The Play Company in New York City continues its 2001 Lab Series with a script-in-hand presentation of Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of Koran, a coincidentally timely play by French playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Oct. 2-6.

Maria Mileaf directs the work, set in 1960s Paris. The play is an examination of religion and faith as an 11-year-old Jewish boy shoplifts from a grocer, Monsieur Ibrahim, the only Muslim on a Jewish street. The play tells of the lonely boy's unlikely rescue by the older man. Schmitt is one of France's major contemporary playwrights, author of Enigma Variations.

Stephane Laporte's translation is being used. The simple design elements for the staged readings are created by Marisa Lowenstein (set), Steve Swenson (lights), Eric Hall (costumes) and David T. Pinkard (sound and original music).

Tickets are $5. Performances are 7:30 PM Oct. 2-6 at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, 2162 Broadway at 76th Street in Manhattan. For tickets or information about the series, call (212) 206-1515 or The Play Company at (212) 398 2977.

* The Play Company is a nonprofit theatre founded in 1998 by Kate Loewald, Jack Temchin and the late Mike Ockrent with the goal of developing new American work alongside new work from other countries and cultures. Its missions is to create an international theatre fro New York City, celebrating writing from around the world.

— By Kenneth Jones