This weekend Webster's Bookstore Café, 128 S. Allen St., will be giving away free laughs.

Today and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., Next Stage Inc., a local independent theater corporation, will perform three one-act plays, titled Late Date.

Named after the longest of the three plays written by Boston-based playwright Jack Neary, the comedic works come from a five-piece collection of one-act plays called Five Nickels.

Two of the plays, Lilacs and Late Date, are romantic/satiric comedies. Lilacs, starring Shannon Johnson of Bellefonte and Tom Pogue of State College, is what Mary Skees Young, producing artistic director, calls a "pre-romantic encounter between two highly intelligent 12-year-olds."

Late Date, starring Holly Fritchman of Bellefonte and Cliff Young, playwright and Penn State lecturer of English, centers on the budding romance between two middle-aged widowers as seen through the eyes of their 20-something children.

The story begins with the two young people dating unsuccessfully, Young said.

Eventually Young's character, the father of the young woman, becomes interested in the mother of the young man. The mother of the young man is played by Fritchman.

"The kids are really jarred by this," Young said. "They can't accept or conceive this."

In between these two comedies is a short monologue called Oklahoma.

Performed by Fritchman, this short piece is what Skees Young calls a "reminiscence by a wartime nurse of a joyous interlude in the horrors of war."

Skees Young, a lecturer of English at Penn State, and fellow producing artistic director J.D. Shuchter, chose to do these plays after seeing them performed at St. Vincent's College in Latrobe.

They said they felt the plays would work well in the readers' theater situation.

Director Cynthia Mazzant, who recently moved to the area, is the artistic director of Tempest Productions in New York City.

After Shuchter met Mazzant and they realized their shared interest in children's theater, Shuchter then decided to ask Mazzant if she would direct Late Date.

Next Stage's performance at Webster's this weekend will run about an hour long and is free.

Elaine Meder, co-owner of Webster's and former actor and director of Next Stage, agreed to host a performance by the group every few months.

"We wanted to get our name out without much expense and were looking for a free venue that would keep things low key," Shuchter said.

Next Stage became a non-profit corporation in January 1996.

The group performs these readers' theater programs six times a year.

The plays are done script-in-hand and without a lot of movement, so they do not require as much rehearsal as mainstage productions, Skees Young said.

Next Stage does three mainstage productions per year.

The next one is Lewis Carroll: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, which runs from Oct. 19 to 27.

In addition to live performances, Next Stage also sponsors acting classes for adults and children.

Taught by two full-time professional actors from Pittsburgh and New York City, the next set of classes begins Sept. 26.

For more information, call 814-357-1166 or 814-692-4776.