People’s tones shift to reverential when the Vineyard Playhouse is introduced into the conversation, as was demonstrated at last week’s fundraiser at Friederike and Jeremy Biggs’s Manhattan penthouse (they also reside in Lambert’s Cove).

Cartoonist, playwright and ardent playhouse supporter Jules Feiffer was honored that evening. And according to playhouse board president Gerry Yukevich, Mr. Feiffer told guests that for those who participate in a playhouse production (as did he for his 2007 revival of Knock, Knock): “You get a personal touch to whatever goes on there. It’s not community theatre but theatre for the community, for people who want to stretch their minds.”

Of course, the Vineyard Playhouse is community theatre as much as Bugs Bunny is any old garden-variety rabbit. It’s a full Equity enterprise which gives artistic director M.J. Bruder Munafo the luxury of casting out of New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

Dr. Yukevich reports with a grin that Broadway actors are uniformly gracious about accepting the lowest Equity pay. “They say, ‘Don’t worry about me — just find me a little shack on the beach,’” not realizing, of course, that even the smallest hovel on the shore rents for 10K weekly. When they’re told playhouse supporters will happily put them up for the run of the play, they still accept proffered roles with pleasure.

Dr. Yukevich, who, in earlier days, housed a thatre in his Boston Basement, says he and his wife Martha were “blown away” by the first playhouse productions they attended when they moved to the Island in 1994. (And the predisposition is, apparently hereditary: the Yukeviches’s daughter, Anna, now 14, has appeared in numerous plays since she was knee-high.)

Dr. Yukevich says that while the board members work to raise money, it is Ms. Bruder Munafo, in consultation over the winter with John Lipsky and Joann Green Breuer, who handpicks the plays for the summer season. “M.J.’s choices are so innovative, demanding and free of cliché that when she informs us of the roster, it’s like Moses coming down from the mountain.”

The 2009 season will run as follows:

Fly, from June 17 to July 11, by Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan, directed by Ricardo Khan: A workshop production of a new play about the heroic Tuskegee Airmen of World War II.

Walking The Volcano, from July 15 to August 8, a short play progression by Jon Lipsky, directed by M.J. Bruder Munafo: A series of intimate variations on a theme, giving us a glimpse into a kind of relationship endemic to the generation that came of age in the 1960s at different stages of its evolution, from the moment of falling in love to the last goodbye.

Memory House, from August 12 to Sept. 5, a play by Kathleen Tolan, directed by Claudia Weill: A funny and moving story about a mother and her teenage daughter grappling with the past and facing an uncertain future while a pie bakes in the oven.

Taming of the Shrew, outdoors at the amphitheatre, Wednesday through Sunday afternoons from July 22 through August 9: A comedy by, of course, William Shakespeare, directed by Johanna McKeon.

The Fabulists, Saturdays at 10 a.m. in July and August, wherein adult actors write and perform witty adaptations and new scripts for children. Lots of improv, audience participation and fun.

Another hugely popular summer program at the Vineyard Playhouse is Monday Night Readings, funded by the Liman Foundation. Celebrated playhouse alums such as Robert Brustein, Tony Shalhoub and Amy Brenneman have the opportunity to try out new works-in-progress, and actors starring in whatever show is presently on the boards are usually delighted to grab a script and start reading.

Over at Island Theatre Workshop, which conducts its operations in the lovely and capacious space of the Katharine Cornell Theatre above the Vineyard Haven town hall, a couple of events are in the works, and a third is on the drawing board:

An Island of Women, written and directed by Liz Villard, with music by Phil Dietterich, forms an arc over the Vineyard in the years 1850 to 1852. “The men were at sea,” explains Ms. Villard, “and the women on Island had independence because they were raising their families on their own. Some of them worked and drew salaries.”

The play examines 19th century whaling life through the prism of three families — the Nortons, the Mayhews and the Osbornes (fictional lives, historical Island surnames).

The play will ride out three different venues, on the weekend of June 11, appearing at The Yard in Chilmark, in mid-week at the Sailing Camp in Oak Bluffs, then rounding out the final weekend with performances at the Katharine Cornell (one can only hope the sets will be easy to strike).

A staple for thespians-in-the-making, now entering its 42nd year under the aegis of ITW, is Children’s Theatre, this summer under the direction of Renaissance man Brian Ditchfield.

A third ITW production, a musical, according to actress and artistic director Lee Fierro, is in the throes of planning as the search for a musical director and a producer travels at its own inexorable pace.

Mr. Ditchfield will stage his original play Kim & Delia, at the Farm Institute in Katama, July 1 to July 12.

Jabberwocky campers promise to amaze at their July and August shows, the best-kept summer theatre secrets.

Plenty of other Vineyard venues will add to the Island’s rich vein of performing arts. The Yard in Chilmark — which will play host to opera performances again this year the weekends of August 8 and August 14, before Tony winner Andre De Shields performs his new solo work, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: From Frederick Douglass to Deliverance, in early September — as well as the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center and Unitarian Church in Vineyard Haven. Like improv? The WIMP troupe has been reincarnated by former IMPers now in college; they will perform Wednesday nights all summer at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury.

Keep your eye on the Gazette’s Vineyard Living event listings every Friday and (from June 2 through the end of September) every Tuesday to see what’s happening where, and which production sounds truly irresistible — could be all of them.