Playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman (Women and Wallace, Sophistry) and Peter Dinklage (best known as Tito the Dwarf in "Living in Oblivion") feature in the new Marc Spitz play, I Wanna Be Adored, running May 3-28 at the Red Line Theater at New York Performance Works. Carlo Vogel directs.

Titled for a Stone Roses song, I Wanna Be Adored was inspired by the life of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the late 70's Joy Division, who hanged himself in 1980. In I Wanna Be Adored, the melancholic poet is Winston Frame, who finds himself, after committing suicide, in a sort of purgatory which resembles a seedy New York City strip club. Led by the angel Simon, Frame faces trial in a courtroom peopled by a bawdy hack comedian and a speed freak stripper.

Spitz, a contributing editor at Spin Magazine, is the author of Retail Sluts, The Rise and Fall of the Farewell Drugs and ...Worry Baby.

Jonathan Lisecki stars as Frame. Annie Parese of "As the World Turns" completes the cast.

Tickets are $20. The Red Line Theatre at New York Performance Works is located at 128 Chambers Street. For reservations, call (212) 726-8154. -- By Christine Ehren