The historic Cambridge-based organization — founded in 1950 by Dylan Thomas, Mary Manning, Edward Gorey and Thornton Wilder — will be led by Robert Scanlan, as president and artistic director, Benjamin Evett as the new producing artistic director, and David Gullette as literary director.

The season will kick off with a staged reading of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, which had its first reading by the poet himself in 1953, an event that was instrumental in launching The Poets' Theatre.

The Sept. 14 reading at Sanders Theatre will feature Cherry Jones, Alvin Epstein, Benjamin Evett, Christopher Lydon, Karen MacDonald and Thomas Derrah. Show time is 7 PM.

The upcoming season will also feature a series of live poetry evenings and at least two full productions: The Mariner — a solo performance piece adapted from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" – by Matthew Spangler and Benjamin Evett, starring Evett as the Mariner; and Blue Front, by prize-winning local poet Martha Collins, a powerful poetic collage about her own father’s witness of a lynching in Cairo, IL, in 1909.

The Poets’ Theatre, according to press notes, is "dedicated to the spoken word. It celebrates the power of distinctive language and poetry's unmatched ability to deliver a rich and meaningful cultural experience to its audience." For more information visit www.thepoetstheatre.org.