The Women's Theatre Project aims to please a segment of its audience with Girl Play, the company's first Lesbian Play Reading Festival. Sixteen lesbian-themed short plays will be read at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. June 28 at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 2040 N. Dixie Hwy., Wilton Manors. Genie Croft, Steven Chambers, Karla DiBenedetto, Gail Garrisan and Marjorie O'Neill-Butler direct a cast of professional actors. Tickets are $10, and a specially created Luscious Lesbian Martini will be sold at both shows. Info: Women's Theatre Project at 954-462-2334.

-- CHRISTINE DOLEN

Three young theater companies are doing notably different things in late June, aiming to attract audience members who might want an alternative to clubbing and such.

Ground Up & Rising started a buzz when it did John Kolvenbach's On an Average Day as a fundraiser at GableStage. Now the company is doing a short run of the show at the Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st St., Miami Beach, with Arnaldo Carmouze and Arturo Fernandez playing reunited brothers exploring their dark past.

Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (the show reopens at ArtSouth in Homestead July 10-19). Tickets are $25 ($15 for seniors, students, people who live in the 33141 zip code, military folks and Actors' Equity or Screen Actors' Guild members). Info: 305-529-6233; www.groundupandrising.org.

Speaking of ArtSouth, Unhinged Theater -- a group of Florida International University students and grads -- is going Victorian with Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight, in which a devious husband convinces his wife she's going crazy. Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. June 28. Tickets are $15 ($10 for students, seniors and military). ArtSouth is at 250 N. Krome Ave., Homestead. Info: 305-785-7377 or www.unhingedtheatre.webs.com.

The faux-reggaeton group The Toners gets all theatrical at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 7 p.m. June 27 with The Toners II: Toners in Time. Playwright-performers Alex Fumero, Marco Ramirez and Lucas Leyva are behind what they describe as ''theater + party + concert = 305 remix.'' The show features two time-traveling Toners trying to get a record deal -- and the pre-show entertainment includes free drinks and classic Miami music. The Toners get their party started at New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St., Coral Gables. Info: www.foryoucansee.com.

-- CHRISTINE DOLEN

The work of about 20 developmentally challenged artists ranging in age from 18 to 68 will be highlighted at noon Friday at Sunrise Log Cabin Plant Nursery and Life Training Center, 8128 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. As part of a Center for Folk and Community Art outreach project, ''we first asked everybody at Log Cabin to write something about themselves that they would like everybody else to know,'' says CFCA's Stewart Stewart. ``Then based on what they'd written, we've helped them created images.''

Montages of the visual art and narratives will be displayed on two large, freestanding panels. ''It's like a storybook,'' says Stewart, who adds that the mission of the nonprofit CFCA is ``to use visual art as a tool of intervention and prevention.''

The panels will move to the Miami Beach botanical gardens in July and then on to the lobby of the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in September.

We have done many art programs . . . with varying success,'' Maria Valasquez, instructor at the Life Training Center says in a statement. ``This project brought out the artist in everyone who participated. This has never happened before.''

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