| Zero Theatre's fifth season shaping up to be supreme
When Ryan Luhning, C. Adam Leigh and Lester Fong were getting ready to graduate from the U of C, they weren’t quite sure how to bust into the ranks of professional theatre. Like many new graduates with a little bit of stage experience under their belts, they decided to start their own company, and Ground Zero Theatre was born. Five years later, as he gets ready to launch what he calls Season 5.0, artistic director Ryan Luhning feels like the company has definitely come into its own.
"When we first put the company together, we wanted to help bridge the gap between the educational and professional worlds," he recalls. "That’s all well and noble when it’s just Ryan and Adam and Lester, and we’re hiring all of these young people, when we didn’t have any connections to the outside world, either. What were we really doing for them?"
But over the past few seasons, the company has made a name for itself, and some of those connections are starting to happen. Recent Ground Zero productions have featured directors like One Yellow Rabbit’s Andy Curtis (Killer Joe) and Denise Clarke (The Vagina Monologues), U of C drama professor Barry Yzereef (Riff Raff) and Theatre Calgary’s Ian Prinsloo (Looking After Eden).
And now that the connections are there, Ground Zero isn’t about to abandon their mandate. In fact, the first show in their new season will mark a new tradition for the company – their annual alumni show in conjunction with the U of C, in which established actors, directors and designers will share the stage with newcomers.
Don’t assume that the educational aspect means a tamer choice of work, though. This year’s inaugural event will be the Canadian premiere of J.B. Miller’s Bobby Supreme, about a shock comedian who decides to see how far his devoted audience will let him go.
"People have walked out in droves during the opening monologue," Luhning says of productions in New York, Chicago and L.A. "It is the foulest thing you will ever see performed." It has a serious message, though. "All of a sudden, it’s life imitating art imitating life, and basically the whole message of the play is 'what the hell is funny anymore?'"
After the overwhelming success of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues last season, Luhning figures the time is ripe for a little quid pro quo. The tentatively titled Cocktales will invite a number of high-profile playwrights including Eugene Stickland, John Murrell and Tomson Highway to muse about the male member.
"We’re going to kind of mirror it with the model of The Vagina Monologues, but what we’re not going to let it turn into is basically Maxim magazine on stage," Luhning promises. "We’re going to make it honest.... We’re talking about things that guys go through. There’s going to be a monologue about premature ejaculation. That’s just one of the big things that guys (worry) about, about size, about all of that."
Following up on Tracy Letts’s Killer Joe, the company will produce one of Letts’s earlier works, Bug. The play features Peter and Aggie, a dysfunctional couple who are both dealing with their own past traumas.
"Peter is a little messed up," Luhning says mildly. "He sees bugs everywhere. Turns out he was in the Gulf War, and he claims he’s had tests run on him, and he has bug implants in his teeth. His paranoia turns into her paranoia... and all of a sudden, they both start seeing bugs together."
The season closes out with another installment in Stephen Massicotte’s wildly popular Star Wars-inspired series. The three plays will run together as The Jedi Trilogy (The Boy’s Own Jedi Handbook, The Girls Strike Back, and Return of the Jedi Handbook).
"After we did it the last time, I dug a hole in my backyard and I buried the scripts," Luhning insists. "I put the dirt on top of them, and kind of pounded it down, and said, ‘never again.’ And then I did the Sean Connery thing, and said, ‘sure, let’s do it again!’"
The change of heart was motivated in part by a decision to take a whole new look at the plays with a fresh cast and a fresh approach.
"We’ve always said that you should have a 40-year-old man playing the kid," the artistic director says. "A business suit and tie, a briefcase. He has to come in, put his briefcase down, take off his jacket, undo his tie, start performing the show.... And then at the end of the whole experience, he has to put his tie back on, put his jacket back on, put his briefcase back together, and have to go back to his normal 9-to-5."
As he looks at the work the company has done so far, the artistic director seems content. He’s particularly happy with some of the connections that were made during Looking After Eden, which Massicotte wrote. The playwright now has a job as resident playwright at Theatre Calgary.
"I kind of look over it and I feel like a proud daddy," Luhning says. "I mean, Steve’s an amazing writer, and whether I’m sitting beside him or not, he’s an amazing writer. However, I hired Ian Prinsloo to direct Looking After Eden, and from that, he and Steve got together.... I’m really looking forward to doing that with projects like Bug and The Jedi Trilogy and Bobby Supreme – letting things like that happen. That’s what makes me fulfilled and happy as an artist and as artistic director of Ground Zero." |
