Playwright Dori Appel of Ashland, Ore., contributed "Balance" and "Tea Time"; Paula Kamen of Chicago contributed "A Cure for AIDS"; and Cleveland's Linda Eisenstein, something of a SNAPfest favorite, contributed, "The Names of the Beast," a longer work that makes up the second half of the evening.

Ree Davis-Stone opens the evening at the Millennium Theatre in "Balance," playing a woman whose emotional stability is ensured by lithium - "Lithium," Davis-Stone trills, as if tasting the word and finding it sweet. Unfortunately, the drug that lifts her from the depths also prevents her from reaching her beloved - and dangerous - emotional highs.

Davis-Stone is quite good in this piece, which improves as it goes on and provides a quick, energetic start to the evening.

Kamen's "A Cure for AIDS," starring Stephen Tipton and Mick Kasher, is vaguely reminiscent of a "Twilight Zone" episode, right down to the easily foreseen ending. Tipton gives a serviceable performance, and Kasher is good as a sort of kindly revenant.

Appel's "Tea Time" ends the first half of the evening, with Lois Nemec having a good time in the role of a slightly pixilated homeless woman who may or may not be Eve, evicted from the Garden of Eden. Nemec has a lot of fun here, and Appel's script is amusing, but it does end abruptly.

Director Michal Simpson does a good job with these three pieces. The two monologues are staged briskly and, to accommodate the seating at the Millennium Theater, he has his actresses moving from one side of the stage to the other quite naturally.

"AIDS" provides a different challenge. Simpson uses a touch of lighting effect (courtesy of Tom Bertino Jr.), and the sparring between Tipton and Kasher is kept almost prim until the piece's climax.

Director Roxanne Wach takes over for the evening's final piece, "The Names of the Beast," in which a group of four women writers get together to perform a "ritual" designed to help one of them give up writing and move on.

M. Michele Phillips plays Alicia, the "blocked" writer who wants to burn all her work and move on. Her disapproving but supportive friends are played by Tammi Ziola, Emily Jane Thompson and Elayne Station.

The cast as a whole is quite good, especially Phillips, and Eisenstein's script is intriguing. Frequent touches of humor keep the piece from becoming too portentous, and the finale is gratifying.

In addition to tonight's performance, "Briefs: An Evening of Shorts" will be staged Saturday, Aug. 3 and Aug. 5 (all at 8 p.m.), and at 2 p.m. Sunday. "Three the Hard Way," SNAPfest's other offering, will be performed at 8 p.m. July 27 through 29 and Aug. 4, and at 2 p.m. July 30 and Aug. 6.