First, Edward Albee’s Zoo Story directed by Ryan Daniel and Therac 25 directed by Buddy Jones will run at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays, May 26-June 5.

Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story is a one act play where a conversation leads to a violent ending.

Coherent of the richness of Albee’s utterly arresting language, and his astonishing nuances of psychological attack and retreat, the play can be described as follows: A man named Peter (George W. Manus, Jr.), a complacent publishing executive of middle age and upper-middle income, is comfortably reading a book on his favorite bench in New York’s Central Park on a sunny afternoon.

Along comes Jerry (Justin Hand), an aggressive, seedy, erratic loner.

Jerry announces that he has been to the (Central Park) Zoo and eventually gets Peter, who clearly would rather be left alone, to put down his book and actually enter into a conversation.

Then Adam Pettle’s script, Therac 25, not only sidesteps the emotional abyss of young people dealing with cancer, it also circumvents love story clichés.

Rather than playing with hearts and flowers ideas about romance, Pettle follows along the lines of 1970s writer M. Scott Peck, who defined love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

Instead of a pity party, Pettle gives us characters who fend off sentiment by being specific and singular, by being drawn together not just because they both have cancer, but because they have something to offer each other.

Playwright Adam Pettle wrote Therac 25 in his early 20s when he was undergoing radiation therapy.

Named after a poorly designed Canadian cancer-radiation machine that killed and damaged people in the 1980s, the title sounds grimly, inhumanly clinical.

But its story of two people (Andy Woloszyn and Heather Deane Danielsen) who meet in a hospital and fall in love while undergoing cancer treatment plunks the play right in the heart of the possibly dying-young genre.

The “possibly” creates both suspense – disease is more equally matched against the hearty young than the decrepit old – and tragedy.

The love story creates romance. The genre offers a perfect recipe for theatrical catharsis.

Out Front on Main, Inc. will also hold auditions for two powerful shows.

Rabbit Hole, directed by Manus, runs for two weekends in July.

Written by David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play deals with the ways family members survive a major loss, and includes comedy as well as drama.

Out Front will also hold auditions for Jeffrey, directed by Buddy R. Jones, which will run for three weekends in August.

Jeffrey, the title character of Paul Rudnick’s wildly funny new comedy, is a gay man in his mid-30’s who, exhausted from negotiating safe sex, decides to become celibate.

Acclaimed writer Paul Rudnick (I Hate Hamlet, In & Out), crafts this Obie Award-winning romantic comedy that follows the title character, a gay actor and waiter, who’s just given up trying to find love in the treacherous HIV/AIDS landscape of 1990s New York when he meets the man of his dreams.

Roles available for many actors of various age, sex and race.

For information or reservations, call 615-516-6279 or visit www.outfrontonmain.com Out Front on Mainis located at 1511 E. Main St., Murfreesboro, in historic downtown. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for students & seniors.