Once again, Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama will showcase its recent and present playwriting students in a Summer New Play Festival running through July 30.

		CMU Summer New Play Festival Where: Helen Wayne Rauh Theatre, Purnell Center, CMU. When: Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m. through July 30. Tickets: Free, half-hour before curtain; 412-268-2407.

The festival is designed to help writers prepare their scripts for full productions in regional theaters. Six new works in progress will be given staged readings for one night each in the small Helen Wayne Rauh Theatre. Tickets are free.

Eminence gris of the festival is Milan Stitt, who presides over the CMU playwriting program. Recent graduate Kirby Fields, who has a play among the six, serves as producer.

In a new departure, the festival has reached out to local theaters. Carlyn Aquiline, City Theatre dramaturg and literary manager, will lead the post-performance feedbacks, which are such an important developmental part of the festival. And Kyle Brenton, Public Theater dramaturg, will direct one of the shows.

"Since so much of our collaboration involves other members of the School of Drama, it is nice also to take the opportunity to work with other area actors," said Fields.

They need to be good, because each reading follows just eight hours of rehearsal. The actors include Martin Giles, Rebecca Harris, Brian Barefoot, Mark Staley, Jeffrey Howell, Kathryn Spitz, and CMU faculty Don Wadsworth and Tony McKay.

Stitt calls the festival "a rare opportunity to see new plays from very promising young voices that will very probably come back to Pittsburgh in the future." There's even one play that has flirted with publication before even being produced, and a couple of New York City theaters are interested in producing it. ("But I'm trying to have him hold out," for something better, Stitt confides.)

He says it is important that young playwrights see their work done by Equity, age-appropriate actors. And it is also vitally important that they get a response from a regular public audience, not just other students.

Where do the playwriting students go after finishing their two-year M.A. program? "The ones that don't go to California ..." began Stitt, before discussing those who do: "And there's too many of those -- we have a very powerful West Coast alumni clan from the School of Drama. The playwrights go out there for a week just before graduation and are often promised jobs. It's hard to resist, even if it's only filing at Walt Disney."

In fact, among Stitt's successful western graduates, one is now head story editor on a sitcom and another, slightly older, is one of only three people who can give a green light at MGM.

But those who go to New York typically ally themselves with a theater or a couple of theaters, at the entry level. They need to get their plays done, even in fund-raising evenings of 10-minute plays, and to keep working and collaborating.

"If they're too young, they need to grow up, because what concerns them doesn't concern audiences in their middle ages," Stitt says.

Audiences, heed his call.

PLAY FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Some casts listed are incomplete.

Tonight: Kirby Fields, "Down on Memminger," directed by Crystal Manich, with Martin Giles, Greg Coughlin, Eryn Joslyn and Nancy Bach. A young man suffering from a debilitating illness returns home to discover that not even love can make the pain go away.

Friday: Kevin Snipes, "The Chimes," directed by Laura Gross, with Don Wadsworth, Martin Giles, Tony McKay, Mike Lippman, Brian Barefoot, Greg Coughlin, Jason Planitzer and Paul Lindquist. Four boarding school boys are united by their love of Shakespeare and torn apart by the approach of World War II.

Saturday: Craig J. Weiner, "The Purple Heart," directed by Kathryn Moroney, with Mark Staley, Jack Carpenter, Sun Mee Chomet and Rebecca Harris. In 1968, a Korean War veteran falls in love with a troubled neighbor but must break free of his own past.

July 28: Mary F. Unser, "The Only Gift," directed by Laura Konsin, with Amy Landis, Autumn Ayers, Harry Gerhardt and Lori Maxwell. If everyone needs salvation, whom do you choose?

July 29: James L. McManus, "Bulldog Whiskey," directed by Laura Konsin, with Karen Baum, John Gresh, Christina Worsing, Christopher Proud, Eryn Joslyn and Harry O'Toole. A family searches for faith and forgiveness as they await a birth.

July 30: Collin Acock, "Judas Jones," directed by Kyle Brenton, with Jarid Faubel, Tressa Glover, Jeffrey Howell and Kathryn Spitz. A small Southern town puts pressure on one young man to be a savior.