With How I Learned To Drive coasting through awards season and now running commercially Off-Broadway, the Vineyard Theatre has embarked on its next project, a studio staging of You Don't Miss Your Water, a jazz/poetry piece about growing up in a complicated and remarkable black family. The show began previews June 6, opens June 18 and runs to June 29. Co-produced with the Music-Theatre Group, You Don't Miss The Water features text by poet Cornelius Eady and a score by jazz composer Diedre L. Murray. Eady's 1992 collection of poems, The Gathering Of My Names, was under Pulitzer consideration. Murray, a cellist, serves as director of the Diedre Murray/Fred Hopkins Quartet, Trio & Stringdom. Water feaetures a five-piece orchestral ensemble and marks Eady's theatrical debut.

Starring are Mike Hodge, Robert Jason Jackson, Andrea Frierson Toney and Brenda Pressley. Pressley starred in the original Off-Broadway cast of the revue, And The World Goes `Round.

Conceived and directed by Evan Yionoulis, Water plays at the Vineyard's 26th St. space (as opposed to its larger "Dimson Theatre" home on East 15th St.). For information on You Don't Miss Your Water call (212) 353-3366.

--By David Lefkowitz