Gray Area Ensemble

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About Gray Area Ensemble

In the twenty years that Adam J. Ansell has been a theater director, he has developed a unique ability to coax original plays from any group of people, from preschoolers to transgender seniors in recovery. Adam’s poetic, painterly experimental performances that resemble plays, draw on his varied artistic background which includes theater, installation, writing, fashion, music, and painting. His passion and long-term vision is to continue to meld disadvantaged communities that have previously been ignored in the arts with the arts community, taking community theater and creating fine art.

Eye of the Puppet: The Case of the Sleepwalking Streetwalker (2009)
At The LAB. 2948 16th St. (& Capp)

Directed by Adam J. Ansell
Production Manager Jenny B
Stage Manager Jason Mecier
Lighting Design Shady Lady Lighting
Set Design Jenny B, Jason Mecier, Steven LeMay
Costumes, Wigs, Make-up: Retrofit, Steven LeMay, Glama-rama, Deena Davenport, Leslie Sheckman, Michelle Lightner, Isaac Frank
LAB House Technician: Daniel Blomquist
House Manager: Jaina Bee
Music and Paintings: Adam J. Ansell


THE CAST:
Lily Marnell as Detective Esther Longdale
Deidre Kylie as Sheila
Seanetta as Pal
Jane Bolig as Patty Chavez-Sakamoto
Margaret Morvay as The Puppet
Keith Kemp as Dusty and The Beast
Psylvia Gurk Tessler as Kaye Sharpe
Sherrie Dobrott as Rose Beaumont
Inga Maehr as Ursula Glock
Jordan Elias as Wolfgang Glock

The day breaks and the town shudders with a murder.
Sheila and Pal, who carry the secrets of the night, have discovered a body somewhere near the rickety pier.
Detective Esther Longdale has arrived to analyze the residue.

With Eye of the Puppet: The Case of the Sleepwalking Streetwalker, Gray Area Ensemble takes dictation from the underground once again. This time it's a murder mystery.

Suspects abound.

Sheila, sleep-deprived and abandoned.
Pal, a sailor, whittling and wandering.
Kaye Sharp, the shrewd DA.
Dusty, her handyman. Seems his meds don't work anymore. Now Kaye has a Beast in her shed.
Rose Beaumont, always ranting nostalgically.
Rose's thieving maid Ursula Glock, has an inappropriate fascination with her doglike son, her baby, her pet. Little does she know that Wolfgang is a mathematical genius.
Patty Chavez-Sakamoto is the key witness. Join her for a constipated Sing-A-Long.
And what about her treacherous Puppet? His hollow instigations are starting to have an affect.

The perpetrator is among us. Everyone is guilty.
Weare caught in a net of meticulous evidence collection, reliving theperpetual discrepancies again and again. But this lull is a delusion. Brace yourself. There's about to be shift.

With its compelling cast and stylish production, Eye of the Puppet: The Caseof the Sleepwalking Streetwalker, asks are we dead or alive? Sleeping or awake?

The script was generated by the ensemble using round-robin exquisite corpselanguage exercises, and then methodically collaged together by the director into a sense that was there all along. This new language challenges conventional ideas of authorship and narrative.

Where were you on the night of the murder?