SEATTLE -- In its ongoing Monday night Reading series Seattle's The Group Theatre offers up a diverse selection of works that may someday become mainstage productions.

First up, on Feb. 2, Hollywood tear-jerking at it's most poignant is served up in Imitation of Life, derived from the 50's Lana Turner film remake of the Fanny Hurst novel of a mother's love and miscegenation.

The Feb. 16 offering is Cherrie Moraga's Mexican Medea, in which Medea is a contemporary lesbian mother.

Re-worked from its origins as Language of Love at the now defunct Alice B. Theatre a few seasons back, is Language of One, Drew Emery & Lewis Merkin's compelling tale of a Seattle architect sorting out the conflicts of being deaf, gay & Jewish. It plays March 2.

Migdalia Cruz's Another Part of the House, on March 16, is an adaptation of Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, and winner of the 1996 Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays. Have A Heart, the one musical in the series, on April 6, is a revue by Daniel Wilson, of Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim songs, taken outside their original heterosexual context.

Kia Corthron's Seeking The Genesis plays April 20. This urban drama centers on a mother of three who faces the pressure of her son's teacher and doctor to treat his hyperactivity with tranquilizers.

The reading series concludes May 4 with Naomi Iizuka's Polaroid Stories, which transforms the chaotic lives of a group of street kids into a fierce elegy of emptiness, sensation, desire and fear.

The series takes place on these Monday's at The Group's mainstage at 7:30 PM. The Group is located at the Center House, in the lower level of Seattle Center. Admission is free, but reservations are advised. call (206) 441-1299.

-- By David-Edward Hughes
Seattle Correspondent