year the women’s tournament was held in High Point, N.C., while the men’s tournament site varied depending on the top remaining seed in the tournament. The goal of the conference presidents was to get both the men’s and women’s tournaments at the same site to attract more interest from Big South Conference fans.

Myrtle Beach was selected over on-campus sites at Winthrop and UNC-Asheville and a neutral site in Winston Salem, N.C.

“We received four excellent bids to host our basketball championships,” said Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander. “This was not an easy decision for the CEOs. Ultimately they chose the bid from Myrtle Beach/Coastal Carolina, and we are looking forward to taking our marquee event to the Grand Strand for the next three years. we are also very appreciative of all the bids and interest we received.”

More information on the tournament dates and format of the 2013 event will be announced at a later date.

School presidents have wanted to find a permanent site for the men’s tournament for quite some time. The need for it became amplified this past year after conflict developed as to whether top-seeded UNC-Asheville would be allowed to host the tournament because the school was also hosting the Southern Conference men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. after a special meeting and some shifting of Southern Conference tournament games, the Bulldogs were allowed to host the tournament.

UNC-Asheville won the tournament and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament.

FT. DODGE, Iowa, June 1, 2012 — /PRNewswire/ – NASDAQ: FFFD — North Central Bancshares, inc. (“North Central”) has announced that it expects to close on its merger with 150, inc. (“150″) under the Agreement and plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”), dated March 12, 2012, by and among North Central, Great Western Bancorporation, inc. and 150, on June 22, 2012, or as soon as practicable thereafter, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of all remaining closing conditions under the Merger Agreement.

About North Central Bancshares, inc. and first Federal Savings Bank of Iowa

North Central serves north central, central and southeastern Iowa at eleven full service locations in Fort Dodge, Nevada, Ames, Perry, Ankeny, Clive, West Des Moines, Burlington, and Mount Pleasant, Iowa through its wholly-owned subsidiary, first Federal Savings Bank of Iowa (“First Federal”), headquartered in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

first Federal’s deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Caution about Forward-Looking and other Statements

This press release may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that include projections, predictions, expectations, or beliefs about future events, such as statements about the anticipated closing date of the merger. Although we believe that forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that actual results, performance or achievements of North Central will not differ materially from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or that North Central will be able to close on the merger by the anticipated closing date. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements and include, but are not limited to, the risk that remaining closing conditions will not be satisfied (or waived) and those risks described in the cautionary language included under the headings “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in North Central’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2012 and other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE North Central Bancshares, inc.

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Most Moms are planning summer activities and thinking about playdates to fend off summer boredom. Do you get frustrated with the hassles of planning a playdate? In the modern world of overly scheduled children and overly busy parents, two Moms decided to do something about it. The result is Playdate Planet – a new, free website that makes creating or accepting playdates a snap. did we mention that it’s free?

“Based on our own experiences as Moms, we felt there was a need to make scheduling play dates less time consuming and more efficient,” says co-founder Lisa Baslow.

The website is more than just a way to make scheduling a play date easier for parents. “In today’s fast-paced world, kids simply are not playing enough and experts are concerned. We wanted to make sure our kids, and others, had sufficient opportunities for unstructured play and socialization with friends,” adds Meryl Neiman, Playdate Planet’s other co-founder. “We thought making playdate planning easier would result in more play for kids everywhere!”

There’s no charge to join or use Playdate Planet. to get started, parents need to register, set up a profile, and add their children. all accounts are private and password-protected.

One of the great things about Playdate Planet is how it streamlines the planning process. For example, members are prompted to fill in some basic information about their home, a likely playdate location. a parent whose child can’t yet swim might want to know that the playdate host’s home has a pool. you can also note information about your child, such as medical conditions or separation anxiety. if your child is allergic to cats, you will receive a warning when a scheduled playdate is hosted by a cat owner. Information only needs to be entered once (a super quick process) and it will be viewable for any future playdate.

Once an account has been created, parents simply choose the create Playdate tab, enter the details—such as the date, time, location, and number of open spots—and then select the friends they’d like to invite. once the playdate has been created, they simply click Publish to send out the invitations. Attendees are confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis up to the number of available playdate spots selected when the playdate was created (not on the total number of friends you’ve notified) so parents can feel free to invite a large number of friends to ensure the likelihood of someone being available without the danger of their house being overrun with children!

Also, the playdates are only visible to those friends who’ve been notified. at no time are someone’s playdates visible to everyone on Playdate Planet. Not surprisingly, the more friends you connect with, the better Playdate Planet works.

Everything is designed to make Moms’ lives easier. you can invite your friends to join you on the site via Facebook Connect (which allows users to connect their Facebook identity to any website) or by importing any popular e-mail address book. There’s a GoogleMaps link to the playdate address, handy reminder e-mails about upcoming dates, easy calendar export capability, the ability to sort your child’s friends into groups of your design (neighborhood kids, pre-school classmates, etc.) and lots of other great features.

Say buh-bye to how challenging and time consuming it can be to schedule good old-fashioned playdates in today’s hectic world. say hello to Planet Playdate.

For more information, go to PlaydatePlanet.com or follow Playdate Planet on Twitter and Facebook.

