Five new plays from the U.S., France and the Ivory Coast will receive lab presentations this fall as part of the Play Company's New Work/New World Series, Sept. 18-Nov. 4.

One play will be presented per week for five performances, which actors will undertake with scripts in hand. The schedule is as follows:

— Sept. 18-22: Key West by Dan O’Brien (U.S.) directed by Daniel Gerroll. A comic game of cat-and-mouse ensues when a woman returns to a Key West bar to retrieve her car keys. 

— Oct. 2-6: Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt (France), translated by Stephane Laporte and directed by Maria Mileaf. In 1960s France, 11-year-old Moses visits the local bordello and shoplifts form the grocery run by Monsieur Ibrahim, the only Arab on the Jewish street.

— Oct. 9-13: Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé (Ivory Coast), translated by John Clifford and directed by Leah C. Gardiner. The family of a 13-year old African immigrant in a European city resorts to a traditional rite of passage to control her wayward spirit, which has gotten involved in gangs. — Oct. 16-20: The Bread of Winter by Victor Lodato (U.S.), directed by Loy Arcenas.  A woman and two boys struggle to find love in a dangerous world after the boys' family fires her as their housekeeper

— Oct. 30-Nov. 3: Smashing by Brooke Berman (U.S.), directed by Michael John Garces. The globetrotting daughter of a New York literary king becomes the subject of a sexy and scathing best-seller written by her former lover.

This series opens the Play Company's first full season. The theatre was founded by Kate Loewald, Jack Temchin and the late Mike Ockrent in 1998 to develop and produce new American and foreign plays. On Nov. 5, the organization will host a benefit reading of the new book "The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan" performed by Malcolm McDowell.

Performances are at the McGinn/Cazalle Theatre (Broadway and 76th St.), the company's home for the 2001-02 season. For information, call (212) 206-1515.

— By Diane Snyder