Most postplay discussions among audience members tend to revolve around the core question, “Did you like it?” Megan L. Nerz is hoping to get to a deeper core with the discussion scheduled to follow her troupe's free production of “A Lesson Before Dying” tonight at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Raleigh. Specifically: “Do you believe in the death penalty?”

It's a touchy question but a logical coda to this intense drama, Romulus Linney's adaptation of Ernest J. Gaines' popular novel. The tale centers on the relationship between a black teacher in 1940s Louisiana and a black prisoner awaiting execution for killing a white store owner, a crime he did not commit. Deb Royals-Mizerk will direct the play. Among the cast members is Torrey Lawrence, who played the prisoner, Jefferson, in last season's acclaimed production by Chapel Hill's Deep Dish Theater. This time, he'll portray teacher Grant Wiggins.

Nerz hopes the production will get audiences thinking about the death penalty, an issue in the forefront of North Carolina politics, as the Legislature considers whether to impose a moratorium on executions. The play is the inaugural production of The Justice Theater Project, which sprouted from the St. Francis of Assisi Arts for Justice Ministry.

Nerz, the project's executive producer, is in favor of the moratorium. But she hopes the production won't merely preach to the choir. She hopes it'll draw audience members who are either in favor of the death penalty or undecided. And she hopes people will be frank about their opinions and whether the play changed them. “Hopefully, this may be an opportunity to transform their feelings and if not to change their opinions, then just to get them to walk away revisiting how they feel about these things,” Nerz says.

Mary Pollard, who was on the defense team that won death row inmate Alan Gell an acquittal last month, will lead the discussion, along with Maria Rouphail, who teaches English at N.C. State University and has worked with a prison ministry. Other anti-death penalty activists also plan to attend, Nerz says.

“To a certain extent, we don't really know what will happen,” she says of the discussion. “It could be very dynamic, depending on the audience. We could get a very, very right wing conservative perspective. We need to be able to offer that person the opportunity to speak, and then allow other people in the audience to respond to that.”

Nerz hopes people will go home thinking about other issues raised in the play, too, such as the justice system, racism and poverty.

After tonight's production, Nerz and Royals will remount the play for performances April 25 at Raleigh's Cardinal Gibbons High School and May 16 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham. They're hoping that the month-long hiatuses will enable a good buzz to spread, drawing yet more people to the play and, more importantly, to the discussions.

And in dance, or dance as visual art, or visual art as dance, artists Hannah Tully and Tim Christian join forces with Choreo Collective for a dance in its Current Collection: 2004, Saturday and Sunday at Chapel Hill High School.

The new work is part of Choreo Collective's Kathy Colville Project, which features collaborations between dancers and nondancers. Colville, a teacher at the time, was the inaugural guest artist, creating an intriguing dance called “The Firm Believer.” Visual artists Tully and Christian, who are married, made this year's dance, “Sideswap,” which explores colors.

”One of our reasons for doing what we do is that we like exploring the creative process,“ choreographer Bridget Kelly says, ”to have the freedom and the opportunity to play some and to experiment and to see how other people think when they're making work.“

”Sideswap“ emerged from the image of what happens when an artist mixes colors, Kelly says. In it, two distinct groups of dancers interact and each ends up changing the other. Current Collection will also include a parody of competitive sports by Kathy Berberian, Nancy Simpson Carter's intriguingly titled ”...,” Alyssa Ghirardelli's “Teriscope,” set to a Vivaldi score performed by Bobby McFerrin and Yo Yo Ma, and works by Michelle Cawley, Bridget Kelly, Amy Beth Schneider, Caroline Williford.