On the well-worn couch in the office of the Company of Rogues Acting Studio, Simon Mallett is discussing the future of his own company. Though Mallett is still an instructor and co-ordinator with the studio, he will shortly be joining the world of the self-employed — turning full-time to freelance direction and the direction of his company, the Downstage Performance Society.
            In its last season, Downstage reached a high watermark with Man Out of Joint, an original script by Sharon Pollock that gave the company a considerable heft in profile. In 2007-08, the company is set to carry its momentum forward with larger venues, original work and an adjunct venue showcasing other local productions. Even with the company’s recent push toward expanding its footprint, Mallet still sees Downstage remaining small.
            “In terms of size, we are getting pretty close to where we want to be,” says Mallett. “The venues we’re looking at this year are in and around 100 people, depending on their configuration. I think that our focus is more on trying to fill the spaces that we’ve moved into rather than progressing to larger and larger venues. Now that we’re here, it’s the hope that we’ll have the degree of exposure that will allow us to grow in other ways, whether through corporate fundraising, grant money, growing in that way to involve more professional artists and improve the quality of work within the parameters.”
            The season’s first production will be Dog from the Machine, a title used in the creation of several other smaller scale Downstage works now given the full-fledged treatment of a mainstage production. Based on the exploration of modern communication (Facebook, MMORPGs, Blackberries, et al), the production will eschew conventional staging or narrative, inviting its audience into a transformed Vertigo Studio. There, sans risers, 60 audience members will mingle among a series of concurrent and connected character arcs.
            It’s a style that Mallett likens to a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, offering the freedom to switch or maintain focus. The freedom to mount productions like these, he points out, is the reason that the company refers to itself as a “performance society.”
            “A lot of people call us Downstage ‘Theatre,’” he says. “We try and avoid that, because we are interested in exploring things that are outside of conventional theatre. Part of that is a multidisciplinary approach not part of the theatrical skill set. The other side is that original work is something we’ve always wanted to move into.”
            While this season will also include its fair share of the established, socially minded content that has characterized past seasons, with Morris Panych’s The Dishwashers followed by Judith Thompson’s Habitat (in which Pollock will return to the company as an actor), the 2007-08 season also marks an important addition of further new work for the company. Since 2006, after the dissolution of Bubonic Tourist, Downstage has been managing the former Bubonic space, Birds and Stones. This season, however, the company will be moving from simply operating a rental venue to hosting a curated series of six original local productions.
            From mini-festivals like the improvised Uncertain Future to a clown piece by Judith Mendelsohn (Consisting of Bobby) and Trepan (The Cat Lady Show), Birds and Stone will not play host to shows receiving production and promotional support from Downstage. As the company sets out to find its legs in the larger Calgary community, and its founder dives into the venture full-time, it’s a move looking as much toward the company’s past as it is to Downstage’s future.
            “We have been really grateful for the opportunities that have been presented to us by other companies, whether it was rehearsal space, loaning us things, or individual artists providing mentorship,” says Mallett. “As we continue to grow and develop, we want to continue to do whatever we can to foster that development.”
            Of course, promoting the local theatre scene isn’t just the responsibility of artists. Here is a run-down of three of Calgary’s other burgeoning companies and their 2007-08 seasons.

GHOST RIVER THEATRE
From a relatively minimal slate of two productions last season, Ghost River Theatre will present a considerably expanded season in 2007-08 with three original productions, one international tour and a musical remount.
            Opening with a double bill, the company’s first production(s) of the season will be Tyler Rive’s Iraq and Back, which first premiered at the 2006 Calgary Fringe Festival, and Hamish Boyd’s My Autopsy.
            In February, Doug McKeag will bring his one-man show, Doom 2012, to the Joyce Doolittle Theatre — waxing existential on the eponymous doomsday of the Mayan calendar. The month will also mark the beginning of the U.K. tour of Mesa, a cross-generational road trip play that has appropriately found its own touring legs over the last few years.
            From mortality to political reality, Ghost River shifts gears in May with Jason Rothery’s Politiko, exploring the political defection of a fallen right-wing pundit. The season closes with a remount of 2006’s The Alan Parkinson’s Project, a musical based on the personal experiences of Ghost River artistic director Doug Curtis, who was himself diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s Disease.

URBAN CURVZ
In Dough: The Politics of Martha Stewart, Lindsay Burns created a one-woman show that showcased her own sharp wit alongside her engaging presence. Turning this season from the feminine travails of the home maven’s ideology, The Vajayjay Monologues takes aim at Eve Ensler’s feminist cornerstone play, The Vagina Monologues, asking whether women are really any better off 11 years after the monologues’ premiere.
            For the company’s final production of the season, Vanessa Porteous will direct Carole Frechette’s Helen’s Necklace in a translation by local playwright John Murrell.

ROGUES THEATRE
Including alumni, staff and current students of the Company of Rogues, Rogues Theatre’s first production of the season will be Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends, a play winding through the fallout of a dissolved relationship and a complex series of relationships between the play’s four characters.
            Finally, in addition to his work as Downstage’s artistic director, Mallett will be producing Cow Town, a Calgary exposé set in the Calgary Stampede, produced as the company’s second production.