Sally Wingert, Tracie Thoms, Wendy Lehr and Michael Paul Levin are among the bold-faced theater names lined up by the Illusion Theater for its annual Fresh Ink series.

The showcase readings kick off July 7 with Jeffrey Hatcher's "What's the Word For," which was commissioned as a two-hander for Barbara June Patterson and Steppenwolf Theatre co-founder Jeff Perry, whom Patterson taught at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago many years ago.

Neither actor is in this version; Perry was called away for a film project. Instead, Lehr and Levin play an 80-something and a 50-something whose ad-hoc family is facing a crisis. Michael Robins directs. (July 7-10).

Comedian and actor Kim Schultz is up next with "No Place Called Home," a piece about Iraqi refugees. Schultz teams up with musician Amikaeyla Gaston for a work in which she plays a dozen characters. Directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde (July 14-17).

Sally Wingert Playwright John Gaspard has adapted the writings of New Yorker humorist Ian Frazier in "Dating Your Mom." Veteran actor Wingert stars in these quirky stories that have been turned into a sketch comedy piece. Peter Moore directs (July 21-24).

'Jazz' adapter and director Marion McClinton. Photo by Tom Wallace. Over the past several years, director and playwright Marion McClinton has been working on an adaptation of "Toni Morrison's Jazz." The epic work gets a special reading with a cast that includes Thoms and nearly the whole cast of "In the Red and Brown Water," which McClinton recently at the Guthrie in a co-production between Pillsbury House Theatre and the Mount Curve Company: Nathan Barlow, Aimee Bryant, Christiana Clark, Tonia Jackson, Celeste Jones, Gavin Lawrence, James A. Williams, Regina Marie Williams and Greta Oglesby. The "Jazz" reading will feature original compositions by August Wilson collaborator Kathryn Bostic (she did music for "Radio Golf" and the Broadway production "Gem of the Ocean" as well as "Bengal Tiger at the Bagdad Zoo" on Broadway). The show will get a full production in the 2011-2012 Illusion season. (July 29).