Photo provided by Kelly Jean Passage Morden Eight of the cast members of Barebones Theatre Productions’ “8x8@8: eight plays by eight playwrights at eight o’clock” have fun as they pose in a figure 8. The show will be featured at the Ringwald Theatre in Ferndale on August 6, 7 and 8.

Ringwald Theatre
to host ‘8x8@8’

By Jeremy Selweski
C & G Staff Writer

FERNDALE — Relationships at any level are rarely easy to navigate without encountering a fair share of bumps in the road, and a new series of plays seeks to tackle such complexities in a way that is comedic and profound.

At 8 p.m. on August 6, 7 and 8, the Ringwald Theatre in Ferndale will play host to an evening of short plays, “8x8@8: eight plays by eight playwrights at eight o’clock.” Featuring the work of eight southeast Michigan playwrights, the stories focus on the interactions between spouses, exes, friends, neighbors and even complete strangers. Ten actors from local theater troupe Barebones Theatre Productions make up the cast of “8x8@8.”

In each piece, the zany yet empathetic characters embark on individual journeys of discovery for a collection of comic, dramatic and serio-comic scenes that explore the obstacles people encounter in their search for love and fulfillment.

“The common thread between these plays is that they’re all about relationships,” said Kelly Jean Passage Morden of Ferndale, one of the members of the cast and a special education teacher at Seaholm High School in Birmingham. “They look at the tensions or absurd situations that occur in real-life relationships, whether they’re well-established or brand- new. There’s a full range of stories.”

At 10 minutes or less, each play is quite short, but that’s just the way Barebones founder John Rutherford intended it to be in order to fit such a wide variety of material into what he calls “a salad bar of theater.”

“Awhile back, I discovered the 10-minute play genre and immediately loved it,” said Rutherford, who also works as theater director at Groves High School in Beverly Hills. “With just two or three characters in a short fiction story, things have to develop much quicker, but it allows for a lot more play between the actors.”

Rutherford will also be performing as a member of the cast — which consists largely of former students of his — as well as showcasing his own play, “The Tide That Binds.”

“Normally, I just direct and produce, but I wanted to bite the bullet and get back up on stage,” he said. “I thought it would be fun to have one of my plays performed because it had been sitting on a shelf for 12 years. And I hadn’t acted in about three years. … It’s a lot of work, but I’m up to the challenge.”

As Passage Morden pointed out, the focus of “8x8@8” is on local playwrights who are not widely known. “With a few exceptions, these are kind of obscure playwrights,” she said. “These are just people who live around here and want to showcase their work.”

Melissa Johnson Smith, theater director at Ferndale High School, will join the cast as part of David McGregor’s “Revelation” and Barbara Schmitt’s “Queen for a Day.” As someone who spends most of her time directing, Johnson Smith said it was “a great challenge” to get back to performing for the first time in nearly 10 years.

She’s just grateful that she and other theater aficionados have the opportunity to perform. “I think it’s great that there are theater companies out there looking to foster the talent of a lot of new artists,” she said. “There’s definitely an audience out there for material like this — stuff that’s outside of the mainstream.”

Maggie Patton of Ferndale will have her play, “Housewife With an Attitude,” performed onstage as part of “8x8@8.” She describes the piece as a “rapsical” about a housewife who hires a rapper to help her communicate with her husband to get him to clean the house.

“It’s a crazy premise,” Patton admitted, “but it’s a really really fun script. I’m really interested to see what (the actors) do with it, because it lends itself to a lot of creativity.”

And Patton certainly did her homework on the topic. “I did a lot of research into the art form of rapping and then just took a crack at it,” she said. “I wanted to explore the language (of rapping) because I like playing around with words.”

Passage Morden said she is thrilled to have a venue like the Ringwald in town to showcase these kinds of alternative theater productions. “They’ve been taking on some really bold, fantastic plays,” she said.

Rutherford agrees, pointing out that he also loves the layout of the theater itself. “I thought it was a brilliant choice to open a cutting-edge, independent theater in Ferndale,” he said. “It’s a great venue for local talent. I love the space, and I love the intimacy of it. There’s no pomp and circumstance.”

It’s a philosophy that fits in perfectly with Rutherford’s goals when he first established Barebones seven years ago as an outlet for former students to perform some edgier material.

“I wanted to focus on acting and literature rather than production elements,” he said. “I was hoping to put the spotlight on what the words are and how the actors can interpret them. It was a way of stripping away all the nonessential things and leaving only the essentials: the actor and the playwright.”

Tickets for “8x8@8” can be reserved at a cost of $15 ($10 for students) by calling (586) 215-7538 or e-mailing btptix@ gmail.com. Tickets are also available at the door on the night of each show. For more information on Barebones Theatre Productions, visit www.barebonestheatre. org.

The Ringwald Theatre is located at 22742 Woodward Ave. in Ferndale.