Racial prejudice. Religious persecution. Gender equality. Those ripped-from-the-headlines topics may be timely, but they’re also timeless. Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and "Othello" illustrate the point. So do the musical "Big River," based on Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," and the farcical "The Foreigner." The festival's first production of "Henry VI Part One" also highlights the season, as does "An Iliad" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor."