There is an old joke that says Calgarians are so conservative they wait for the light to change before crossing the street. Dan Perry, a young playwright, actor and director (and occasional Fast Forward Weekly contributor), takes the conservative reticence a little further and asks: What if a young conservative couple ended up at an orgy?

The Hedonists takes place in the home of Gerald (Devon Duvnyk) and Carla (Sasha Barry), as they talk to their psychologist, Dr. Marvin (Pat Quinn), after attending the orgy where they didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. They struggle to understand all of the skeletons that the experience dredged up and are forced to see clearly that their relationship is not what it should be.

“She’s feeling not satisfied in their relationship, sexually or otherwise, so it’s them trying to figure that out,” says Perry. “It’s very funny in moments, and it’s also very touching and very sad at other moments when they realize ‘Our marriage is a sham.’”

Perry is taking the One-Yellow-Rabbit approach to theatre. That is, he’s forgoing trying to get a company interested in his plays and putting the damn thing on himself. Aside from putting on productions through the University of Calgary student-run Nickle and Dime theatre, this will be Perry’s first production on his own. He set up a deal with Downstage, which owns Motel, then hijacked rehearsal space at the university and pulled it off with a budget of about $200. Perry and his compatriots even managed to snag the couch left over from the last production (Jump/Cut, by another indie company, Newborn Theatre Collective). “It really has been beg, borrow or steal anything we can,” he says.

“This is my first time branching out, trying it on my own, just trying to get my name out there as a playwright. I have all these plays sitting there and nobody’s doing them.”