In April, four astronauts will venture around the moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA's path to establishing a long-term presence at the moon for science and exploration. Urbanite Theatre has set its sights beyond the moon — its taking audiences to the red planet.
“We’re going to Mars,” Urbanite founder and director Summer Wallace revealed. “So our next play is a play called 'Spaceman' by Leegrid Stevens, and we meet Molly Jennis, whose husband has died making this journey to Mars before her, so she’s on a quest to be the first person to Mars.”
The entire show takes place in the claustrophobic cockpit of the spaceship transporting Jennis toward Mars. Over the course of the play, the audience becomes privy to the intrepid explorer’s motives, fears and aspirations.
However, there’s more afoot here than mere psychological drama. Urbanite’s sound and light design (compliments of Sound Designer Rew Tippin and Lighting Designer Ethan Vail) injects the audience into the cockpit with Jennis as she hurtles through space toward Earth’s nearest neighbor.
“If you are a non-typical theatergoer, this play will be super-exciting,” said Wallace. “It’s really going to be an immersive experience with sounds and lights, and maybe you, too, will feel like you’re going to Mars.”
While flashing lights, strobes, loud sounds and haze add to the sensual experience, the story works as well as it does because of Leegrid Stevens’ superior writing and actor Terri Weagant’s stellar performance.
This is “Spaceman’s" regional premiere. The play runs January 3 through February 16. Reserve your tickets now as the intimate black box theater seats fewer than 75 patrons, which contributes mightily to the play’s overall allure and the its immersive quality.
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While “Spaceman” explores weighty themes such as loneliness, grief, ambition, religion and capitalism, audiences who have experienced the play off-Broadway and in other regional theaters have uniformly found the production “riveting” and “spellbinding.”
In the words of reviewer Jill Sweeney, “it’s more about the journey than the destination.”
Showtimes are Wednesdays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; and Sundays at 2 p.m.
There are special performances on Thursday, January 2 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, January 4 at 2 p.m.
Thursday performances are part of Urbanite’s “Talkback Thursday” series. Talkbacks are moderated discussions with the cast that take place after the performance, offering audiences an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the show.
Urbanite Theatre is located at 1487 2nd Street, Sarasota, FL 34236. For more information, call 941-321-1397 or visit https://www.urbanitetheatre.com.
NASA views the 10-day Artemis II voyage as preparation for “long-term exploration and discovery before taking the next giant leap to Mars.” The Artemis II crew consists of Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (who is from the Canadian Space Agency).
“The mission will pave the way to way for lunar surface missions, including by the first woman and first person of color, establishing long-term lunar science and exploration capabilities, and inspire the next generation of explorers – The Artemis Generation,” states NASA on its webpage describing the mission.
In “Spaceman,” Molly Jennis’ trip to Mars takes eight months. As a spaceship destined for Mars would not travel in a straight line because of the interplay of gravity and the relative velocities at which Earth and Mars orbit the sun, this journey would actually traverse between 550 and 620 million miles rather than the straight-line distance between the two planets of an average of 158 million miles.
NASA is conducting an experiment (called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE) designed to create technology that will produce breathable oxygen from the Martian atmosphere that is also capable of burning fuel. NASA is simultaneously developing technology that will produce or regenerate drinkable water as well.
Astronauts on a roundtrip mission to Mars will not have the resupply missions to deliver fresh food, so NASA is developing food systems to ensure quality, variety, and nutritional values for such a long-range mission, including plants that can be grown on board the spacecraft.
In the play, Jennis plans to start a colony on Mars. To do that, or even just explore the surface before returning to Earth, she’ll need a reliable power supply that is lightweight and capable of running regardless of its location or the weather on the red planet. NASA is investigating options for power systems, including fission surface power.
In the play, Jennis’ problems are beamed in real time back to Earth, with an increasingly frazzled Molly desperately trying to keep it together as she responds to missives from corporate sponsors about her “likability,” answers inane questions about meeting God on her mission, and dabs on lipstick to be “camera ready” for interviews as she sweats in her sweltering space suit.
Actual human missions to Mars may use lasers to stay in touch with Earth. A laser communications system on Mars could send large amounts of real-time information and data, including high-definition images and video feeds.
Playwright Leegrid Stevens grew up in the Texas hill country. He moved to New York after attending SMU in Dallas and now lives in Brooklyn. His plays have been seen in downtown theaters in New York including HERE Arts Center, Incubator Arts Project, Lark Theatre, Altered Stages and Wild Project Theatre for the New City, among others, both nationally and internationally. Previous plays include “Post-Oedipus” (Playscripts), “Leda’s Swan” (Stage Tribes, Theater-Verlag Desh Publishers), “Sun Stand Thou Still” (Plays and Playwrights 2004), and “The Dudleys!” (Indie Theatre).
Leegrid was the recipient of the Alec Baldwin Playwright Fellowship at the Singer’s Forum, the John Golden Playwriting award at Columbia University, and was named one of the “People of the Year” by NYTheatre.com. Leegrid also recently co-authored a fantasy novel, “Fall,” with Craig Bridger.
As founding Producing Artistic Director of Urbanite Theatre, Summer Wallace has directed the regional premieres of “Scorch,” “Athena,” “Northside Hollow” (Winner 2018 Handy Award for Best Direction of a Play), “Dry Land” and “Sam & Lizzie,” the MODERN WORKS FESTIVAL and the world premiere of “Westminster.”
Wallace’s regional credits include: Asolo Repertory Theatre, Mad Cow Theatre, Dog Day’s Theatre, 1st Stage, Vashon Repertory Theatre, Cumberland County Playhouse, Stage Door Theatre, Lagniappe Theatre, Theatre Lab, Players Theatre, FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, New College of Florida and the list goes on. Wallace is also Producing Director of Two Chicks Production. She is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.
Terri Weagant is an award-winning actor, director, producer and dialect coach based in Brooklyn.
An actor with her pedigree and credentials is needed to pull off a nearly two-hour psychodrama of this caliber and intensity, which vacillates from mind-numbing boredom to sheer terror. In between, Weagant runs the emotional gauntlet from aggravation and agony to restlessness and exhaustion as she spins in and out of control toward madness.
As an actor, Weagant has performed in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Mexico and the Czech Republic. In NYC, she was last seen in “Bo-Nita” at the United Solo Festival on Theatre Row, where she received the Best Storytelling Show Award.
Regionally, she has worked with such companies as Play On Shakespeare, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Urbanite Theatre, Denizen Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Wooden O, Annex Theatre, ACT Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Theater Schmeater, CHAC, Balagan Theatre, Centerstage, and Consolidated Works. She is also a cabaret performer and created Balagan Theatre’s late-night cabaret SCHMORGASBORG. On screen she was seen in the Amazon show “Mozart in the Jungle” and the films “A Jazzman’s Jazzman” and “How to Get Laid.”
Weagant is a producer of the documentary film “Above the Bamboo Room,” which premiered in 2024.
As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts, Brooklyn College and NYU Playwrights Horizons Theatre School.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.