Former Old Globe Shakespeare Festival artistic director Darko Tresnjak and playwright Ayad Aktar, whose play “The Who & the What” was seen at La Jolla Playhouse last season, received OBIE Awards May 18 in New York, Tresnjak for direction of “The Killer” at Theatre for a New Audience and Aktar for “The Invisible Hand” at New York Theatre Workshop. Tresnjak is set to direct the Cole Porter musical “Kiss Me, Kate” at the Old Globe Theatre July 1 through August 2. A co-production with Hartford Stage, Tresnjak’s home theater, the production is part of the Globe’s summer festival season in Balboa Park. The Shakespeare plays this year, to be performed outdoors in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, are “Twelfth Night” (June 21-July 26) and “The Comedy of Errors” (August 16-Sept. 20). Also playing in the White Theatre is “Ken Ludwig’s “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” (July 24-August 23). Hillcrest’s ion theatre has just announced a cabaret performance of Lanie Robertson’s “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” directed by Claudio Raygoza and starring Cashae Monya in the title role. Much admired, she was Roxie in ion’s hit production “Chicago, a Speakeasy Cabaret.” “Lady Day,” which recounts the final performance of Billie Holliday, plays June 5 through July 4 in ion’s Urban Center for the Arts at 6th and Pennsylvania in Hillcrest. It could be the sleeper hit of the year. The show features such Holliday hits as “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.” You’ll need a reservation for this one: iontheatre.com or (619) 600-5020. Seen of late and recommended for a variety of reasons: San Diego Musical Theatre’s production of “Singin’ in the Rain,” playing through June 7 at the Spreckels Theatre, 101 Broadway, Downtown. The show features a 20-piece orchestra led by Don LeMaster, colorful costumes and leading men flavored by remembrance of Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in the 1952 MGM film, upon which the stage version is based. You can’t beat memory and a title song with real rain, a lamppost and umbrellas. Also seen and recommended is MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius”) Award Grant recipient Samuel Hunter’s much-awarded play “The Whale,” playing at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town through June 14. Magnificently, Andrew Oswald portrays Charlie, a 600-pound recluse who survives by teaching an online essay writing class. The plot involves Charlie’s impending death from congestive heart failure; his estranged daughter; his ex-wife; a good friend and a Mormon missionary who is not all he purports to be. It’s a fascinating, gnarly play – just the kind this theater maven relishes. Cygnet Theatre, 4040 Twiggs Street, Old Town, cygnettheatre.com or (619) 337-1525. Michael Francis, who becomes music director and conductor of the Mainly Mozart Festival when the monthlong, five-concert festival opens June 6, addressed music lovers May 29 in Balboa Park’s “Living Room” in front of the San Diego Museum of Art. Francis, who thinks the Festival Orchestra is the best anywhere, revealed plans for “San Diego Makes Music,” a free concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 14 on the Plaza de Panama. Amateur and aspiring players young and old get to tune up and play Mozart and Vivaldi with Francis and the nation’s top musicians. The public is welcome. The event is free. Info: mainlymozart.org. Says Francis: “Whenever you have young people making music, civilization has a chance.”