Writer-performer Charlayne Woodard will no longer be Neat in Los Angeles. Her return to the solo performance piece ends June 18 at the Skirball Center. Performances began June 14 as a part of Theater Works' "The Play's The Thing" radio series. Stuart K. Robinson directs.

Written in remembrance of Woodard's Aunt Neat and their special, strong relationship, Neat features the actress as more than a dozen characters, including her grandmother, middle-class parents and little sister.

Neat first appeared in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in early 1998. Woodard premiered the solo piece at Manhattan Theatre Club in Dec. 1996. She's also the author/star of the 1993 solo Pretty Fire, which won Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and NAACP Theatre Awards, and was recently recorded by Theater Works. Neat serves as something of a companion piece to that earlier play.

As an actress, Woodard received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for Ain't Misbehavin' a Drama Desk nomination for Hang On To The Good Times and In the Blood and her first Obie for the Suzan Lori Parks play. She's appeared at La Jolla Playhouse, the NY Shakespeare Festival, and in the recent Crucible film (as Tituba).

Tickets are $36-$32. The Skirball Cultural Center is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Boulevard. For tickets, call (310) 827-0889. L.A. TheatreWorks is on the web at http://www.latw.org. All "The Play's the Thing" theatre productions are recorded for future broadcast on Santa Monica College's KCRW 89.9 FM. Productions have won several awards including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Gold and Silver Awards, three Sony Awards, the Writer's Guild of America's Best Comedy Award and the 1999 Audie Award for Best Dramatic Production from the Audio Publishers Association.

-- By Christine Ehren
and David Lefkowitz