Theatre BSMT’s outgoing artistic director and actor Brian Doss will perform in the company’s first and last production of the year.

DETAILS

Before the Tide presented by Theatre Bsmt
Motel
Wednesday, June 2 - Saturday, June 12

More in: Theatre

It certainly has the appearance of a theatrical swan song. Theatre BSMT’s founding artistic director, Amy Dettling, is stepping down from the helm of the company to pursue a science-based career. In grand-exit style, she’s taking the starring role in Theatre BSMT’s final production under her leadership — local playwright Natalie Meisner’s Before the Tide.

Dettling, however, says even though her role in Meisner’s two-person show may seem like a last hurrah before she leaves the world of footlights for that of test tubes, she plans to come back to Theatre BSMT occasionally to help out with future projects.

“I’m just stepping down from being the ‘everything person,’” she says. “This show is a really nice way for me to say goodbye to Theatre BSMT as artistic director, but I will be back. You can’t get rid of me.”

Actually, if not for Theatre BSMT artistic associate Jason Mehmel — who directed David Mamet’s The Woods last year — Meisner’s show would be marking the entire company’s swan song. Mehmel says he got wind that Dettling was contemplating folding Theatre BSMT so that she could return to school and he decided he didn’t want to see the momentum that had been built go to waste. Besides, Mehmel says, he’s been “noodling around” with the idea of starting his own company so, he offered to take up the reins at Theatre BSMT and build on its foundation.

The company has been quietly chugging along as the little theatre that could since its first show, Forever Yours Marie-Lou, in the Birds and Stones Theatre in 2007. “I had to come up quickly with a name, and because the show took place in the basement of a church, I called it Theatre BSMT,” recalls Dettling.

Before the Tide, directed by Shane Anderson, marks Theatre BSMT’s fifth show. Written by Meisner, who also teaches in Mount Royal University’s English department, it tells the story of Claire, a kayak instructor and former artist whose past is marked by a terrible tragedy. She makes a grisly discovery while out paddling and, when she reports it to police, she opens a can of worms for herself that, among other things, forces her to confront her past.

“The nature of her discovery is less the focus of the play than how the police react when she phones and reports it, and how she reacts to it herself,” says Mehmel, who produces the show. “The play looks at how society isn’t necessarily built to respond uniquely to people,” he adds.

Mehmel certainly seems to be enthusiastic about taking up the position of Theatre BSMT’s artistic director and has some big plans for the company’s future.

“I’m bringing in my own ideas, but I’m not letting go of any of the ideas Amy came up with,” he says. “We’ll still be doing challenging new work and giving opportunities to emerging artists.”

One thing Mehmel wants to explore, however, is how to broaden the definition of “emerging artist” to include professionals in various fields who have never before applied their skills to the stage. In Before the Tide, for example, professional comic-book artist Fiona Staples designed the posters and created paintings for the show. Sound designer Greg Smith is also established in his profession, but he’s never applied his trade to the theatre.

Mehmel also wants to move away from presenting shows in a traditional-theatre setting to doing some site-specific work. “It will be very much like a traditional night at the theatre, but in a cathedral, in a bar, or in a recording studio. I want to tell classic and contemporary stories like, for example, Waiting for Godot, but in the lobby of a downtown office building, and then let that space become a character itself,” he says.

This shift toward site-specific work also has a practical benefit, as Calgary theatre companies struggle to find space. For example, Dettling says lack of spaces that fit Theatre BSMT’s small budget is why it’s only presenting one show this year.

Dettling says her decision to return to school is also rooted in practicality. She can’t get consistent work from theatre and she has been serving food to pay the bills — which is growing old.

“I do theatre on the side right now, so I’d rather do a job that I love, rather than one I hate. I need a change, and something that will pay the bills,” she says, adding that side jobs, especially during the slow summer season, are a necessity for many of those working in the theatre industry. Mehmel knows what this is all about, he works at WestJet.