The play is billed as "a major work uncovering Oates' own Jewish roots for one of the first times in her prodigious career."

Oates is a two-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and is the author of a number of distinguished books in several genres, all published within the past 25 years. In addition to numerous novels and short story collections, she has published several volumes of poetry, several books of plays, five books of literary criticism, and the book-length essay "On Boxing."

Plays by Oates have been produced at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Kentucky; the Long Wharf Theatre; the American Place Theatre; the Circle Repertory Theatre; the Ensemble Studio Theatre; McCarter Theatre (Princeton, NJ), the Contemporary American Play Festival (Shepherdstown, WV); the Philadelphia Festival of New American Plays; A.C.T. (Seattle, WA); the Provincetown Repertory Theatre; the Dartmouth Summer Theatre; and most recently at the Director's Company, New York City.

Her most frequently performed plays are I Stand Before You Naked, Tone Clusters, Ontological Proof of My Existence, Black, and Bad Girls. . Her adaptation of her novel "Black Water" was performed as an opera with music by John Duffy, which premiered in Philadelphia at the American Music Festival Theater in 1997.

The cast of The Tattooed Girl includes Michael Russotto, Michelle Shupe, Christopher Browne, Cam Magee and Karl Miller. Theater J resident director John Vreeke stages the play.

Opening is Jan. 16. For more information, call (202) 777-3230 or visit www.theaterj.org.