Irwin theater company reprises shows from founding years in 10th season

Rob Jessup is taking a step back in time, reprising his role as director for the first show Split Stage Productions performed in its inaugural season 11 years ago.

Split Stage Productions spawned out of a conversation between Jessup and his friend Nate Newell about the lack of risqué or avant-garde shows performed by Westmoreland County theater companies.

“Why don’t theater companies in this area do shows like ‘Rent’ or ‘Avenue Q’ or ‘Hair’?” Jessup asked Newell.

The duo launched the company in 2013, dedicating themselves to assembling a crew of actors to perform unique and unusual shows. Its first official season, featuring three shows, came the following year.

Split Stage is kicking off its 10th season Friday, a milestone the theater company is marking by revisiting three of the shows from its founding years. The first, slated for the next two weekends, is “Avenue Q” — the 2004 Tony Award winning story of a recent college graduate’s journey toward self-discovery in New York City.

“We’ve kind of looked back on the past 10 seasons,” Jessup said, “and looked at shows that we absolutely loved but maybe happened early on … so (people) didn’t come out and see it.”

The theater company used to draw about 600 to 700 people in total during two weeks of performances, Jessup said. Now, 200 to 300 people fill the seats of the Lamp Theatre on any given performance night.

“This was one show that even when we did it back then,” he said, “it’s just hilarious.”

‘Avenue Q’ was ‘easy one to pick’ for 10th season

Six of the show’s nine actors portray one or more characters through puppets. But Jessup warns audiences that the performance, riddled with crude humor, is no “Sesame Street.” He likens it to the animated sitcom “South Park.”

“I think everyone right now in the current world climate that we live in could use 2.5 hours to not think about anything except the absurdity of puppets dropping f-bombs and things like that,” Jessup said.

That’s exactly the kind of show actor Michael Stoddard wants to be a part of — even if it means traveling to Western Pennsylvania from his home in New Hampshire to reprise his 2014 “Avenue Q” performance.

Family-friendly shows are often the most feasible options for theater companies, Stoddard said. To offset expensive royalty fees, local companies pick performances that welcome the broadest audiences — and, theoretically, the most ticket sales.

“But as an actor,” Stoddard said, “you don’t want to just do ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ It’s a great show, and you should do ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ but you want to be able to do shows that maybe push the envelope.”

Despite the lack of dance numbers in “Avenue Q,” Stoddard said there is no less choreography than a typical musical, particularly because the actors holding the puppets are completely visible to the audience.

“You see me, I carry the puppet around and the audience, through their peripheral vision, will transfer my expression onto the puppet,” Stoddard said. “So if I open my mouth wide and I’m laughing, it looks like the puppet’s laughing.”

Split Stage reflects on 12 years in business

When the covid-19 pandemic pushed people into lockdown and closed theater doors nationwide, Jessup didn’t know if Split Stage Productions would continue.

“We were like ‘What do we do here? Do we wrap this thing up or what?’ ” he said.

But Jessup and Newell stuck with it, maintaining full-time jobs and families along the way.

“They do this for the actors and for the community,” Stoddard observed. “It’s the whole reason their company exists.”

In Jessup’s eye, Split Stage helped open the door for other local theater companies to embrace atypical, outside-the-box shows.

“I don’t think that we need to take credit for anything,” he said, “but I think we just showed other companies in the area that what they may have been hesitant to do was going to be embraced.

“We didn’t create the lane. We didn’t invent it. We just said, ‘Hey, it’s empty right now. Let’s be the only car in it.’ ”

Split Stage will perform two additional shows from its founding years in October and February. They will be announced on splitstage.com.

“Avenue Q” will be performed at 8 p.m. June 6-7 and June 12-14 at the Lamp Theatre, 222 Main St., Irwin. Tickets are available at lamptheatre.org.