As part of the Theatre Festival in Black and White, Taylor Whitley, top, and Nadia Cook-Loshilov reach across the color divide in "Detention." Click photo for larger image. Theatre Festival in Black & White Where:Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Jackman Building, 542 Penn Ave., Cultural District. When: Program A: Thurs. and Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Program B: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. 5 p.m. Program C: Wed. and Sun. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 p.m. Tickets: $10; $25 for all three; 412-288-0358.

The Theatre Festival in Black & White is a fine idea for which Pittsburgh owes thanks to Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre. That it returns for its third successive year is, in this unstable world and especially in theater, an admirable achievement.

This year's festival is, of course, a mixed bag, with some fine plays and performances and some that aren't. The atmosphere of collaboration is tonic, though direction is often erratic.

Ten one-act plays grouped into three programs of about 2¹/₂ hours each, the festival is designed to get black and white theater artists to work together. Half the plays must be by black playwrights and have white directors, and the other half, vice versa.

This does not mean that the festival is necessarily about black and white. Whether the plays have to do with what we call race or whether the characters are black or white depends on the playwrights; whether the actors are black or white depends on casting.

As it turns out, four of these 10 plays are very much about black and white, three are not and three fall in between, meaning race is a side issue or in the eye of the beholder. (Others might well measure differently.)

Two black playwrights include white characters and one white playwright uses all black, so the actors are split pretty evenly. There are a few possible cases of color-blind casting in small roles, but in this festival, race is too much an issue to cast with complete freedom.

Ability, whether in writing, directing or acting, seems to be divided pretty evenly.

And one goal of such a festival is to make future racial score-keeping like this irrelevant.

Program A

"Phobia" by Heather Lynn McNeish, directed by Art Terry, is the story of two neurotic sisters, one manipulative, one depressive, with a despotic offstage mother and an unbelievably nice guy the depressive can never admit she cares for. It rambles on without finding a central conflict. Meant as a character study, I guess, it never gets past exposition, and there's little to like in either sister.

"Twenty Questions" by Rob Gorman, directed by Jeannine Foster McKelvia, is a clever construct in which an attractive female case-worker in Limbo preps a newly dead guy for the next step into the afterlife. Although Chad McWreath overplays cute confusion a bit, he and the sprightly Gwen Morton show Gorman's ideas off to good advantage.

"Mixed Messages" by Lynn Jackson, directed by Joanna Lowe, deals with a black-white love relationship, but it's more sermonette than drama. There's a cute set-up as black Lana (Anji Corley) and friends complain about black men's pursuit of white women and Lana posts a pair of personal ads to make a point. But that's dropped, and we never see what brings her together with her white boyfriend. JaSonta Roberts Deen and Art Terry are a black married couple, and I suspect the playwright's chief interest is the speech of adoration he makes to her.

Program B

"Awash" by J. P. Patrick, directed by Eileen J. Morris, a sketch of a single mom (a glowing, natural Shelby Wyzykowski) trying fruitlessly to take an uninterrupted bath, is a comic pleasure. Some of the revelations about her rocky emotional past are confusing or melodramatic, but the dialogue is absolutely believable, especially that with the two children (Stephanie Figer and Eric Williams).

"Detention" by Wali Jamal, directed by Tara Adelizzi, is a brief, pleasing parable in which fighting fourth-graders (Taylor Whitley and Nadia Cook-Loshilov) reach across the color divide and shame their squabbling teachers (Amy Watson and Meredith Pierce).

"Who's Hero" by JaSonta Roberts Deen, directed by Mark Thompson, is an abstract collection of tortured monologues in which five people lament the aftermath of 9/11. Their posturings in the void seem to be vague attempts to extract sympathy that the characterizations don't earn.

"Hidden in Harlem" by Ginny Cunningham, directed by Ben Cain, is set in a black convent. A reporter (Leslie Smith) comes to interview a nun (Mayme Williams) who we eventually learn is his mother. It's an interesting situation, but that revelation is the only drama it has to offer.

Program C

"Burned Wood" has the distinction of being disowned by its author, Erick Q. Irvis, who disagreed with cuts made by director J.P. Patrick. Whatever the original script, the result is (or is still) confusingly oblique. A young man (Jonathan Berry) tries to find out from an old one (Wali Jamal) about the infamous 1923 slaughter of the black inhabitants of Rosewood, Fla. There are passages of seductive poetry. But what to make of the spooky Uncle Joaquin and two ghostly little boys, I can't tell.

"The Other Side" by Bob Gorczyca, directed by Wali Jamal. A former boxer consumed by resentment of blacks shows up at his local bar to listen to the second Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight (1946). As the bartender, Mark Thompson makes every movement tell (and even better, every nonmovement): He's like an Edward Hopper study come to life. Joseph Martinez unleashes bumptious energy as the boxer. They convince us there's more play here than there is.

"When Souls Whisper" by Kim El, directed by Mark Whitehead, is an ambitious story about a teenage girl with second sight who sees the result of shootings in the neighborhood but is in conflict with her mother, who won't listen. There's also a neighbor written with comic verve. But the girl is played at such a pitch of hysteria and the mother so casually that they seem to be in different plays; both need more variety and firmer direction.