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The Stories on Stage Out-of-the-Box Series is called that for a reason: Like its SOS parent series, it's a cycle of dramatic readings melding literature and theater arts on a theme. But unlike the main stage productions, Out-of-the-Box is sequenced differently, with more than one reader on stage at a time. And the thematic part is where things really diverge: "Out of the Box" almost automatically means grittier and more intimate, two qualities that can't help but jump out at you during a program like today's, called Addiction-Free: The Road From Hell and focusing not so much on the hopelessness of addiction, but on the art of getting free from it. Notes spokeswoman Heidi O. Hart: "A lot of people who are not regular subscribers or who've never even been to the theater before are buying tickets to this program," which is attracting many first-timers from the recovery community, among others.

Candy Brown, Nick Sugar, Jeanne Paulsen, Stephen Mailer and Kate Hurster will read from stories by Kate Braverman, Augusten Burroughs, Frances Kuffel, William Cope Moyers and Elizabeth Wurtzel at 2 p.m. this afternoon in the Seawell Ballroom in the Denver Performing Arts Complex; for tickets, $22, log on to www.storiesonstage.org or call 303-494-0523.
Sun., March 9, 2 p.m., 2008