Theater

Beat the heat and talent-spot for 10 bucks: The second annual Summer Play Festival (SPF), running July 5 through 31, brings 16 rampantly diverse plays from around the country and the U.K. to Manhattan. The brainchild of producer Arielle Tepper (Spamalot, Pillowman), SPF offers emerging playwrights who've yet to have major New York productions the chance to showcase their talent at 42nd Street's Theatre Row. (All tickets $10; see spfnyc.com for schedules and tickets.)

photo: Michael Gravison

SPF contender: Courting Vampires

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More About

• Ted Kaczynski
• Michelle Carter
• Dan Dietz
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Theater Festivals

This year's lineup includes Michelle Carter's Ted Kaczynski Killed People With Bombs, a fractured portrait of the Unabomber and the winner of the 2003 PEN USA Award for Drama, while Dan Dietz's Humana Festival finalist tempOdyssey follows the misadventures of an angry temp at an explosives factory.

From the Edinburgh Fringe Festival comes crooked, Catherine Trieschmann's sideways look at evangelical and Sapphic love down South. Faith is viewed through a darker lens in the world premiere of Christina Gorman's Split Wide Open, about a Muslim bride in Albania who learns of rumors that she was raped by Christian soldiers.

And I confess to shameless curiosity about Kenny Finkle's Indoor/Outdoor, the story of a cat named Samantha deciding whether to forsake her daily plate of Fancy Feast for the call of the urban wilds.