Manhattan Playhouse, the Off-Off-Broadway theatre company based in the Clinton neighborhood, will inaugurate a new reading series on Jan. 28 with an octet of one-act plays. The event will take place at 7 PM. The theatre is located at 439 W. 49th Street in Manhattan, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

All eight one-acts, all comedies, are by Robert Simonson. They include four—A Really Bad Idea, Labrador, Firewall and Previously Unproduced—which satirize various aspects of the theatre business. The remaining four are: Lunch During Wartime, about the dietary differences between a Christian mother and her new Jewish daughter-in law; Hurry Up, concerning a couple's argument over an office Christmas party; The Last Artist Living in New York Moves Out, a satire which imagines a New York where high rents have driven out all but one solitary painter; and Not Life, about an encounter between three people waiting in line at a fast food restaurant.

Manhattan Playhouse produced Simonson's Cafe Society in 1998. [Full disclosure: Robert Simonson is an editor at Playbill On-Line.]

Featured in the reading are Bill Van Horn, John Miller, Diana Walker and Ron McClary, recently seen Off-Broadway in Moonwork's What You Will.

A donation of $1 is suggested. Reservations are not necessary. — By Christine Ehren