Urbanite hopes to snatch theatergoers with spooky world premiere “OAK”

With each new play he writes, Terry Guest sets a challenge for himself or lessons that he needs to learn before he starts to construct a story.

“I mean the word ‘construct’,” he says. “I take a lot of time thinking about structure, how to best build a container than can hold a story that teaches that lesson or asks that question,” he said.

Guest says that’s certainly true of his newest play “OAK,” which has its world premiere May 31 at Urbanite Theatre, which initially commissioned the play through its 2020 Charles Rowan Beye New Play Commission.

Urbanite will be the first of three theaters that will premiere the play through the National New Play Network, which works to give new plays and playwrights by assuring multiple productions. The play also will be produced by the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre in Indianapolis and the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo.

Guest, who is also a Hermitage Artist Retreat fellow, will be familiar to Urbanite audiences who made a hit of his earlier play “At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen” in 2021.

Director Mikael Burke describes “OAK” as “a spooky little play, a ghost story set in a small town in Georgia, where historically there had been a series of disappearances of children, teenagers specifically.” The audience follows two siblings (16-year-old Pickle and her 9-year-old brother, Big Man), their overworked mother, Peaches, and their 15-year-old cousin Suga.

Guest said the play was inspired by family history and local folklore and his desire to “honor my mother and her sacrifice. I’m the eldest and I knew I wanted to honor our relationship in some way, and playwriting happens to be the way I honor everything or question everything,” he said.

When he was growing up, he would watch old horror movies with his mother. “I always had an interest in folklore and scary stories and local legends. This is a conglomeration of Southern ghost stories and monster stories that I’ve heard over the years.”

Parents and kids in the play’s fictional town know the basic rules of what they can and can’t do to stay safe, “when it’s ok to play outside and when it’s not. But like most kids, if you see a rule, you have a hard time following it, but it’s there for a reason,” Burke said.

Trezure B. Coles, who graduated last month from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory and had a prominent role in the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s production of “Intimate Apparel” this season, plays Pickle, whom she describes as “the bad ass daughter.” She is joined by William Rose II as Big Man and Jaeda LaVonne as Suga. Both are Chicago-based actors making their Sarasota debuts. DeAnna Wright, a faculty member at the Asolo Conservatory who directed this season’s production of “Clyde’s,” plays the hard-working mother, Peaches.

“She’s someone trying to do the best she can with the circumstances they’re in,” Wright said. “That means working as much as possible to provide, so a lot of the responsibility lands on the eldest child. This is like a tiny tribe and when the head of the tribe is at work, the next in line fills in and that’s Pickle, to take care of business around the house and take care of the youngest.”

Rose said he easily relates to Big Man because he’s also the youngest in his own family and the only boy.

The actors said they are enjoying allowing their inner child to come out for their roles.

“I can pull from my own childlike nature, especially when the pandemic happened,” Rose said. “I didn’t descend back into childhood, but I embraced it a bit more, playing with Legos, finding little joys I had as a child and understanding them as a grownup.”

Wright also plays First Lady Temple, whom she describes as “someone who historically may or may not have come in contact with this monster.” From there, her “focus is vigilance towards protecting the town from said creature.”

Wright said she’s the “lady at the edge of the town” that nobody wants to mess with. “There are many myths and ways of looking at First Lady Temple, but all of them say that I am scary.”

Guest said he appreciates the opportunity to create a play in which Black actors, directors and writers “get to tell stories that are fun, mysterious and playful.” He appreciated the success of “At the Wake of a Dead Queen” at Urbanite because it showed that “audiences actually are excited about new things and that when new work is put in front of them, funny and with some razzle dazzle, they will actually be open to exploring it.”

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He and Burke have worked together on several projects and met during the Chicago production of “At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen.”

“We worked together so well,” Burke said. “We play theater in very similar ways, albeit Terry’s a writer and actor and I’m a director. The possibilities that we imagine in the scope of the theater are very Venn diagram, very similar. Terry writes ideas that I love manifesting.”

Guest will have time after the Urbanite production to assess what worked and didn’t and make changes before the next two stagings.

“I will continue to work on the script, clarify the story and the character through these three productions and a production in Chicago after the rolling world premieres. By the time those are done, I hope I can push the play out into the world.”

‘OAK’

By Terry Guest. Directed by Mikael Burke. May 31-June 30, Urbanite Theatre, 1487 Second St., Sarasota. Tickets are $31 for preview, $42, $28 for those under 40 and $5 for students. 941-321-1397; urbanitetheatre.com

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Urbanite Theatre presents world premiere of spooky play “OAK”