Stages of Recovery  Ex-addicts take their life stories Off-
Broadway  Listen up! Hello! We're starting the show!" Bob shouts
at his actors, and they drift slowly into place. It is 9:30 on a
Tuesday evening, six nights before his play is set to open. The
only place he had found to rehearse was a second-floor dance
studio near Union Square. The room is stuffy and the overhead
fans squeak, but tonight nobody is complaining.  Theater groups
rehearse every night of the week in New York City, but there's
no other group quite like this one. Nearly half of the 25-person
cast are former alcoholics and drug addicts. They don't have
head shots or acting coaches; they just have memories of their
own near-destruction to guide them. Most go only by their first
names, as prescribed by 12-step programs.  In 1991, Bob, then
40, decided to write a play. He'd been working at an auto-parts
factory for 21 years, and during breaks at his job he began to
pen vignettes about subjects he knew well—drinking, drugs, and
hitting bottom.