Richard Greenberg's Take Me Out, winner of the best play Tony Award and a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, is an entertaining, artfully written play. Its premise -- a superstar baseball player casually comes out, and all hell breaks loose -- is, unfortunately, still all too believable.

So it's no surprise that Fort Lauderdale's Rising Action Theatre, which mainly presents gay-themed theater, would turn to Greenberg's Broadway hit to kick off its new season.

Take Me Out has been staged in South Florida before, in a bigger budget 2004 production at the Caldwell Theatre Company. The key difference between the Caldwell's Take Me Out and Rising Action's isn't money, though: It's casting.

A few happy exceptions aside, Rising Action's performers neither look nor act like World Series-contending baseball players. And that's precisely what the members of Greenberg's fictional Empires are supposed to be.

The tempest in Take Me Out swirls around Darren Lemming (Laris Macario), a biracial player with a hot career, loads of money and charisma to spare. Off-handedly, or so it seems, he acknowledges his sexual orientation in an interview. That makes for some awkward encounters in the locker room, both with certain teammates and his closest friend.

When closer Shane Mungitt (Terry Cuzzort) is brought up from the minors, the pitcher proves to be everything that the articulate Darren isn't. Racist and homophobic (merely two of his many flaws), Shane ignites the simmering tensions in the clubhouse, with disastrous results.

Greenberg's own passion for the game is reflected in the character of Mason Marzac (Ted Dvoracek), a mild-mannered money manager who becomes positively giddy and baseball-obsessed when he takes over Darren's portfolio. The odd-couple friendship that develops is one of the play's most delightful touches.

As much of the play is set in the Empires' club house and shower room, it's no surprise that Take Me Out features plenty of nudity. The actors have to be as casual and comfortable with being naked as ballplayers are, and with that they have no problem.

Director David Goldyn has some real assets in Macario, Dvoracek and Larry Buzzeo, who plays Darren's best pal on the team and serves as the play's narrator. Macario exudes both a mischievous confidence and the wariness of a man who spent years compartmentalizing his life. Dvoracek radiates Mason's captivating quirkiness, and Buzzeo is solidly engaging.

Louis San Luis rocks his Japanese lines as pitcher Takeshi Kawabata, a frustrated man in a slump. But most of the other ``boys'' of summer haven't been boys for a long time. Cuzzort, especially, will make you hoot when his Shane describes himself as a dumb ``kid.'' There are plenty of laughs in Take Me Out, but that's not supposed to be one of them.

Christine Dolen is The Miami Herald's theater critic.

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