The seventh annual event will feature staged readings of the new works. The California company's world premieres presentations of Amy Freed's Safe in Hell and Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade will play during the 2004 Pacific Playwrights Festival. The latter play replaces the previously announced The Studio by Christopher d'Amboise which is "indefinitely postponed for additional development," according to a release.

Lucinda Coxon's Vesuvius will be read May 7 at 1 PM. David Emmes directs the work set at a resort near Naples, in which two strangers (a man and woman) set on spending time alone must share a villa.

This year's Susan Smith Blackburn Award winner, The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, will play the same day at 3:30 PM. The play centers on a Brazilian woman, serving as a maid to a pair of busy doctors, who longs for the stage as a comedian.

Craig Lucas' The Singing Forest — which is slated to make its world premiere at Seattle's Intiman Theatre — will be read May 8 at 10:30 AM.directed by Bartlett Sher, artistic director of Seattle's Intimate Theatre.

Intiman artistic director Bartlett Sher directs the epic play, which interweaves the tales of three generations of one family, from New York in 2000 to Vienna in the 1930s. A new play, yet to be announced, by Richard Greenberg — Tony Award winner for his Take Me Out — will be presented May 9 at 11 AM. Directors for the Ruhl and Greenberg readings as well as casting will be announced in April.

For tickets to South Coast Rep, at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, CA, call (714) 708-5555 or visit www.scr.org.