In tandem with Gay Pride Month, the Fourth Unity theater company will celebrate the gay play with 11 new works in Unity Fest 2000. In two separate, rotating repertory evenings, New York produced playwrights and new writers will run on the Bank Street Theatre stage June 15-July 2.

Two of the highlighted playwrights are James Magruder and Roland Tec. Magruder wrote the book to the musical Triumph of Love, the play Penelope & the Sterile Field and recently adapted Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid for Yale Repertory Theatre. With a background in composing and directing opera and teaching, Tec wrote, produced and directed the comic gay feature film "All the Rage."

Magruder's one act comedy Too Much of Me, first produced in Baltimore in 1999, shows what happens when a former stripper and born again Christian bursts in on the life of her gay son and his lover. The short play Franco & Jimmy is Tec's character study of two longtime friends, who grew up together in the era of disco and are still swinging their way into the new millennium.

Also in the series will be Gary Garrison's Cherry Reds and Joan Lipkin's The Date.

Tickets are $12. The Bank Street Theatre is located at 155 Bank Street. For reservations and more information, call (212) 353-3837. Fourth Unity began Unity Fest in 1997. The company's other credits include Edwin Sanchez' The Road and Icarus, David Pumo's Love Scenes and a revival of Tennesse Williams' Vieux Carre.

-- By Christine Ehren