In a burst of optimism and daring, director/playwright Greg Vovos has started a new company devoted entirely to new work by contemporary playwrights. Called TITLE Wave theatre, its two-show season debuts at Cleveland Public Theatre Sept. 26-Oct. 11, with the area premiere of Julie Jensen's Wait!. Eric Kaiser's Charge follows in February.

Anyone who saw Vovos' stunning production of Charge in CPT's January Big [Box] series knows the audience is in for a real treat. Kaiser's work is smart, off-the-wall funny, and beautifully observed - I haven't seen an absurdist play of such originality in years. In a poisoned post-apocalyptic world, a privileged couple lives a virtual life confined to their bedroom, serviced by role-playing cyborgs. While the husband gambles for body parts on-line, his emotion-starved wife obsesses over the characters from Boyz N the Hood to make her feel something real. As a director, Vovos has a flair for comedy with bite and inventive stage business ‹ don't miss it.

Wait! is also an off-beat comedy, but one full of yearning. It's a memory play and a valentine, to one's first tongue-tied crush and the sustaining passion that ultimately comes from it ‹ a love for live theatre. Blue-collar UPS driver Wendy Burger begins helping her friend muck out years of pigeon shit from a broken-down small town opera house. In order to please her alcoholic father, she becomes a bit player in the aspiring community theatre. There she plays memorable one-line parts like "Lisa" (Ophelia's girlfriend) where Hamlet is played by a blue light, learns from veteran artistes like "Floating Pinata Head," and longs for her sultry leading lady "O Vixen My Vixen" ‹ a hilarious, bittersweet tour de farce.

Vovos has personal ties to both playwrights: all three are associated with the University of Nevada (Las Vegas), where Vovos received his MFA in Playwriting. Jensen was the inspirational teacher/mentor who rescued him from writing death notices at the Plain Dealer by offering him a full scholarship; Kaiser was a fellow student. "I feel a connection to Las Vegas writers," says Vovos. "I think Clevelanders will relate to their sense of humor."

An easy laugher, Vovos is eloquent about his passion for original work. "No one can filter life experience and reflect the present in the same way as a new playwright," he says. "A good new play can be just as deep as Sophocles ‹ people just may not know it for a couple hundred years." As a director, he eschews concept directing ‹ a director should be "the playwright's bodyguard" ‹ and the trend for new plays to be "workshopped to death." He wants to get them on their feet.

The collaboration with CPT is a canny one - it brings two contemporary plays to CPT's Upstairs Theatre under the aegis of a new company. "Greg has terrific taste in finding new plays," says CPT Artistic Director Randy Rollison, whose trust in Vovos extends in another direction, too ‹ he'll make a rare stage appearance in Wait!, along with cast members with Jen Clifford, Meg Chamberlain, and Marni Task.

"I owe a lot to CPT," says Vovos. "Big [Box] forced me to be a producer, and I found out, hey, I can do that." He's bullish on the company's future. "Cleveland has a resilient group of artists who have thrived under less than optimal conditions," he preaches. Wherever we make new art? "It changes the molecules wherever we live."