Tiny theater goes dark with “Mimesophobia”

New company will employ various media in new production

By Eric Bartels

The Portland Tribune, Aug 8, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Courtesy of Sand and Glass Productions

In "Mimesophobia," two screenwriters struggle over a story of murder and suicide

Sand and Glass Productions, the newly formed theater company that unveils Carlos Murillo’s “Mimesophobia” this weekend, is acting on one man’s passion.

Cofounder Ben Plont says he caught local stage director Kristan Seemel in the midst of a lament one night. Seemel had gotten a grant to produce the dark drama but was about to go off to graduate school.

“He said ‘I’m going to have to give the grant back because I’m not gonna be able to do it,’” says Plont. “His passion for the play was obvious and that’s what drew my attention to it. I didn’t care what the play was about. All I needed to know was that Kristan loved the script.”

Sand and Glass, which has one program of one-act plays on its resume, signed on to produce the work, about two screenwriters struggling over a story of murder and suicide. Seemel will direct in his last act before starting school at Brown University in Rhode Island this fall.

Plont likens the emotional pitch of the play to Theatre Vertigo’s “The Long Christmas Ride Home,” a comedy/drama that, indelibly, employed puppets in a searing portrayal of a fatally dysfunctional family.

Vertigo’s Gary Norman, who starred in that play, returns to narrate “Mimesophobia,” along with Paige Jones. Tom Moorman and J.R. Wickman star as the screenwriters and Drammy winner Brittany Burch plays a writer who's doing a graduate thesis on people who’ve died doing magic tricks.

“Brittany is the link between the events and writers,” Plont says.

The tiny Shoe Box Theatre, in Southeast Portland, will allow Sand and Glass to experiment heavily with different media, including video and what he calls “a wall of sound.”

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