"Poof!" is the next entry in PBS' American Shorts series, which premiered in Aug. 2000 with Arthur Miller's "The Ryan Interview."

Based on Lynn Nottage's play of the same title, "Poof!" concerns an abused housewife and her husband, whom she damns to hell. Rosie Perez, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in 1993's "Fearless," will star in the hour-long drama, as will Tony Award winner Viola (King Hedley II) Davis. Fred Barzyk will direct.

Playwright Nottage has written Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Por'Knockers, Las Meninas and Poof, which won the Heideman Award. She co-wrote the feature film "Side Streets" and has received Playwriting Fellowships from Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and the New York Foundation for the Arts. A graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, Nottage's most recent play, Intimate Apparel, will be presented at Center Stage's Head Theatre in Baltimore, beginning Feb. 14, 2003.

The American Shorts project is supported by a host of writers and actors, including Lily Tomlin, Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, Mercedes Ruehl and Joyce Carol Oates.

—By Andrew Gans