Not Such a Quantum Leap

She also liked the way they sounded in her head.

" 'OK' has beautiful cowboy poetry and 'Underground' has this earthy West Virginia accent [that] brings out the poetry in that community," while "The F Word" is "surprisingly funny," poking fun at "the American obsession with its gut."

Aside from McManus, a winner of the Princess Grace Award for playwriting, whose work came to Burgess's attention while she was at Catalyst, the playwrights are friends and Inkwell members. Next year, she says, they'll seek full-length plays in an open submission process "from anywhere and everywhere."

The Inkwell offers something playwrights don't get at other Washington theaters, Burgess maintains. Others may workshop plays and stage world premiere productions -- a goal of any development process -- but "what we're doing is the step before that production," says the director. She wants theatergoers to think of an Inkwell showcase as "the final draft" of a play -- "designed and fully staged, because designers ask good questions about a text" -- but not the final product.

Putting playwrights, designers and audiences together early to see what percolates is an Inkwell mission.

Burgess cites a stage direction in "OK" that calls for a character to put a drop of honey on a wilted sunflower, which blooms again onstage. "I loved the challenge of that stage direction," she says. "We want to just engage the playwrights' imaginations in creating the impossible onstage." Even on a tiny budget, "there are different ways to make that moment seem like it's happening," she explains, with lighting, other effects and just plain acting.

"The complicity between audience and actor is incredible. The audience will always go the extra mile in their imagination. That's why they go to the theater. They want theater magic."

Follow Spots

¿ Signature Theatre has signed Broadway actor Hunter Foster ("Urinetown," "Little Shop of Horrors") to star with Natascia Diaz in "Kiss of the Spider Woman." The show opens March 11 as part of a Kander & Ebb rep. Another Broadway light, George Hearn ("Sweeney Todd," "La Cage aux Folles"), will join fellow Tony winner Chita Rivera in Kander & Ebb's "The Visit," opening May 13.

¿ Patrick Page, who played Iago and Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in recent years, has bowed out of its spring/summer Roman rep of "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Julius Caesar." He was to play Marc Antony in both plays. A veteran Broadway player ("The Lion King," "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"), Page has signed for a lead in the musical "Dancing in the Dark," premiering in San Diego. His replacement won't be announced for a month or longer.