Gallery invites 3 temporary ‘tenants’

Cement buckets, trash lids and a fire extinguisher are just some of the stage props for the plays featured in the “Trespass,” series at Future Tenant’s art space. “Trespass”

Future Tenant Performing Artists Residency

819 Penn Ave.

Now through March 5

$5 at the door(412) 325-7037

www.futuretenant.org

Cement buckets, trash lids and a fire extinguisher are just some of the stage props for the plays featured in the “Trespass,” series at Future Tenant’s art space.

Every year three performance artists are given the opportunity to take a week in the space to put on a production. This year’s production features an eclectic group of plays with topics ranging from everyday trash to conflict in Yugoslavia. The gallery has put on the “Trespass” series for three years.

Erin Gough, facilities manager for Future Tenant, said the shows for the “Trespass” series are decided through an application and audition process. She said that this year there were nearly 30 applicants, the most applications Future Tenant has ever received. The applications came from local theater companies as well as individuals hoping to be featured. Gough said that originality as well as performance skill were what ultimately decided the three chosen plays.

The pieces in this years series are: In the Basement Theatre Company’s “Within Distance,” No Name Players’ “The Archipelago” and Poof’s “Stuff.”

“Within Distance” debuted this past weekend. In the Basement Theatre Company consists of Carnegie Mellon students Alex Weston, Adrian Enscoe, Jessie Shelton, Katya Stepanov, Jesse Carey-Beaver, Asia Gagnon and Sarah Gillam.

Their play is a retelling of creation stories from across cultural boundaries. The characters, XX and XY, representing woman and man respectively., encounter several elements of life that act as dividers.

“The characters are named XX and XY so as to remove any religious connotation. We wanted to personify the forces that have separated us as people,” Weston said.

The play features a set constructed almost completely out of household items: buckets, trash lids and a fire extinguisher make up the drum set on stage.

“We basically went to the hardware store and banged on things until we found what sounded good,” Weston said.

Enscoe, one of the actors, said the group chose to go with a makeshift set to show beauty in simplicity.

“We wanted to say, ‘This is us’ — to bring about a sort of childlike imagination in our work,” Enscoe said, explaining that the group wanted to make it seem as though the set might have been created by children.

The next show in the series, which will be presented today through Friday at 8 p.m., is “The Archipelago: A Balkan Passage.”

The show is based on the nonfiction book by Pitt alumnus and author Robert Isenberg. Isenberg performs in the one-man play, telling the story of his year-long trip through the former Yugoslavia to visit an old high school friend. It relates stories from Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia.

The piece is a recounting of stories featured in Isenberg’s book of the same title. His one-man show is presented by Pittsburgh’s performance group  The No Name Players in conjunction with the publishers of the book, Autumn House Press.

Isenberg said that there are plenty of similarities between his one-man approach and that of Michael Phillip Edwards’ in the award-winning “runt,” a show about a man’s relationship with his father, which was recently featured at Pittsburgh’s Cultural Trust. Isenberg said that Edwards’ introspective look into his childhood and himself is a good example of what he wanted to accomplish in his piece.

Isenberg said his work is inspired by the playwright Spalding Gray, whose one-man monologues garnered him fame.

“A lot is still happening [in Yugoslavia], the media doesn’t really cover that region as much anymore,” Isenberg said.

The final work in the series is Poof’s “Stuff,” to be shown March 4-5 at 9 p.m.

A series of short documentary films by Annie Leonard on the website storyofstuff.com inspired the Pittsburgh performance artist group Poof’s production. In the shorts, Leonard tracked how much trash and waste is created in everyday life.

“Stuff” features a set comprised entirely of ostensible junk similar to that of “Within Distance.” Director Riva Strauss, a Point Park student, said she wanted to depict the amount of waste that is transferred in the world, but at the same time not spew facts at the audience.

“When people hear facts, they tend to not incorporate them in their lives; Art has that power to actually impact,” Strauss said.

“Stuff” also hopes to pull the audience in by abandoning conventional seating in favor of an art gallery setting with trash strewn about the room and interactive components. Viewers, for example, will participate in a sing-along..