This year's "Big D Festival Of The Unexpected" in Dallas will offer three main theatrical events: the Culture Clash troupe and plays by Octavio Solis and Chiori Miyagawa. The festival runs Jan. 16-Feb. 2.

Running Jan. 16-26 is Culture Clash: Unplugged, the newest work by the Latino comedy troupe of Richard Montoya, Ricardo Salinas and Herbert Siguenza. Their previous show, Radio Mambo, ran Off-Broadway earlier this year.

Richard Hamburger will direct Octavio Solis' Suenos Suenos Son, playing Jan. 24-Feb. 1. Inspired by Calderon de la Barca's Life Is A Dream, Suenos is a contemporary tale set on the Texas-Mexico border. Politics, dreams of revenge and the fashion-magazine ideal of American life all come together in this work-in-progress. Solis' previous plays include Santos & Santos and Man Of The Flesh.

Chiori Miyagawa's Broken Morning explores the lives of men and women on Death Row -- and the lives of those they've affected. As directed by Hamburger, Broken Morning, a work-in-progress, will be presented as a staged reading. Miyagawa's America Dreaming played Off Broadway in 1994.

Both plays star John Davies, Dolores Godinez, Greg Gormley, Billy Jones, Rene Moreno, Ruben Navarro, Connie Nelson, William Earl Ray, Melinda Renna, Thom Rivera, Lisa Lee Schmidt and T.A. Taylor. Sets and costumes for both are by John Binkley, lighting by Jennifer Ponder. Both Solis and Miyagawa will participate in writing workshops. In his fifth year as artistic director of the Dallas Theatre Center, Richard Hamburger has directed both parts of Angels In America there, as well as The Sternheim Project and Santos' & Santos' world premiere.

Also on tap for the Festival is a staged reading of Virginia Woolf's A Room Of One's Own, performed by Sheriden Thomas, and an evening of solos under the heading, "Ranting, Raving And Just Plain Talking -- An Evening Of Voices & Drums." "Ranting" will offer Connie Nelson's Voices, Raphael Parry's The Breeder and drumming by Jamal Mohamed and Ed Smith.

Running concurrently with the Festival will be DTC's mainstage production of Jean Cocteau's Indiscretions. The play was done on Broadway two seasons ago and starred Kathleen Turner and Eileen Atkins.

For tickets and information on the "Big D Festival Of The Unexpected," call (214) 522-TIXX.

--By David Lefkowitz