Winding Road Theatre Ensemble

They just keep coming! Another announcement for a new theatre company and its first production here in Tucson. The new one is Winding Road Theatre Ensemble and the show is an original one by Lesley Abrams entitled Dorothy Parker's Last Call. It is to be performed in the Cabaret Theatre at the Temple of Music and Art in mid October. Check the TTA list for the specifics.

I like that they have "Ensemble" in the name. The question is what does that word mean to them. To me of course it means a permanent group of actors and directors who share common artistic views and who plan and implement their work as a long term endeavor, training and preparing themselves consciously as an ensemble in order to achieve their artistic aims. For the general theatrical world it means a loosely knit group of artists who often work together when they don't have better or different offers and projects going on. Fundamentally that makes for a huge difference. In any case, it is exciting to hear about them and regardless of their form I wish them the best.

Glen Coffman, the director of this first show, studied acting at the HB Studio according to their announcement. That means hopefully he at least carries some amount of "Method" tradition in his work. He directed the production of Lemon Sky at Live Theatre Workshop which I wrote a long post about here on this very blog. I don't recall how I worded it in the post itself, but the acting in that show, even though it obviously did not have the amount of rehearsal time it truly needed to come to fruition, showed evidence of earnest and sincere and creatively imagined work. Aside from that terrible set in that terrible performance space which is Live Theatre Workshop, I sensed an attempt at real theatrical life. Perhaps freed from the constraints of time and place that comes with being jobbed in as a director with these various companies, Glen will be able to establish and create his artistic vision much more fully and definitely with his workmates at Winding Road.