Four New Plays Are Part of BTW Unbound 2008 in Boston This Weekend

Boston Theatre Works begins its BTW Unbound 2008 tonight. During this event that runs through Sunday, you'll have the chance to take in four new plays in various stages of development by some of the country's hottest playwrights. During "Unbound," discussions with the playwrights will follow most performances

The Festival kicks off tonight at 7:30pm with Listening by Joe Rudy. In this comedy thriller (which will also be presented Sunday at 4:00pm), the playwright asks "What happens when the government has been spying on you and you develop a relationship with the agent assigned to be your 'listener?' Rudy says that the play is "a response to the domestic spying policies of the Bush administration and explores the changing world we create through fear and paranoia."

Tomorrow at 8:00pm and again, Sunday at 5:30pm, Dano Madden's Beautiful American Soldier will be seen at the festival. This play centers on two sisters, who are unexpectedly lost along a quiet roadside in war-torn Iraq and develop an unusual friendship with a man peddling junk in the desert. Together, they must find a way to deal with the consequences of war.

Jeanne Drennan's 12 Dogs (performances Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday at 7:00pm) is set in a bleak, post-apocalyptic outpost of the American empire. In the play, a young teacher is trying to nurture and protect a brilliant 17-year-old student. Her efforts to win opportunities for him endanger their home and everyone in it, but in a world where poetry, comic books and particle physics have a power to transport and elevate characters with few choices and grim futures, nothing is impossible.

The final play that's part of BTW Unbound this year is Coma, Patient by Shaun Raviv. Here, a nurse's new patient, who's a cold-blooded murderer facing trial and the possibility of the death penalty, is brought to the trauma ward paralyzed, brain-damaged and tongue-less. While attempting to care for him, she is drawn into a comedic circus of legal manuevers, media attention and family dynamics that forces her to question her beliefs about justice and the definition of the word "alive." Coma, Patient will be presented on Sunday at 2:00pm

The theater will present these plays at Boston Playwrights' Theatre (949 Commonwealth Ave.). Tickets are $10 for one play or $15 for a Festival pass. To reserve seats, 617-728-4321. Further information is available online at: www.bostontheatreworks.com