Natalie Merchant, the group's lead singer and chief songwriter, writes quirky lyrics that have the resonance of contemporary parables.

"PRIME TIME," the AMAS Repertory Theater's new musical production, is a contemporary parable of cultural assimilation told in the gee-whiz vocabulary of 1940's movie musicals.

This production by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company interprets "Julius Caesar" not as a history lesson but as a contemporary parable of political power.

If the text, sung in Latin, refers to Jeremiah's reproaches to his people for having broken the compact with God and for having brought the downfall of Jerusalem upon themselves, Ms. Marin's images suggest a symbolic contemporary parable.

The opera reworks a Sicilian folktale as a contemporary parable.

The affectless precision of this filmmaker's previous work is absolutely no preparation for the brilliance and deep resonance of this contemporary parable.

By contrast, several cobblestone squares away at the Kolowrat Theater, Arnost Goldflam was directing his own new play, "The Contract," a contemporary parable of the Abraham and Isaac story, in a distinctly personal voice.

His speech here was a compendium of inspirational themes and contemporary parables that he thinks should guide Americans and give them hope.

The opera, with a libretto by David Steven Cohen, presents the story as a contemporary parable, a battle between the dead Adam's embittered ex-wife and his selfless widow, Eve.

'Julius Caesar' at UConn Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," interpreted as a contemporary parable of the international turmoil and political conflicts in the world today, will be the inaugural production of a newly constructed theater at UConn in Storrs.