The itinerant Off-Off-Broadway troupe, Cucaracha Theatre Company -- wasting no time after its recent fall 1998 offering, The Moment of Aha -- will present its latest production at the Harold Clurman Theatre, Feb. 4-21 (opening Feb. 6, 1999). The play in question is Birth Rite , a one-person show written and performed by Elizabeth Hess.

Hess will be familiar to fans of Nickelodeon. She has starred on the network's "Clarissa Explains It All" for five seasons. On the New York stage, she has performed in M Butterfly on Broadway, Beggars in the House of Plenty at Manhattan Theatre Club and Jack at New York Theatre Workshop.

Director Richard Caliban has directed many of his own plays at Cucaracha over the years, including Budd, Rodents & Radios and the previously mentioned The Moment of Aha. He is also known as an interpreter of playwright Mac Wellman, having directed the premieres of Sincerity Forever and Second Hand Smoke.

Birth Rite is about a young Mennonite woman who struggles to escape the bonds of her suppressive religion.

Birth Rite is presented in association with Niclas [sic] Nagler. For more information, call (212) 279-4200. -- By Robert Simonson