"Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium," the new play anthology recently published by New York Theatre Experience, will have a reading at Applause Books in New York City on Feb. 22 at 7 PM. Sections of three of the plays will be read. The public is invited.

Applause Books is located in Manhattan on W. 71st Street just off Broadway.

Future readings include:

• March 1: Theatre Ten Ten, in New York City.
• March 16: Drama Book Shop, in New York City.
• March 29: Back Stage Books, in Washington, DC.

* Available since Feb. 1, the anthology comprises eight plays featuring works that have been produced in New York City, Off-Off Broadway, throughout 1998-99.

The anthology is being marketed using the new model for publishing, which includes such internet outlets as Amazon.com and Denton's own New York Theatre Experience website. In addition, "Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium" is available at more traditional theatre resources like Applause Books, Drama Books, New York's Samuel French, Books and Books in Cora Gables, Florida, both Unabridged Books and Act I Books in Chicago, Backstage Books in Washington, DC, and in the Old Globe Theatre Shop in San Diego, California.

As reported earlier, the anthology runs the gamut from farce to satire and comic drama. The works in the anthology include: Midnight Brainwash Revival by Kirk Wood Bromley, Horse Country by C. J. Hopkins, When Words Fail... by David Dannenfelser, Making Peter Pope by Edmund De Santis, Crunching Numbers by Lynn Marie Macy, Cafe Society by Robert Simonson, So, I Killed A Few People... by Gary Ruderman and David Summers, and Are We There Yet? by Garth Wingfield.

Edited by Martin Denton, "Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium" is intended to provide industry professionals and theatre readers with access to new theatrical works. Denton, who is theatre critic for nytheatre.com, provides critical essays, playwright biographies, information about New York productions of the works, and guidelines to obtaining performance and production rights for each play.

Summarizing the plays featured in the anthology, nytheatre.com provided thumbnail sketches of each work:

• Produced originally by the Inverse Theatre at the Kraine Theatre in New York City in December 1999, Kirk Wood Bromley's Midnight Brainwash Revival is a New Year's revel combining millennial madness and dazzling word play.

• Originally produced by The Present Company at the Theatorium in January 1999, C.J. Hopkins' Horse Country takes audiences to a bleak theatrical landscape where two actors explore the nature of what the playwright describes as "post-everything America."

• Another Theatorium production, which was later revised and produced by Eponymous Theatre at the John Houseman Studio Theatre, David Dannenfelser's When Words Fail... is a romantic fantasy where the human spirit triumphs over technological madness.

• First run by the Harbor Theatre In New York City in March 1999, Edmund De Santis' Making Peter Pope explores the mind of a gay man as he struggles to restore control of his life in the midst of very strained circumstances.

• Distilled Spirits Theatre Company produced Lynn Marie Macy's Crunching Numbers at New York City's Trilogy Theatre in Oct. 1998. Macy's play is a triptych of one-acts that focus on the pressures involved with turning 30.

• The Manhattan Playhouse first produced Cafe Society by Playbill On Line editor Robert Simonson in Feb. 1998. In this comedy, a demonic coffee shop counter girl befriends an ordinary young woman with gleefully satiric results.

• The Annoyance Theatre Production of Gary Ruderman and David Summers' So, I Killed a Few People... in Chicago predated the 1998 New York International Fringe Festival version by a year. This play involves a monologue by a serial killer who, as his last request, seeks to put on a one man show.

• Originally produced by New Voices Theatre Ensemble at Synchronicity Space in New York City, in April 1999, Garth Wingfield's Are We There Yet? is a bittersweet comic drama about a young woman who takes an insightful and inspiring journey after receiving some disturbing medical news.

"Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium" runs 384 pages and is available for $14. The anthology is also available at nytheatre.com and a variety of independent and theatrical bookstores nationally, in addition to those mentioned above.

For information and directions please call the Present Company at (212) 420-8877.

--Murdoch McBride