Kroening Interpretive Center
Workhouse Theatre Company (WTC) has just begun production on their final show of the season, A Company of Wayward Saints by George Herman. Over the next two months, The Warren: An Artist Habitat will be transformed into the only full-fledged theatre facility in Camden, a talented cast will rehearse and train for a demanding style of physical comedy, and WTC will bring the “commedia dell’arte” style of theatre to the Camden community.
Enter Camdenite and director Diane Mountford, who has Twin Cities performance credits ranging from The Ordway Center to Theatre in the Round, but for whom classic styles of theatre is of principal interest. Mountford was a founding member of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company before moving to Camden in 2001. Currently, she is the artistic director for the Minnesota Shakespeare Project, and finds herself bringing her experience and passion to a second Workhouse Theatre production this season, having directed a staged reading of Prometheus Bound in November 2006.
Mountford explains her interest in working with WTC, “I had a great fondness for the play (Prometheus Bound), and it was very cool working with an all-Camden cast and making theatre with friends and all that; but I think the reason theatre in Camden is important is larger than just one play. It’s an enormous community-building thing. The idea that everyone in a community can connect through sharing the same experience.” She also says she is driven to a few particular styles of theatre because, too often, audiences are expected to choose between plays that are either challenging or just entertaining. But in the case of A Company of Wayward Saints for example, she says “…an audience can expect to laugh a lot, but their hearts and minds will also be engaged.”
“Commedia dell’arte” is a satirical, improvisational style of physical theatre that originated in Italy during the Renaissance. Commedia uses broad stock characters (the young lovers, the soldier, the scholar, and so on…) that have been mainstays of popular culture from the Italian Renaissance through modern TV sitcoms. The actors adopt easily recognizable characters, lampooning themselves as well as various socio-political topics and figures from society at large. In A Company of Wayward Saints, these characters make up an eccentric troupe of actors commissioned to improvise The History of Man. Though they are attempting to raise enough money to make their way home, infighting, scheming, and a battle for the spotlight threatens to undermine the endeavor.
Among the cast of Twin Cities notables is Camden’s own Debra Stone, who plays the doctor, Dottore. Other Camden residents lending their talents to the production crew include Duane Atter, Emily Irey, Jessica Kullander, Travis Olson, Jeff Redman, Jenni Redman, Beth Schlies, Bruce Stripe and Mark Webb. Anyone interested in working with the theatre may contact info@workhousetheatre.org or 612-237-2014.
A Company of Wayward Saints will be performed at The Warren: An Artist Habitat (44th and Osseo Road) and will open on June 8 running Thursdays through Saturdays for three weekends. Tickets are $10 (or $8 for seniors and students); purchase at www.workhousetheatre.org or call 612-237-2014.