One spring day several years ago, while my wife was waiting her turn in a hair salon, somebody asked her what she was doing that summer. When she said that she was going to Niagara-on-the-Lake, another woman started to burble. She loved the town and all its attractions, from shopping to golf to wineries. When she finished, my wife added, "And they have wonderful theater." The woman was dumbstruck: "You mean they do plays, too!"

They do, indeed, do plays, too. The town of 13,000, perched where the Niagara River flows north into Lake Ontario, is the home of the Shaw Festival, now beginning its 46th season. When it's on its game, and that's most of the time, Shaw provides some of the finest plays and performances in the English-speaking world.

This year, a company of 68 actors performs 10 plays on three stages between April and October. At the heart of every season is the Festival's namesake, George Bernard Shaw, the greatest playwright in English after Shakespeare. Other plays are by Shaw's contemporaries but also include more recent works set during his lifetime. That gives them plenty of theatrical elbowroom: Shaw lived from 1856 to 1950.

One of the best things about Niagara-on-the-Lake --- in addition to flower-bedecked streets, charming B&Bs, and several fine restaurants --- is that it's no more than two and a half hours from Rochester. You can cross into Canada at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, see a play, and drive back home for a late supper. For lunch, try the cold peach soup and a focaccia at The Epicurean, where you eat on a raised terrace under a spreading butternut tree.

Heading the 2007 season is Shaw's monumental "St. Joan," an epic exploration of a country girl who rises to sainthood, played against the emergence of nationalism and Protestantism, and the first glimmers of a Renaissance spirit in Europe. Shaw spices the story with his antic view of history and his idiosyncratic view of ethical superiority. The play's huge cast ranges from peasants to kings. It takes a director with a sympathetic understanding of Shaw's intentions to pull it off, along with an actor's remarkable performance as Joan. This is the play's first production at Shaw since 1993. If you can see only one play, this is it.

This summer's other play by Shaw is "The Philanderer," less well known but a good example of a Shavian drama of ideas. Different viewpoints make their case dramatically before Shaw skewers them with wit. In this instance, he takes aim at love and marriage. The cast includes the talented Ben Carlson and an old Shaw hand, Norman Browning, who handles comic bumptiousness with uncommon pleasure.

The other classic plays are Tennessee Williams' underrated "Summer and Smoke" and W. Somerset Maugham's "The Circle." As usual, Williams' language is poetry and his characters, enervated and dissipated, suddenly find themselves animated by passion. Two cast members, Michael Ball and David Schurmann, are always worth watching, even in supporting roles. "The Circle," a sharp-eyed social comedy of serious intent, was controversial when it opened in 1921, because it shows what happens when self-serving seduction disrupts a marriage. You have to hope it still glitters.

The major musical this year, "Mack and Mabel," is based on the love affair between silent movie director Mack Sennett and his star, Mabel Normand. It has a strong score by Jerry Herman but also a troubled history. Nobody has ever been satisfied with the script in any of its incarnations. But the songs make it worthwhile, and having Benedict Campbell and Glynis Ranney in the title roles assures that this will be something too rare: a well-acted musical.

There's more emphasis on European drama than American in this year's play choices, including Irish playwright Brian Friel's adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's novel, "A Month in the Country," and master farceur Georges Feydeau's "Hotel Peccadillo." I haven't seen either play, but Friel and Feydeau are names most serious playgoers trust.

Completing the season are two lesser-known plays, a second musical, "Tristan," written only two years ago by Jay Turvey and Shaw's musical director Paul Sportelli, and St. John Hankin's "The Cassilis Engagement," subtitled "A Mother's Comedy," from 1907. Again, I haven't seen either play, but the Hankin especially tempts me, partly because it stars the superb Goldie Semple. Set at the very end of the 19th century, a time when class barriers began to weaken, the play tells the potentially delicious story of a middle-class boy who falls in love with an "unsuitable" girl, and then his meddling mother sets out to make changes.

For tickets, or for a brochure with information about plays, schedules, lodging, dining, and other area attractions, call 1-800-511-SHAW or go to the Festival's website.