Italian playwright and 1997 Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo and his wife, performer Franca Rame, are the highlight of Wesleyan University's Outside the Box lecture series. The Middleton, Connecticut campus hosts the two Sept. 18 and 19, with Fo presenting selections from Misterio Buffo and Rame performing the American premiere of Sex? Thanks, Don't Mind if I Do!.

This is Fo and Rame's first performance in the United States since their 1986 tour of All Home, Bed, Board and the Church. Buffo is a well-known piece; Sex?, a collaboration between Fo, Rame and their son, Jacopo Fo, visits the sexual milestones of a woman's life from birth to death. Both performances will be in Italian with projected English supertitles.

Fo is revered in Europe for his political satires. Among his best known plays are The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! and Orgamso Adulto Escapes from the Zoo.

Tickets are $20, $17 for students, Wesleyan faculty and senior students. For reservations, call (860) 685-3355.

* The final event of the Outside the Box series will be the Oct. 20 presentation of A Huey P. Newton Story, written and performed by Obie winner Roger Guenveur Smith. In the play, Smith impersonates controversial Black Panthers leader Newton in all his contradictions and manic energy. Holder of a doctorate from the University of California, Newton battled drugs for two decades and was shot to death by a pusher in 1989.

-- By Christine Ehren