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There are three women, no men, on stage at the start of a Man and some Women. One of the ladies is sewing and talking, another is playing patience (or, as you might have it, solitaire) and replying, and the third is reading and keeping very quiet. The tableau is so reminiscent of the beginning of Chekhov’s Three Sisters that I immediately assumed that Githa Sowerby’s characters were three sisters, too. it took me ages to realize that only two of them are. The third, the quiet one, is a distant cousin who happens to be in love with the sisters’ brother. this is awkward, because he’s already married, not happily.

Sowerby, a pioneering English female playwright from the early years of the 20th century, never had the career she deserved. The Shaw Festival has already successfully revived two of her plays, Rutherford and Son and The Stepmother. a Man and some Women opened in Manchester in 1914; the war scuppered its chances of production in London and it’s barely been seen since; in fact this Niagara production is probably its most prominent airing to date. It’s a less sturdy piece than the other two, but it’s a fascinating and, once it gets going and we’ve sorted out who everybody is, an exciting one.

The Shaw’s previous Sowerby plays registered as impressive studies of female anger, long contained but finally and explosively bursting forth. a Man and some Women is an impressive — and impressively magnanimous — study of male anger, similarly repressed and released. For years Richard Shannon has supported his sisters, pharisaical Rose and timid Elizabeth, and his wife Hilda, in the process sacrificing both his dreams of a scientific vocation and his undeclared love for cousin Jessica. Richard’s widowed mother has just died and the women await his return from the funeral and from the revelation of how much money they may all be inheriting.

Also in the house is a small illegitimate boy named Jack. Elizabeth is ineffectually nice to him, and Jessica actively kind, but Rose and Hilda treat him as some kind of pestilence, rather as if they were all living in a Victorian novel. Rose at least has religion on her side (the sins of the fathers — or mothers — and all that); Hilda gives the impression of having been born nasty. It’s pretty clear where our sympathies are meant to lie, and when Richard arrives it’s plain that he shares them. He bears news that puts the women in his power; and, when Rose pushes him by spying on him and Jessica, he uses it. having told them all exactly what he thinks of them, he leaves the house, exulting that he will finally be free from being nagged. It’s an exhilarating scene, at least from a certain point of view and certainly as played here by Graeme Somerville.

Alisa Palmer’s production is an extraordinary mix of good and bad acting. Its beating heart is Somerville, hitting every note dead centre as a man who’s spent his life being guiltily amiable and is determined that his new freedom will last; you can feel the audience cheering him on. it may be a comment on the play that the closer the others get to his orbit, the better they seem; that goes for Sharry Flett, whose Elizabeth starts in near-anonymity and gradually becomes a touching study in principle and independence painfully acquired, and for Marla McLean as Jessica, the new woman who seems, in this staging, to be asserting her independence by being a painter; I say “seems” because though in the last act we see her working at an easel, it’s never actually mentioned in the dialogue; maybe it’s just a hobby. But Kate Hennig (Rose) and Jenny L. Wright (Hilda) are, respectively, stilted and sullen; admittedly they’ve been handed the roles of monsters, but they do little to humanize them.

The play makes a conscientious attempt, if not to justify them, then to place them sociologically and economically; Rose has persuaded herself that denying love is a virtue, Hilda exemplifies marriage as legalized prostitution; it must have been thrilling to hear these things said on an English stage in 1914. But they are said rather than dramatized; by a similar token, I couldn’t follow Jessica’s reasoning in forcing Richard to choose between her and a career in tropical medicine; why can’t he have both? The play is full of loose ends, and it hits its peak too early, but it’s a discovery worth discovering.

Shaw’s Misalliance is one of his most unabashedly — indeed exultantly — discursive plays. Its barrage of rhetoric and paradox can, if fired off with wit and rhythm and poise, be irresistible; without them, it’s unbearable. The latter is the case in the new festival production, or at least in its first half. only two of the actors can do it. One, mercifully since he has the leading role of John Tarleton, philosophical and philanthropical underwear magnate, is Thom Marriott who in a cheeky blond wig looks unsuitably younger than usual but whose gusto and humour — at once self-indulgent and self-deprecating — are irreproachable. The other is Jeff Meadows as his hearty, grinning, and defiantly non-intellectual son; he has energy plus focus.

The director, Eda Holmes, has moved the action, or at least the set and costumes, from 1910 to 1962: an idea she tries but fails to explain in her program note. a thorough updating to now might be stimulating; this half-way house is the worst of both worlds. mostly you forget about it, but then you’re jolted by references to Tarleton’s Free Libraries (in a country which by the ‘60s had a national network of free libraries, all state-funded) or to sums of money that nobody has bothered to adjust for inflation.

Things do improve after the intermission, partly because Tara Rosling comes crashing through the roof in an airplane, an even blonder wig and a Polish accent through which she transmits her own sense of serious mischief: how nice to see this actress in a role in which she isn’t required to suffer. The great difference, though, is that the plane crash, followed by another character’s emergence from a Turkish bath with a revolver in his unsteady hand and revenge in his even less steady head, signals the play’s transition into eccentric farce, a mode that sweeps the actors along with it. even so, the production manages to muff the play’s punch line.

A Man and some Women is in repertory until Sept. 22; Misalliance until Oct. 27. For tickets, call 1-800-511-7429 or visit shawfest.com.