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Small, Intimate Theater Company to Make Its Debut in Old Saybrook

Old Saybrook’s cultural offerings are about to expand: Soon there’ll be a new theater company in town.

Ed Wilhelms, director of Drama Works Theatre Company, which first opened its doors in Stonington in April 2019, has rented space at 323 Boston Post Road. A stage and tiered seating are being installed in the theater company’s new quarters and work will be done to bring it up to fire code, Wilhelms said. The space is at the rear of the building fronted by Olympic Carpet and Tile.

“I stumbled across [the building] on Craigslist,” he explained. “It’s a building that was built originally as flex space—as retail space in front and the rest of it basically is storage. There was a...pool hall. There was just a mishmash of businesses.”

The new business will be producing plays for an audience of 40 at most.

“This is a very small, intimate off-Broadway kind of cool space,” Wilhelms said. “We do different, interesting, kind of meat-on-the-bones theater.”

Although Wilhelms produced several shows over the past eight months in Stonington, where he lives, he decided there were too many theaters in that area and not enough theatergoers to support them. Casting his plays was also difficult for this reason.

“Here, you’re really drawing from pretty much Lyme, Old Lyme, all the way down to New Haven,” he said. “There’s more people that will take advantage of what we offer.”

Wilhelms is very familiar with Saybrook, having lived in the town for 23 years.

Wilhelms founded ACT Studio Theatre, another small resident theater in Stuart, Florida, about eight years ago. It took roughly a year to get it on its feet, he said, after which it began to thrive. Wilhelms decided to return to Connecticut, but his former partner continues to run that theater and shows are selling out, Wilhelms said.

Usually, “[i]t takes about a year and a half, two years to develop an audience,” he explained. “It takes a little while for people to get used to what you’re doing and...to build up an audience.”

DramaWorks will present six shows over the coming season, Wilhelms said, beginning in late March or early April. The first will be Bakersfield Mist by Stephen Sacks, which has a cast of two.

“It’s a story about a woman who buys a painting at a thrift store for a friend of hers for like four bucks,” Wilhelms said. “And she gets it home and she thinks it’s a Jackson Pollock, which of course would be worth” a lot of money.

She calls an art expert in New York, who visits her in her trailer to examine the painting. He determines that it’s a fake. She, of course, disagrees.

“It’s a very funny but very touching story about these two people,” Wilhelms said.

A married couple will play the two roles.

Another play to be offered this season will be Walter Cronkite Is Dead by Joe Calarco. It’s about two women, seemingly with nothing in coWalter Cronkite Is Dead by mmon, who are stuck together in an airport when their flight is grounded due to a storm.

“It’s a great piece of theater,” said Wilhelms. “It’s absolutely a gem of a theater experience.”

The play also has just two characters. DramaWorks specializes in shows with small casts that aren’t on most people’s radars.

“Generally, it’s stuff that’s not generally done,” Wilhelms said. “If you come to us, you’re probably going to see something you’ve never heard of, even. But hopefully it’s just, ‘Wow, that was great.’

“We just did Agnes of God [by John Pielmeier] in Stonington and that’s something that most people haven’t seen on stage for probably 10, 20 years,” he continued. “It’s just not done that often. Great play. It’s a murder mystery [that] takes place in a convent.”

The play was made into a movie starring Jane Fonda in 1985.

“I like small casts because you can work with them,” Wilhelms said.

Drama Works is non-equity, meaning it casts actors who are not members of the Actor’s Equity Association, the union for stage professionals.

“I won’t be able to [pay actors] because of the start-up costs,” he explained. “And people don’t expect it. They do it because they love to do it.”

To get the endeavor off the ground, Wilhelms is funding it himself.

“Funding?” he said. “You’re looking at it.

“We’re a 401(c)3, so we can take donations,” he continued. “They’re tax deductible. And the plan for the first five years is to see if any of the money that I’m laying out could be reimbursed. That’s not a high priority. The high priority is to keep this thing going.”

A trained actor with credits Off-Broadway as well for summer stock and local theaters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York, Wilhelms was also founder of The Actors Company in Barnstable, Massachusetts, according to the Drama Works website.

“I’m very nice with people,” he said. “I’m a former actor. I know the problems...Everybody has to be treated with respect. It’s scary enough for somebody to just be on stage. It’s scary for a lot of people. And I like [to work with] people that have never done it before that want to try it.”

Drama Works is looking for actors, directors, and people with technical experience for future productions. For more information, visit www.dramaworkstheatre.org or the Drama Works Theatre Facebook page.