Ever wanted to be in the room where the seeds of theatrical masterpieces are sown? Local Theater Company’s (LTC) 13th installment of Local Lab, hosted at the Dairy Arts Center’s Grace Gamm Theatre from March 15 to 17, gives you a backstage pass to the creative furnace that is playwriting.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Beth Henley, alongside acclaimed artists Andrew Rosendorf, Carlyn Aquiline and Michelle Tyrene Johnson, will take center stage in a weekend brimming with staged readings, workshops and candid conversations. The festival does more than showcase new works; it invites local audiences into the heart of the creative process.
The Unbuttoning by Beth Henley
8 p.m. Friday, March 15
The Blue Ridge Mountains are the backdrop for this mesmerizing fantasia where secrets, once fastened tight, come undone. Directed by LTC Founding Artistic Director Pesha Rudnick, the new play by Beth Henley exemplifies her Southern Gothic flair and penchant for tapping into women’s inner lives.
The story takes place on a stormy night in a remote cabin high on a mountain, where a traveling button salesman visits a woman and awakens something within her. Henley says her time in the iconic Eastern mountain range was a major inspiration for The Unbuttoning.
“There’s a flavor of mystery out there,” she says. “It feels like the sky touches the mountains, so you are just surrounded by blue skies, mountains and nothing else. While I was out there, I interacted with a lot of traveling salespeople. I started doing a lot of research on salesmen and came up with the idea of writing about them, the Blue Ridge Mountains, [class] and womanhood.”
Henley says her collaboration with Rudnick helped her iron out “cringe moments” in the script. “Especially after COVID, being in-person with people who love theater has never really meant more to me in my life,” she says. “I’m grateful for this company that is still exploring new works with writers. That’s more difficult because many people are cutting [new plays] from their seasons.”
Stockade by Andrew Rosendorf with Carlyn Aquiline
7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 16
Following Henley’s opening act, Stockade, directed by LTC Co-Artistic Director Nick Chase, centers on a reunion of gay soldiers on Fire Island post-WWII. The play tackles themes of identity against the backdrop of the Lavender Scare, a long-running period of discrimination against LGBTQ service members.
Andrew Rosendorf, along with his 15-year collaborator and dramaturg Carlyn Aquiline, was commissioned by LTC to develop a play exploring the intersection between the LGBTQ community and the military. Rosendorf returns to Boulder after participating in 2018’s Lab with his play Paper Cut about an amputee returning home after Afghanistan, which LTC produced that year as a world premiere.
“As the pandemic was starting, Local reached out wanting to know if I’d be interested in doing a commission that might be a sequel to Paper Cut,” Rosendorf recalls. “I said I’d think about it and realized this could be an opportunity to investigate queerness and World War II. It had always been an interest for me, but given the huge research component associated with it, I just hadn’t had the time or space to do that.”
He returned to Local with an idea: Write something original in conversation with Paper Cut and bring Aquiline on board from the ground up to aid in the research process. Together, the duo, whose play One-Shot was recently featured in the 2024 Colorado New Play Summit in February, spent months learning about the era to help shape the work.
“Stockade uses history to reflect our present moment,” Aquiline says. “This play resonates now because, unfortunately, we’re taking steps backward in terms of gay rights in this country. Even three years ago, when we started the process, it wasn’t as bad as it is today. There’s so much activism against gay and trans people, so we’re meeting the moment in a way that I’m not sure we understood when we started.”
Chasing Breadcrumbs by Michelle Tyrene Johnson
2 p.m. Sunday, March 17
The Lab’s final play, Chasing Breadcrumbs, is a poignant exploration of a playwright’s journey through creative compromise. Delving into the all-too-real challenges faced by Black artists today, Johnson’s play — directed by LTC Co-Artistic Director Betty Hart — was sparked by a jarring interaction with an audience member.
“An older white woman at one of my plays said, ‘I loved your play except for one little thing: Could you just make the characters white people?’ What I’m sure she meant, which made it no less offensive, was that the play isn’t about race or racism, so why bog down a perfectly good story by making the characters black?” Johnson says. “I thought, ‘This pisses me off,’ but I wanted to put that feeling someplace productive — for me, that’s usually writing a play.”
Chasing Breadcrumbs follows Serena, a Black playwright commissioned by a group of rich white women to write something to make them look good and feel better about themselves because they’re tired of “Karens” getting a bad rap.
“I took my irritation and turned it into something funny,” Johnson says. “Even though the play’s plot is absurd and fictional, the situation is very realistic.”
Johnson was inspired to submit to the festival by her friend, Rosendorf, who had mentioned his positive experience at Local Lab to her.
“I love the development process of a new play,” she says. “I live alone, so when I write a play, I send it out and don’t know how it sounds until it’s read aloud. So, I’m excited about coming to Local Lab to see how this fresh, inspired play lands with Boulder’s audience.”
Beyond the readings
Local Lab 13 also offers events throughout the weekend designed to foster connections between artists and audiences. These additional activities include post-show conversations, a sold-out solo performance class by founding LTC company member Rachel Fowler and a Democracy Cycle Story Circle to support the development of short plays with playwright Nick Malakhow.
“Lab is the cornerstone of Local Theater Company,” Chase says. “It’s a chance for us to support the development of exciting new theatrical works and pull back the curtain for our audiences to see how plays are made.”
From Henley’s haunting exploration of stormy secrets to Rosendorf and Aquiline’s reflection on discrimination and Johnson’s incisive commentary on race, the festival promises a weekend of thought-provoking, boundary-pushing theater. Whether you’re drawn to the allure of new works or the camaraderie of like-minded theater lovers, Local Lab 13 is a beacon for anyone passionate about the transformative power of the stage.
“Local has invested in writers, actors and community artists to both import work to Colorado and export work to the larger theater community,” Rosendorf says. “It’s a precarious moment for an organization to be producing new work right now, given the state of American theater, but it’s necessary so new stories continue to be told.”
ON STAGE: Local Lab 13. March 15-17, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. Tickets here.
