Lackawanna Rails 2007, the radio theatre project of The Northeast Theatre and WVIA-FM, returns with two new plays in its ongoing series, Electric City Suite, this time featuring original comedies by Ed Simpson, Mixed Nuts and Bolts and Orbiting Scranton at Performance Space at the Hotel Jermyn, 326 Spruce Street, Second Floor, Downtown Scranton, on May 4 at 9 p.m., May 5 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 6 at 3 p.m. The plays are performed live before an audience and recorded for broadcast on WVIA-FM.

Mixed Nuts and Bolts and Orbiting Scranton are part of a “radio cycle of plays” that follows three generations of Scrantonians from a meeting between a young boy and a famous magician at the Poli Theatre, to the friendships and struggles of Don, Bolts, Maxine, and others as they adjust to modern social and economic realities.

These funny, poignant plays — each thirty minutes in length — are written by Ed Simpson, who for the past twenty-six years has been a professor of theatre and playwrighting at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches at High Point University in North Carolina. Simpson understands the Scranton area well; his stories draw heavily on local references, backdrops, and people he knows or has met. Anyone who loves this region and its people will find much that resonates in the stories he tells.

The cast includes New York actors Maura Malloy, Ed Chemaly, Geoff Gould, and Duane Noch, who are joined by Scranton favorites Agnes Cummings, Heather Stuart, and James Langan. Lackawanna Rails 2007 is produced and directed by Don Wildman with live sound effects by Richard Grunn and Will Moore, and also features the musical talents of violinist Coleman Smith and pianist Kazzrie Jaxen.

Tickets are $15 general, and $5 students, and may be purchased online at www.thenortheasttheatre.us , by phone at 570-558-1515, or in person at the box office Wednesday through Saturday after 3 p.m.

Lackawanna Rails 2007 is sponsored by Fidelity Bank and Normandy Holdings, LLC . Sponsors for The Northeast Theatre’s Fifteenth Season are: ServiceMaster by Griffing, Denis and Britta Nayden, Patsel’s, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Jermyn Apartments.