Starry Night Repertory Theatre presents "Vincent," a play by late-actor Leonard Nimoy. Director Jeannie Woods said it's back by popular demand.
Tickets are available for “Vincent,” which will be performed at Wesley Village Community Center Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. A matinee show will begin Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
"Vincent" was the first piece Starry Night Repertory Theatre performed when the company began in 2010. That performance featured Dan Woods and he’s back on stage for a reprise performance.
“Every time I do it the performance is different in some way. I have a different movement or a new inflection will come into some line that I never thought of before or a different emotional tangent will happen,” Dan Woods said.
“There’s no such thing as consistency when you are producing something like this. But it can still be an incredible touching evening of theater.”
He said it takes courage to get up on stage and talk for 90 minutes. The play centers around Theo Van Gogh, Vincent’s younger brother by four years. It’s set about a week after Vincent’s death.
Leonard Nimoy wrote the show largely by interpreting the brothers' relationship off of the many letters Theo and Vincent exchanged.
Jeannie Woods said the correspondence allows the actor to portray both Theo and Vincent, giving the audience a sense of both individuals. She said it can be a challenge when portraying a famous person.
“It’s like playing Hamlet," Jeannie Woods said. “Everyone has all these images and sounds and everything and they have preconceptions when they come in and so you are redefining that through yourself and that’s always a challenge.”
She said Starry Night is still going strong after five years thanks largely to community support. She said one of the main goals remaining for the company is to find a permanent space to perform. She said that would allow it to plan better knowing the size theater it has to work with.
“One of our challenges because we rent space is we go in the night before we open and whatever we can do for setting up the set and setting up the lights all that we basically take a raw space and turn it into a theater and we evaporate an hour after the last show is done. So we are like a small touring company that way,” Jeannie Woods said.
Jeannie Woods said the ideal permanent home for Starry Night would be a large room that's pillar free, with high ceilings and electricity. It would also need to be a handicap accessible space and have plenty of storage.
