BWW Previews: Think Tank Theatre Debuts With A TON OF BRICKS

Sometimes endings contain the seeds of new beginnings.

In its 10th season, Louisville's Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble was having trouble. Not because of internal issues - rather, each of the six members had developed such full personal and professional calendars that they couldn't get together to create the kind of from-scratch artistic showcases for which they had become beloved.

So, they made a decision: after a pair of two-person shows in late 2013, they would take a final bow with a well-received revival of their Old West-style take on "As You Like It" as one of Kentucky Shakespeare's 2014 summer season Community Partners.

But for Kyle Ware and Tony Dingman, one of the group's final meetings to bring the company to a sensible end took an unexpected turn.

"Tony and I just continued to sort of riff on things," Ware said. "We kept talking about, 'Well, you know what we could have done...' or 'You know what we always wanted to do, but didn't do...' We did that for hours. And we kind of got to a point where we looked at each other and said, 'Well, I guess we kind of have to do that.'"

The results of that decision make their debut this weekend as Ware and Dingman's Think Thank Theatre presents its first production, "A Ton of Bricks," at the Slant Culture Theatre Festival.

Think Tank will continue in the Le Petomane tradition of creating original works, with a major twist: where Le Petomane worked insularly with its exclusive membership, Ware and Dingman went out to the wider community.

"One of the big differences is this idea of collaboration," Ware said. "Le Petomane was six people or some combination thereof - whomever was available. This is 'Let's open this up and see who wants to join us on the playground.'"

Ware sees the process as opening up Think Tank to broad artistic possibilities.

"We're looking at things from multiple genres," he said. "Are there bands that want to come in and play with us? We had that offer with Le Petomane a bunch. Are there visual artists that would make for an interesting theatrical collaboration? Are there photographers? Dancers? You name it. What could we do if we opened it up that way?"

The company has made its biggest collaborative thrust in gathering the subject matter for "A Ton of Bricks." Think Tank has crafted a lyrical, multidimensional mosaic of interweaving stories based on dozens of interviews on a universal topic: love.

"If we want to really spur on this idea of collaboration, then the ultimate collaboration would be to crowd-source the script," Ware said. "We started conducting interviews, all on the topic of love. We thought that would be fertile ground for everybody to discuss and for us to work with. We found that to be the case: as soon as we started doing interviews, people were ready to talk, and about the most intimate details in a lot of cases. It surprised us at first, and pleasantly so, because that makes for decent drama if you're going to create something compelling."

The efficacy - and excitement - of that approach quickly made itself known.

"We were amazed (by) our very first interview, right out of the gate," Ware said. "Megan and I walked down Fourth Street, and our very first interview gave us some of the most beautiful stuff. Ten minutes and we were both sort of floored. We said 'I don't know how we even top this guy,' and we just continued to do that again and again again. Very few people told us no, and even the ones who said they wouldn't talk to us, ended up talking to us. There were a couple people who said '"No, I don't have anything to say. I'm tired. I just got off work.' We said 'Okay.' '...Well, do you know some place to eat?', 'Yeah, we'll send you some place to eat.' And by the time we finished giving them directions to some place to eat, they've told us their love story."

The company aimed to take the "documentary theater" style made famous by groups like New York's The Civilians and process the material into a tapestry told through a multitude of artistic disciplines its members brought to the table. "A Ton of Bricks" will tell many stories many different ways, interweaving tales of first love, love lost, love of family, love of pets, and more.

"By virtue of what it is, there are scenes that take place in it, but there is also a conversation," Ware said. "Hopefully, what we have done is interwoven the conversation in such a way that they are speaking to each other, even if not directly."

Ware said the interviews themselves lent a certain structure to the challenge of telling the interviewees' stories.

"We would start with something a little bit softer - do you remember your first love? Your first kiss? - and from there, we would start to work into what love really means to somebody. 'Have you ever really been in love? Have you experienced the loss of love?,' and these types of things that become a little more introspective, and a bit more reflective. From there, just the same way the dramatic structure works, we have our introduction, our conflict, and I don't want to say we solve it, but we have people who did reveal some sort of summation of sorts - that after I've been through all of this, this is where I feel like I've landed."

Think Tank's ensemble of Ware, Dingman and co-collaborators Megan Massie and Mera Kathryn Corlett will bring the conversation to the stage using their many different talents.

"We wanted to make sure we had people that could do more than one thing," Ware said. "In our tradition, there's probably going to be a song that pops up somewhere. There's probably going to be dance. Really, that comes from 'Let's see what you have in your toolbox.' And we both knew that they had a lot of tools."

With the intensity of the creative process for "A Ton of Bricks" - and with the same busy schedule ahead - Ware is not voicing anything definitive about Think Tank Theatre's next steps. But with a long history of making art out of what is presented, he sees a lot of possibilities ahead.

"We're focusing on what's at hand at the moment, because these things tend to be all-consuming. We'll get on the other side of this and evaluate. This is a show that I feel like we could workshop a long, long time and expand and do all kinds of things with. I think we get to the other side of this and then we see what to do - and in the spirit of the company, see who wants to play."

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