The Northampton Playwrights Lab’s theater series, following a five-year hiatus, returns next weekend (Nov. 30-Dec. 3) with six productions, in a forum designed to introduce audiences to innovative work being created by several area playwrights.

The Playwrights Lab, started in 2005 by Meryl Cohn, began what’s called its Play by Play Festival in 2015, staging the event again in 2016 and 2018. A planned return in 2020 was halted by COVID-19, and local playwrights couldn’t find a good time to share their new work until now, according to Nikki Beck, a producer of the series.

The revived series, at Northampton’s A.P.E. Gallery, includes work by Harley Erdman, a dramaturg, librettist, and playwright who teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; Talya Kingston, also a dramaturg, playwright and educator who is associate artistic director of WAM Theatre in Berkshire County; and Cohn, the playwright and author who founded Northampton Playwrights Lab.

Kingston’s “Port Of Entry” considers a fraught encounter between a veteran TSA agent, the new employee he’s training, and a woman who arrives at the airport on a flight from the Middle East the same day a new “Muslim Ban” law takes effect.

And Erdman’s “The birds the birds the birds” offers an avian perspective of the climate crisis in a “madcap exploration” that includes “a dash of Alfred Hitchcock and some original songs,” as program notes put it.

“It’s our first time as a lab sharing our work publicly since the pandemic,” Erdman noted in a statement. “I’ve been privileged to see that work as it’s taken shape over the last few years, and I’m thrilled we’re finally sharing it with a larger audience.”

With one exception, the plays range between about 60 and 100 minutes and feature four to eight actors.

Seating is limited at the A.P.E. gallery, so advance tickets are recommended. You can order them and find out more about the plays at theticketing.co/o/npl23.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.