If there is one place in this area that you can travel without taking off your belt, shoes or underwire bra, where you do not need a passport or have to keep your table in an upright position, it is the Sunrise Theater.

"For the price of a ticket you are transported to London to see the finest that the National Theatre has to offer," says a spokesman. "For around $20, you sit in comfort and see some great theater performed by some of the world's best actors, playwrights and directors. What could be better than that?"

The upcoming season at the National comes to the Sunrise via the same technology that brings the Met in HD to Southern Pines, and it gives the audience the chance to see live theater, one step removed, but live.

This season will feature the following plays with more to come.

"One Man, Two Guvnors" shows live on Thursday, Sept. 15, at 2 p.m. and is repeated as recorded at 7 p.m.

In Richard Bean's English version of Goldoni's classic Italian comedy, sex, food and money are high on the agenda. James Corden returns to the National for the first time since "The History Boys" to play Francis.

The second play will be "The Kitchen" by Arnold Wesker, live at 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6 and re-broadcast as taped at 7 p.m. It takes place in 1950s London. In the kitchen of an enormous West End restaurant, the orders are piling up: a post-war feast of soup, fish, cutlets, omelettes and fruit flans.

Thrown together by their work, chefs, waitresses and porters from across Europe - English, Irish, German, Jewish - argue and flirt as they race to keep up. But in the all-consuming clamor of the kitchen, nothing is far from the brink of collapse. "The Kitchen" puts the workplace center stage in a blackly funny and furious examination of life lived at breakneck speed, when work threatens to define who we are.

The third play this season will be "Collaborators," a new play by John Hodge, directed by National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner. The play centers on an imaginary encounter between Joseph Stalin and the playwright Mikhail Bulgakov. Alex Jennings (Prince Charles in "The Queen") will play Bulgakov and Simon Russell Beale will play Stalin.

For more about the actors and plays, go to the National Theatre website, http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk, and go to the National Theatre Live section. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students.

"You can purchase a package of all three performances for only $50," says the spokesman.

All seating is reserved and may be purchased from SunriseTheater.org or by calling (910) 692-8501.