'Of Men and Cars' to drive in at MCT
Oct. 20—If you want to have an intimate or meaningful conversation with a man, put him in a car.
In the new play at Midland Community Theatre titled "Of Men and Cars," the show chronicles the life of a man and his World War II veteran father.
As a child, the lead character Jim thought his father was amazing but as he grew up, he realized he was not as amazing as he thought.
In learning the human and fallible parts of his father, Jim also finds the very human and fallible parts in himself.
The new show will open at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Midland Community Theatre with eight total shows.
All performances will take place at the Mabee Theatre II at Midland Community Theatre.
The play was written by Jim Geoghan.
The show, which is a father-son relationship viewed through the window of the family car was the winner of FutureFest back in 2018 which is an annual festival of new plays presented by the Dayton Playhouse in Dayton, Ohio.
Directing this play at MCT is Ben Spencer.
"This group has been an amazing group of people," Spencer said of his cast. "They've jumped head long into realizing some characters that are important to Jim's life. It's an autobiography in such that Jim is remembering memories and there's nostalgia about it. One of the things that I wanted my actors to do is understand that memories are a mixture of realism and fantasy. The actors have done an amazing job of creating that concoction."
Playing the role of Jim is MCT regular Daniel Collins.
"Jim is the narrator and the man that you're seeing all the memories through," Collins said. "He is the vehicle for which this play exists as you watch his relationship with his dad evolve."
Collins talked about what he likes about playing Jim.
"He knows who he is and that is helped and hindered by the other relationships with his dad," Collins said. "You see him become his own man."
Collins has done around 50 shows at MCT.
Playing the role of the father is David Kloesel.
The rest of the cast includes Jeri Morgan, Brent Mealer, Brandon Thomason, Sarah January, Elijah Rivera and Melanie Collins.
For January, this will be her second time performing on stage at MCT.
"My favorite part about doing this production is being with friends," January said. "Ben, Daniel and I are longtime friends from the theater. I started backstage and now they dragged me onstage."
January is part of the ensemble and plays three different characters including the girl next door, a college girl and an LA girl.
"It's got a very bipoloar feeling (playing three different characters) because I'm going from a very feminine four year old to a very boisterous and outspoken young woman in LA," January said. "It's interesting because you don't have much information on each character. You have to build something out of nothing."
January was also involved in "Trailer Park Musical" back in 2019 at MCT.
"I think my favorite part is getting to know all the characters and getting to know all the people that play them," January said of the play. "This is a hard working cast that really likes the craft of theater and exploring human emotion."
One of the challenging aspects about the play, according to Spencer, is that it's a multi-location play.
"Because it's all existing in a head space, the actors have to create those locations and we as a technical crew have to create those locations too so it means that they have to behave as if they are in the middle of February and light it as if it's in the middle of February and make sounds as if it's in the middle of February so that we don't create a used car lot and then move immediately to a baseball field," Spencer said.
The cast and crew have been busy rehearsing for about seven weeks now and are eager to finally perform in front of an audience.
"It's always the next organic step that you do in which you rehearse the show and organically leads to the culmination of producing it," Spencer said. "Right now, the actors are ready for an audience. They need that. They crave that energy in which the symbiotic relationship between art and consumer builds and they finally get to enjoy what it's like to produce this for the audience in which it was written."
The show will wrap up with a 7:30 p.m. performance on Nov. 12.
If you go
— What: "Of Men and Cars."
— When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22, 2:30 p.m. Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 28, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12.
— Where: Midland Community Theatre (Mabee Theatre II).
— Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/4bzhv6s6
