Cheap Seats Boozy nights and chewing the fat in Bourbon And Laundry and Lone Star

Welcome to Cheap Seats, where every Thursday we’ll talk to folks behind the scenes of the stage events opening around town, in order to give you a flavor of the productions that won’t be found in any of the promo materials.

Laundry And Bourbon, The Bricks Theatre, Mar. 25-27
Lone Star, The Bricks Theatre, Apr. 1-3

Promo pull-quote: “Set in Maynard, Texas in the mid seventies, [James] McLure takes us into the lives of three women (Laundry And Bourbon) and three men (Lone Star) who have nothing better to do than drink, complain, and wax nostalgic. In Laundry And Bourbon, Elizabeth, Hattie, and Amy Lee indulge their penchant for gossip while soothing their broken dreams with bourbon and coke. In Lone Star, beer drinking buddies and brothers Roy and Ray—along with town pain-in-the-ass Cletis, who Roy would sooner kill than see breathe another day—watch the stars get fuzzy from multiple Lone Stars while extolling the virtues of pink Thunderbirds and Grand Canyon exploration.”

What it’s really about: This pair of linked one-acts is set in Texas, but they might as well be anywhere—the two stories are as fluid as they are universal. “That’s really what attracted us to the works,” said Bricks Theatre producer George Gonzalez. “They could be set in New York, or California, or Wisconsin. They're about growing up, getting married, getting along, and getting by.”

Fun fact: Even though the events in Lone Star take place a couple days before those in Laundry And Bourbon, TBT decided to produce them non-sequentially—this after toying with the idea of running the shows on alternating nights. (“It created a technical nightmare.”) “I like the way it plays,” says Gonzalez. “You get these little hints of Lone Star [in Laundry And Bourbon], and then we take you back. The transition of time works nicely, and we’re going to do a reset of Laundry And Bourbon before Lone Star.”

Best reason to try it: TBT was founded with a vision of producing offbeat works in non-traditional venues, and with the two productions being staged at the previously empty Lussier Teen Center on East Washington Avenue, it fits. “It’s definitely not a theater space,” says Gonzalez. “Some of the graffiti is still up, and a little night light will spill in during the shows. We wanted to experiment with the atmosphere because of the nature of the plays—we don’t have tons of props, and the space lends itself to the story. We want people to say, ‘I remember seeing a play in that old building on East Wash.’”