Soho Rep, the small Off-Off-Broadway company which has collected Obie Awards two years running, will present new productions by The Flying Machine and Maria Irene Fornes in its two-play 2002-03 season.

The Tribeca-located Soho Rep was critically hit by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, which took place only blocks away from its Walker Street address. Soon after, however, it bounced back strongly with the biggest hit in the theatre's 28-year history, [sic] by Melissa James Gibson. The quirky show, about three nervous young tenement dwellers, extended and won three Obies—for its set (Louisa Thompson), its direction (by artistic director Daniel Aukin) and for the play itself.

Thompson and Aukin will team again for Molly's Dream, a musical by Maria Irene Fornes, the avant garde playwright better known for straight dramatic works. Musicals are also unusual for Soho Rep. The show is described as "a fantasia of love and identity set in an old-fashioned saloon." No cast has been announced. The run begins Feb. 10, 2003.

The fall show is Signals of Distress, the latest from the Brooklyn troupe The Flying Machine, which uses mime, dance, music, puppets and props in its productions. The play is based on a novel by Jim Crace about a bunch of shipwrecked Americans stranded in a small village on the isolated northern coast of England in 1830. Starting date is Nov. 12

For more information, call (212) 206-1515. —By Robert Simonson