Long Wharf Theatre will hear three new plays — Steven Drukman's Gone Native, Leslie Ayvazian's Opening Shot and Kia Corthron's Light Raise the Roof — in the workshop series "In the Works 2002." The first play, Gone Native, will be read in October.

Drukman penned Human Hands, The Bullet Round, Ottomanelli's Empire, The Grossers and Among Others, which will be presented at South Coast Repertory's Pacific Playwright's Festival in the spring. Gone Native is a comedy about a young gay man struggling with his dysfunctional family and a gay community with nothing to offer him.

Ayvazian's Opening Shot, to be presented in January, is a four character play in which a writer, unable to come up with a strong beginning for her latest work, uses people from her past to change the future. Ayvanzian wrote the prize-winning Nine Armenians, Deaf Day and High Dive.

Breath, Boom by Corthron was produced this summer at Playwrights Horizons after a run at London's Royal Court Theatre. Her other works include Force Continuum, Up, Splash Hatch on the E Going Down, Digging Eleven, Seeking the Genesis and two works previously workshopped at Long Wharf, Come Down Burning and Cage Burning. Light Raise the Roof looks at New York City's homeless population.

For more information about In the Works, call (203) 787-4282. The Long Wharf Theatre is on the web at http://www.longwharf.org. — By Christine Ehren