BWW Interviews: Orlando Actor/Producer Justin L. Baldwin on his Rocky Love Story QUAKE: A LOVE STORY

Orlando residents are no strangers to extreme weather and taking cover, but imagine being trapped in a closet with your Ex! QUAKE brings together Orlando-based actors, Kelly Kilgore and Justin L. Baldwin. BroadwayWorld.com recently sat down with Artistic Director of A.R.T. Co., Justin L. Baldwin to discuss QUAKE: A Love Story and its acceptance into the New York International Fringe Festival this summer.

BWW: QUAKE: A Love Story has many ties to the Orlando theater scene. How did you and Kelly come together for this project?

Justin Baldwin: Kelly and I met during the production of TITUS ANDRONICUS at Orlando Shakespeare Theatre this last season. She playing Lavinia and I played opposite her as Bassianus. QUAKE was accepted to the NYC International Fringe Festival, and shortly thereafter I found myself struggling with getting details and plans together to make this production a reality. I'm relatively new to the Florida theatre scene, having just moved down south, and Kelly suggested that I put the production together in Orlando. She said there was a great deal of local, talented, and dedicated theatre artists in town and that if we could make it happen here that she would be on board. She was right about the local theatre people, now we're part of a team that consists of theatre artists from across the country, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and right here in Orlando where this production of QUAKE is getting legs.

BWW: It's a love story or a re-love story that centers on a traumatic event, but it's also fun. What do you want audiences to take away from seeing this show?

JB: If audience members walk away talking about the power that love and earthquakes both can have, how it can make or break the lives of the people who end up in them, what they would do if they were trapped in a closet with their Ex with no food, water, or hope and what lengths they would be willing to go in order to keep themselves and their relationship alive...Then I will count our production as successful.

BWW: QUAKE was written and originally performed by Tyler Olsen in 2010, where did he get the idea for the show and did he impart any tips for you guys?

JB: In January of 2010, Tyler was fortunate enough to be in his first major earthquake ever in Humboldt County, California. Being from the Midwest, this was a major, life-changing event for him. Then, a couple of days later, the earthquake struck Haiti, and he felt like he had to do something. Having recently come out of a relationship, he started to see some pretty major parallels between being hopelessly in love, and being hopelessly in an earthquake. So, he did what any earth-moved citizen would do. He wrote a play about it.

So that's slightly paraphrased from what Tyler has said before about his creating QUAKE, A love story, and to be completely honest, Tyler has given us a few tips on the producing of the show, as far as music is concerned, but otherwise he handed over the project with a very generous heart and let us explore what the story mean to us. He told me that he was interested to see in what direction someone other than the creator takes it, he's let us run with it, and we're very grateful that he has given us that kind of freedom of exploration, pretty awesome as artists and actors.

BWW: What makes QUAKE unique?

JB: For me, it's what you look for when you go to the theatre. There's drama, there's lots of comedy, and the stakes are as high as they come because they are in a life or death situation, but...they cannot leave. The entire play takes place inside their utility closet! Surrounded by all the junk you always keep but never use... closed in and stuck with your recently divorced spouse in a 4x8 foot closet? Should make for a "unique" experience right?

BWW: QUAKE takes place in a closet. With most New York apartments being the size of a standard closet, how do you think playing in New York will be different?

JB: My hope is that it hits home in the best way possible. I hope we hear the NYC audience members say "Oh it might not have been an earthquake... but I have been there..."

BWW: QUAKE has been in a bunch of Fringe festivals around the US and now accepted into New York City's Fringe Festival this year. Are you excited? What do you think will be the best part about performing in NYC?

JB: We couldn't be more excited! I'm really honored to be taking QUAKE to the NYC international Fringe. You're absolutely right, it's a story that has been slowly making its way around the country, and now we have the opportunity to take this production and tell this story in the epicenter of arts and culture. We are beyond excited to be able to represent Florida as part of an international festival, to tell this amazing story, and to be able to go and see what other artists from around the world are doing and bring those experiences back with us. Plus the Pizza!

BWW: What is it about Fringe Festivals that attracts these sorts of performances and how is it different than traditional theater?

JB: I think Fringe Festivals open the door for the weird, the new, the absurd, the edgy works of theatre that don't always sell all the tickets to a big theatre now a days. Theatre companies have to be smart to stay in business and that doesn't always involve taking a risk on "some weird play no one in Florida has heard about, and its two people in a closet." So Fringe Festivals attract the weird, edgy, and intimate performances and allow theatre and performance artists to produce work that they want to produce, instead of always having to produce shows that they are almost required to, in order to stay afloat.

Kelly was a part of the Orlando Fringe Festival this last year performing in All Saints All Souls , and I have had productions with the Cincinnati Fringe Festival three different times in '08,'09, and in '12 and there is an incredible sense of artistic community and energy when you involve yourself in one of these festivals. We're all artists that are in some way helping each other, helping get each other's story to the next level, to the next stage, helping get it out into the Universe.

I hope people who read this article will look up the fringe festival closest to them, because as much as the artists love it, to be completely honest in three years of Fringing in Cincinnati... the people who really get the most jazzed about it, connect to it, love it, and get the most vocal when FRINGE IS HERE! They aren't the "theatre people", they're the audience members! And who wouldn't want to be a part of that?

BWW: Sounds like it is going to be a great time. Best of luck to you and Kelly!

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Interested in helping QUAKE, A Love Story get from Orlando to New York City? Click here to learn more about the project and ways you can help make this production possible! To learn more about A.R.T. Co. visit https://www.facebook.com/AintRealTheatreCo.

Photo Credit: Justin Baldwin

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