Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCIANA STECCONI I f there are boundaries in theater, Company One has crossed pretty much all of them. For its production of Tennessee Williams's steamy one-act drama Green Eyes, the Boston theater company seated audiences in a tiny room at the Ames Hotel while a half-dressed couple tussled across the sheets and patrons' laps. To present The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, it built a regulation-size wrestling ring as the platform for the provocative morality play about America's consumerist appetite and racial intoler- ance. And earlier this year, it staged Annie Baker's three-hour drama The Flick about three employees at a Worcester County movie theater—with their existential woes expressed in between long, naturalistic stretches absent of dialogue. Just weeks after Company One's acclaimed production closed, the play earned Baker a Pulitzer Prize for drama. "The last couple of seasons we've adopted an internal motto about staging shows that feel impossible for a company of our size to do," says Company One's artistic director, Shawn LaCount. "Generally speaking, we find a lot of success in rising to the challenge." In residence at the Boston Center for the Arts, the company is celebrating its 15th anniversary season. Its history is rich. Many of its shows are the darling of critics, and the small troupe has racked up an impressive array of awards, including more than 20 Elliot Norton and Independent Reviewers of New England awards, a first-of-its-kind grant by the American Theatre Wing, and spots on a number of year-end top-10 lists. Equally impressive is Company One's ability to survive on a precariously thin budget while staying at the Off-Kilter and Out of Bounds? Thank You. COMPANY ONE LAUNCHES ITS AUDIENCE INTO A NEW THEATRICAL STRATOSPHERE WITH ASTRO BOY AND THE GOD OF COMICS. BY JARED BOWEN Clark Young and Karen O'Connell in Washington DC's Studio Theatre 2ndStage production of Astro Boy and the God of Comics, which Company One presents in Boston this summer. continued on page 62 60 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM HOTTEST TICKET