You never know where the quality will come in the grab bag of three one-act plays each week in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

		Pittsburgh New Works Festival The festival continues through next week. Shows are at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Ninth Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard, Downtown, 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 5 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 4 and 7 p.m. Sundays. 412-881-6888 or pittsburghnewworks.org. Cost is $25 for a festival pass; $10 for single tickets, with student discounts.

In this, the third week of four, it comes in the substantial final play, in which a seemingly static situation yields surprising revelation and satisfaction. The first play is a pleasant appetizer, and the second an ambitious dish that never sorts out its flavors -- but the third is a meal in itself.

The children's branch of the festival starts this weekend.

Matt Casarino, "Larry Gets the Call"

It's a simple enough premise: An average Joe who works at Borders finds himself hauled before God to be given an assignment as prophet. It isn't even that surprising that God turns out to be an elderly woman with a boa-decked walker and a tacky taste in wigs.

Playwright Casarino finds enough unexpected details and twists to keep it going for 20 minutes. Some of the time feels padded -- the glacial pacing milks every moment. But there is invention and even a kind of philosophy in God's seeming simplicity, and God's assistant adds vivid variety with her tart tongue and array of funny costumes.

Joanna Lowe handles this satiric punctuation with great assurance, and Everett Lowe has a lovely plastic quality as the astonished Larry. Toniaray Digiacomo is the pleasant God who takes her time with every reaction. Joseph A. Roots directs for The Rage of Stage Players.

Judy GeBauer, "Dr. Chekov Makes a House Call"

This is more ambitious stuff, but in an over-acted production by The Heritage Players from Bethel Park, it feels garbled, never settling on what kind of play it wants to be.

The general tone is farce, as members of a Russian family squabble among themselves while waiting for Dr. Chekhov to arrive (the playwright was indeed a doctor). He treats their daughter and drily notes the parents' gaudy pretensions, but is he farcically pretentious himself or some sort of moral monitor? For 31 minutes, the actors never relax enough to let us see.

We do, however, see where Chekhov got the idea to write about a cherry orchard, and the final lines lifted from "Uncle Vanya" fit very well. Carol Schafer directs. the Heritage Players.

Shannon Reed, "Up on the Roof"

The situation in Reed's inventive comedy about the dynamics of the McConnell family isn't promising. Just as guests start arriving for the annual Thanksgiving pre-Christmas folksong fest, Holly Buddy disappears and hides out on the roof.

Her brother, Taylor James, can't get her to say what's wrong, so he climbs up there beside her. And the disappointed mother and father keep coming to the window to call out their anger at the kids ruining the party and trying to wheedle them into returning before climbing up there themselves.

All this is carried out with a fetching mix of naturalness and a slightly italicized silliness.

Bill Crean (Dad), Katy Wayne (Mom), Brad Carlin (Taylor) and Heather Lynn McNeish (Holly) contrive to look like a real, normally dysfunctional family.

McNeish is spot-on as the sulking young woman bummed out by nothing more than the discovery that life disappoints and change is inevitable. But Carlin's Taylor is the find of the festival so far, a nerdy, natural supporter of his sister in pain. Lance-Eric Skapura directs with restraint for the Open Stage Theatre, letting the 32-minute play unfold naturally.