Stein to direct play in Laguna

Richard Stein, who resigned unexpectedly last month after 17 years as executive director of the Laguna Playhouse, will boomerang back to his old haunts to direct the January 2008 world premiere of “The Secret Order,” a thriller by Bob Clyman.

In an e-mail Friday addressed “to my friends and associates,” Stein said he’d become “a little envious” of his wife, Alison, who left a 9-to-5 job two years ago to work as a freelance artist, and decided to do the same after the past Playhouse season ended.

Stein said he’ll continue a blog he began last year, rickstein.blogspot.com, and that he’s been talking to theater eminences and government officials in Israel about a project aimed at bringing more Israeli plays to American stages.