The New York International Fringe Festival can soon be found between two covers. Lending some permanency to the annual event -- which floods the Manhattan theatre scene each August with scores of productions from New York City, the U.S. and abroad -- The New York Theatre Experience, Inc. and The Present Company, Inc., will collaborate on "Plays from the New York International Fringe Festival 2000." The volume, containing nine scripts, will hit stores in November.

The Present Company produces the Fringe Festival, which is now in its fourth year. The New York Theatre Experience, meanwhile, is the child of critic, publisher and all-around theatre entrepreneur Martin Denton. Denton founded his own website, called the New York Theatre Experience, a few years ago and began single-handedly reviewing every show in New York, with a special concentration on Off-Off-Broadway.

Denton ventured into publishing in early 1999 with "The New York Theatre Experience -- Book of the Year 1998," a collection of his reviews and articles. Then, in January of this year, he published "Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium," an anthology of new plays by little-known dramatists, edited with an introduction by Denton. [Full disclosure: a play by this writer is included in the volume.]

"Plays from the New York International Fringe Festival 2000" will feature preface by festival artistic director, John Clancy and an introduction by Denton. The selected works are:

Cuban Operator Please... by Adrian Rodriguez
DNA by Christina Gorman
Eleven Dollar Prophet by Antonio Sacre
Fag/Hag by Kate Nugent and Joe Salvatore
House of Trash by Trav S.D.
Velvet Ropes by Joshua Scher
Why Mud Flaps? by Ellen K. Anderson
Whywork.com by Marc Meyers
Word to Your Mama by Julia Barclay Pre-orders ($20 including shipping and handling) are available from The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., P.O. Box 744, Bowling Green Station, New York, NY 10274-0744, or by checking out the website www.nytheatrewire.com.

--By Robert Simonson