Hitting the Fourth Wall
Local Theater Company Goes For the Original

When I meet up with the bright young things at Fourth Wall Productions, they are PUMPED. They’re setting up for an open house in their brand new space: a 45-seat black box in the pristine Enterprise Center on E. 105th, just two blocks south of the Bratenahl line. They’re opening the brand new romantic comedy Just Shy of Closure, a Cleveland original by West Sider David Allan. They’ve put up a new theatrical trailer on their MySpace page. Now all they need is an audience.

"We totally love this space," says actor Justin Tatum, leading me down the winding corridors to the arts wing -- past ShoreBank offices, a host of non-profits, and an impressive ceramics studio - until we get to their roomy offices and performance space. I can see why: equivalent bootstrap producers in Chicago or New York would take one look and burst into bitter tears of envy. The black box is nicer than most small spaces I've worked in on either coast. Then there's the company’s inviting lobby, green room, office, a monster-sized community room with comfy couches, free gated parking, and a location only a few blocks off the Shoreway. It’s to die for.

Fourth Wall got steered there by arts-friendly Enterprise Center manager Cornell Calhoun III – a playwright and frequent Karamu actor – who gave them a sweet start-up rental deal. They moved in and started renovating in December, had a rushed first production in January, but with Just Shy of Closure they’re settling in for the 2nd show of their 2nd full season.

"Is it another play about imploding relationships?" I ask, since that seems to be one of the young company's specialties. Resident Playwright Matthew Sprosty, one of the troika who runs Fourth Wall, laughs and nods. "I love how we ended up with this play," he says. "Last year we were performing All the Way from China in a Warehouse District loft. David Allan was in the audience, and he showed up at the cast party at Karl's, telling us how much he related to the kind of work we do." Allan told them a true story. He’d had a meet-up with the girl he’d been fantasizing about since 5th grade, and discovered -- just before she was about to get married -- that she’d always had a thing for him, too. Sprosty told him if he turned it into a play, the company would be interested. A romantic comedy about the difficulty of connecting in the age of cell phones, FaceBook, and constant interruptions, it opens this weekend.

Director Rebecca Cole arrives from her pizza run, and joins our conversation. "I can’t tell you how great it is to be able to plan a season and not have to say 'dates TBA, space TBA' all the time," she says. "It took so much energy just arranging where we were going to perform!" The company’s nomadic journeys since 2005 have taken them all over the local map: from the Cleveland Play House to a West 4th loft, Pilgrim UCC in Tremont and Kalliope Stage for a successful run of Sprosty’s dark comedy Malicious Bunny. Now the company can concentrate on what it wants: finding new plays, particularly by area writers, with snappy dialogue and interesting characters that appeal to their core audience of 18-35 year olds.

It’s an uphill battle, getting folks interested in plays they’ve never heard of – so Fourth Wall has hit on something uniquely appealing. For every show they do, Tatum produces a "theatrical trailer" – a 2-minute preview video clip much like you’d see at the multiplex – that they post on their MySpace page. "I really have a good time making them," says Tatum, "and it lets people know something about the show and the actors. People want to know what they’re going to spend their money on." That’s not the only thing that’s like a movie; so is the ticket price, $10 regular, $7 student, which makes Fourth Wall the area’s theatrical bargain. See the trailer here.

There are two more shows in the company’s upcoming season. In May comes Sprosty’s The Bank Guards, a rustbelt comedy about 5 working class Cleve-town dudes who decide to rob the bank they’re supposed to guard. Then come summer it's Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, Bert V. Royal’s off-off-Broadway cult hit that parodies a classic comic strip – "Good Grief!" - they are pointedly not allowed to mention on pain of lawsuit. "We got a lot of actors to audition for Dog Sees God because they’d heard of the play," says Tatum. "We hope they’ll stick with us, once they see the kind of quality work we are capable of."

Fourth Wall Productions opens Just Shy of Closure on Thursday, March 20. @ the Enterprise Center. Visit http://www.fourthwallproductions.com for more info.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Linda Eisenstein lindaATcoolcleveland.com
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