Director Lisa Peterson. Photo by Mike Habermann.

When he was criticized recently for the lack of ethnic and gender diversity in the playwrights and directors that the Guthrie Theater had chosen for its upcoming 50th anniversary season, director Joe Dowling said that the accusation was unfair.

On late Monday, the Guthrie released these new details on its 2012-2013 roster.

Director Lisa Peterson has been tapped to stage Bruce Norris' "Clybourne Park," the Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony-nominated play that offers one theatrical update of Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun." Peterson, a busy, New York-based freelancer, staged "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in January at the Guthrie (June 1—Aug. 4, 2013).

In its Dowling Studio, the theater's experimental space, the Guthrie will host Tracey Scott Wilson's "Buzzer," directed by Tony-nominated director Marion McClinton. That drama, about race, sex and gentrification, premiered earlier this year at Pillsbury House Theatre (Feb. 8 - March 3, 2013).

The theater also will present Mu Performing Arts' production of "Yellow Fever," written and directed by Rick Shiomi, in its studio. The play is described as a race- and politics-infused "comedic mystery" set in the Japanese community in Vancouver (March 8-24, 2013).

Ben McGovern, who formerly programmed the Dowling Studio, returns there next spring to direct Guthrie stalwart Stephen Yoakam in "An Iliad." Yoakam stars in the on-person interpretation of Homer's epic adapted by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare (May 4—26, 2013).

The Dowling Studio season also includes director Dan Rothenberg's production of "As You Like It," which is done in association with The Acting Company and will go on tour (Jan. 12—Feb. 3, 2013).