As a writer, Steven Shelton is interested in exploring different points of view from characters in a story. When Buckham Alley Theatre’s latest production, A Night of Comedy, opens this weekend, he’ll also be watching his writing come to life from a new perspective.
Shelton has two original plays, A Walk in the Park and The Hitchhiker, that will be performed along with The Tie Thief and Spies by Jeff Goebel. The performances will be January 23 and 24 at 7 p.m. and January 25 at 2 p.m., all at Flint Local 432 (124 W. First Street). Tickets are available online.
A Walk in the Park is a collection of vignettes with several different characters in individual scenes. It was originally written as a short one-act play called The Importance of Chess, centered on two characters playing chess in the park each week while talking about their past lives and ribbing each other. Shelton eventually combined other short works he’d written into the story to create a play with multiple characters interacting as the audience is taken through various elements of a park – a café, a dog park, chess players, and more. He also wrote a few new scenes.
Although parts of the play have been performed before in those shorter formats, this will be the first time Shelton is seeing them brought to life by a producer and director other than him. That part of the process has been exciting for him to watch.
“I really want to see what somebody else does with the material,” Shelton said. “Whether it’s actors taking direction or a director seeing something, it’s really gratifying to watch that process. One of the things that I’m always interested in, and this is a theme in a lot of the stuff I write, is perspectives. And that’s one of the things that happens in this show. You get to swap perspectives. Like there’s a scene where two of the characters at the dog park are talking about their dogs and then you get another scene where it’s the dogs talking about the owners. I really like that as a writer, being able to see, okay, here’s what I wrote, here’s what I envision, but what does somebody else’s perspective on this same script look like?”
That process requires a lot of careful collaboration in any production, but that was helped because Shelton has worked with director Matthew Osterberg before and has a high level of trust in his vision.
“He’s (Osterberg) a super talented actor and director,” Shelton said. “The producer (Mary Powers) is a good friend of mine. She’s an amazing producer, and I know, I think, everyone in the cast, and I think I’ve worked with everyone except maybe one or two people. So I know them and I know they can take any script and make it hilarious.”
Osterberg began working with Buckham Alley Theatre last summer, but he’s not new to the community theatre scene in the Flint area, beginning with the Fenton Village Players in 2016. Shelton was actually in the first show Osterberg was a part of with Fenton Village Players, and they’ve known each other since. Osterberg also met Powers, who directed the first show he did in Fenton.
Osterberg enjoys acting and being on stage, but says he’s started to also appreciate directing even though he’s newer to it. And the opportunity to direct these shows and work alongside people he knew well was something he didn’t want to miss out on.
“When they asked me if I wanted to direct it, I immediately jumped on board,” Osterberg said. “I wasn’t even sure if I’d want to try directing because I love being on stage and performing. But I’m beginning to enjoy directing as well. It’s a different kind of challenge. But when Steve and I talked about his vision for the show, I felt more confident going forward with this one.”
Cast members in the A Night of Comedy productions include Jim Warner, Bart Burger, Kendall Smith, Collin Brown, Daniel Lopez, Recalia Miller, Melanie Poisson, Destiny Brent, Calvin Ito, and Bethany Folland.
Osterberg is excited for audiences to see a wide range of themes throughout the productions.
“There’s a lot of humor, but there’s also a lot of heart,” he said. “There’s some recurring characters throughout the show, and there’s romance, friendship, drama, but never too heavy. One of the things that drew me to it was the heart behind everything. It’s the human connection that comes through.”
Directing productions for Buckham Alley Theatre always presents a unique opportunity because, as an itinerant theatre without a permanent home space, the team often finds itself in new venues. Since this is his first time directing with Buckham anyway, that wasn’t as big of an adjustment for Osterberg, but he is excited about the opportunity to do a show at Flint Local 432. The venue is known primarily for music, so he hopes that some of their core audience might give live theatre a chance.
“It’s definitely interesting having limited space and figuring out how to make everything work,” he said. “But it’s also exciting, because different venues are more likely to draw different audiences. Because it’s at the Local, maybe more people will come here who don’t normally attend theatre. In other theatres, you tend to have the same audiences every time regardless of what the show is.”
Both Osterberg and Shelton are proud products of the thriving theatre ecosystem in the Flint area, which includes community theatres like Buckham, the New McCree Theatre, and Flint Community Players, a professional theatre at Flint Repertory Theatre, a student theatre at UM-Flint, several high school theatre groups, and community theatre groups in the Genesee County suburbs. The number of artists who balance full-time careers with their roles in community theatre groups is impressive. Shelton is an attorney and Osterberg works for General Motors, but theatre provides important artistic outlets for both.
“I personally have always considered myself a creative person. I love writing, reading, acting, films,” Osterberg said. “In my normal work, it’s doing the same thing all day long, tightening down the same bolts and all that. So it’s a creative outlet that I need in my life.”
Beyond just the creative outlet, though, theatre helps build lasting friendships.
“I constantly run into people who I know from theater, either I know them directly because I’ve worked in a show with them, or there’s six degrees of Kevin Bacon happening where I’ve worked with somebody who’s worked with somebody who worked with that person,” Shelton said. “I run into people in my daily life who are involved in community theater, who I didn’t even know about. I’m a lawyer. I was in front of Judge Larry Stecco for years and years and years. He’s retired now from being a judge, but I’ve been in shows with him. So that’s really great to see people outside of where you normally see them and see them in this other setting and go, I have something in common with this person I didn’t realize.”
“I’ve made so many friends (in theatre) that I wouldn’t have made,” Osterberg said. “And then we just find that we have a lot of other interests like writing, board games, trivia nights. It just really is about the community and the people that you meet doing it.”
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to catch up on all of our headlines every Tuesday.
