New Theatre artistic director Ricky J. Martinez will direct Ricky Waugh and William Gressman in the Jules Tasca play set in "the confines of a penitentiary," where "a trusting Christian priest is drawn closer to the heart of darkness of a prisoner," according to New Theatre. "The results are a double tragedy."

Opening is April 5. The creative team includes production stage manager Betsy Paull-Rick, sound designer Micheal Foster and scenic designer Nicole Quintana.

Tasca has taught playwriting at Oxford University in England, and he has performed with a commedia dell'arte group in central Italy. He is the author of 120 (16 full-length, 104 one-act) published plays that have been produced nationally and worldwide. He has won national and international playwriting contests, including the Barrymore Award for his play, The Balkan Women. His latest published plays are The Jew of Bologna and Live Drawing: A Portrait of the Mona Lisa. Currently, he is working on a play based on the life of radical abolitionist John Brown.

New Theatre — the commissioning home of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anna in the Tropics — is located in Coral Gables, FL, at 4120 Laguna Street.

For more information call (305) 443-5909 or visit www.new-theatre.org. *

New Theatre was founded in 1986 and is dedicated to the development and production of new works. The theatre has brought the national premieres of more than 30 plays by early- and mid-career American playwrights to South Florida, including New Theatre-commissioned Anna in the Tropics, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Eileen Suarez is managing director.

The late John Belluso's A Nervous Smile is the company's current production, through March 23.