AMY THOMAS and Tom Shane (background) rehearsing for Big Love. (Photo by Alexei Kaleina)
Big Love follows the path of 50 brides who flee their 50 grooms, seeking refuge in an Italian villa. The havoc that ensues when the grooms eventually catch up to their brides-to-be draws out a miscellany of love landscapes, from modern and antiquated ideas of love and romance, to sex and control, happiness, and ultimately balance.
The show is being staged Feb. 21, 22, 28, and March 1 at the Ah Haa School for the Arts.
Big Love (which is not affiliated with the television series of the same name) is a work of award-winning playwright Charles Mee, who describes his artistic style this way: “I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns. That feels good to me. It feels like my life. It feels like the world.”
Big Love is inspired by what some believe to be the earliest surviving play of the western world, The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus. Mee takes this text and fuses it with countless other texts and his own writing to make a collage-like dance theatre piece.
SquidShow founder Sasha Cuciniello calls Big Love an “amazing show,” admitting that its script is unlike anything SquidShow has done before. She has brought in an outside director, Krissy Smith, for the production, which opens Sunday night.
The play features the local acting talents of Jeb Berrier, Sam Burgess, Linda Levin, Jesse Martin, Dahlia Mertens, Brittany Miller, Tom Shane, Colin Sullivan, Amy Thomas, and Cucciniello, with costumes by Sue Hobby and Filmscape by Alexei Kaleina.
The upcoming performance represents just one of SquidShow’s many annual contributions to local theatre. The Telluride-born non-profit first jumped on the local art scene in 2007, rolling out one original play per year during its first few seasons in Telluride. The organization took a major leap last year, with seven different plays and 22 total performances, reaching an audience of over 2,000.
“It has become a full year of programming,” Cucciniello says of SquidShow Theatre’s realm, which has collaborated with many local organizations, including the Telluride Historical Museum, Ah Haa School for the Arts, and the Town of Telluride.
“I’m constantly working on bringing new ideas to Telluride. I think that doing original works and creating original collaborations offers something a lot of artists and actors in this town haven’t had – that is, ownership over what they’re doing,” she says.
On SquidShow’s horizon are a number of new creations, including partnerships with Mountainfilm and Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities. But like all non-profits, the group is, in Cucciniello’s words, “desperately hurting for money.”
All of SquidShow’s presentations are free (donations accepted,) and that is something Cucciniello believes is an imperative element of what this small town theatre group does. “Theatre is, to some, a dying art form. But to be able to bring it to the masses [through the group’s “pay what you can” donation system] allows everybody to experience high art, which is really a magical thing.”
She notes that SquidShow’s recent growth has largely come through organic community support, especially now that the organization is receiving minimal grant funding. Big Love was funded partly by TCAH Small Grants, CCAASE, The Dobbins Family Foundation, and numerous other contributors.
To make a reservation to see Big Love, email reservation@squidshow.org; seating is extremely limited. All performances are free, but donations will be happily accepted. The Ah Haa School is located at 300 S. Townsend Ave. For more information, visit squidshow.org or call 708-3934.
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