Next year, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis will introduce a festival of new American plays, kicking things off in March with a world-premiere production in its Studio Theatre series.

The initiative doesn't yet have a name, and the Rep is soliciting suggestions through a contest.

Seth Gordon, the theater's associate artistic director, is curator of the program.

In March, Gordon will direct the world premiere of "The Invisible Hand" by Ayad Akhtar, a playwright from Milwaukee. About the same time, the Rep will present readings of new plays in and around the Loretto-Hilton Theatre, where the Rep performs. The theater will commission some plays with an eye toward production; Steven Woolf, the Rep's artistic director, said the first commission will be announced soon.

"This is something we want to do, to create new works," Woolf said. "The festival has wide-ranging potential. And it's in Seth's DNA. He knows every agent and every writer in the country."

Gordon, who came to the Rep about a year ago, has worked extensively in the development of new plays, first as literary manager and then as associate producer of Primary Stages in New York, which is dedicated to new work, and then as associate artistic director of the Cleveland Play House. There, he produced FusionFest, a performing arts festival, and the Next Stage Festival of New Plays. Gordon has produced and-or directed countless productions of new works, many by leading playwrights.

Gordon envisions the Rep's new plays festival as "a triangle." The wide bottom of the triangle, he explained, involves the commission and discovery of new plays. In the narrower middle, some of those plays will have readings and workshops, a developmental process that will offer Rep theatergoers "a backstage tour of the creative process" and "a sense of ownership," he says. A few plays, at the pointed top, will proceed to full production.

Ultimately, he hopes, the festival will "make the Rep a source of new material for the American canon."

Regional theaters, particularly Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky, have attracted national and international attention by emphasizing new work by living American writers.

The Studio Theatre, long a part of the Rep, roots the festival in a well-established, well-regarded series. The 2011-12 series will open with Annie Baker's "Circle Mirror Transformation" (Oct. 26-Nov. 13), a new but already widely produced comedy set in an adult-education theater class. Stuart Carden, a veteran Rep director ("The Lieutenant of Inishmore," "Crime and Punishment," "In The Next Room or the vibrator play"), will direct.

Woolf will direct the next production, "A Steady Rain" (Jan. 18-Feb. 5) by Keith Huff. The play centers on two Chicago police officers, partners who once made a terrible decision together and continue to deal with its repercussions. In 2009, the drama was a hit on Broadway, where it starred Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.

"The Invisible Hand" (March 7-25), the world premiere, takes place in a remote spot in Pakistan, where a militant group has kidnapped a successful American banker who takes his rescue into his own hands. Gordon says the play raises questions about the price of survival, for individuals and for nations.