Triumph Of Love Is Coming to Wheatridge Theatre Company
February is quickly approaching, and with the love in the air, Wheatridge Theatre Company will perform The Triumph Of Love. It is showing from February 2 to 18 on the weekends. I had the privilege of speaking to Maru Garcia (she/her), Alex Romberg (she/her), and Arden Phanes (they/them), three creatives who have worked to bring a wonderful production to the stage again.
Could you tell me a little bit about the Wheatridge Theatre Company?
Maru: We started in 2018, and we started renting different spaces in different locations. We did shows at a brewery and a restaurant, a little theater, and then, during the pandemic, we did some drive-through theaters. We had three projects in which there was drive-through theater, so everyone was safe. It was a nice experience. In November of last year, we opened the new space, so now we have a permanent house. We try to be a little bit original in our choice of plays and do some plays that other theater companies have not done in the past five years. We are very inclusive, so it’s a very comfortable environment.
Could you tell me a little bit about each of you and what your role in the company is?
Maru: I am the executive producer. I was the little Mexican lady that started with this crazy idea. This is my third company. I guided one in Mexico and then I guided one in Westminster from 2009 to 2012. And then I rested for a while, because you can imagine how much work that is, and around 2018, I’m like, “I think it’s time again.” I started this company, gathered my board of directors, and we started inviting people to collaborate with us. So I do everything from meeting with the board of directors, supporting the actors, doing the bank statements, box office, sweeping, directing, acting, set design, prop design, costumes, getting the supplies for the bathrooms—Whatever is needed, I’m there.
Alex: I’ve worked with Wheat Ridge Theatre Company twice before as a sound designer, and I am now fulfilling the role of director on this project. So I analyze the script and figure out the vision for how we want to tell our story, cast the actors, look out for the well-being of said actors, make sure we’re all on the same page as collaborators and as a team, get all of the creative crew together and see how we allow them to let their artistic visions blossom within the overall artistic vision of the show. And, again, you know it goes towards storytelling always. How are we going to tell stories with the props? How are we going to tell stories with the costumes? How are we going to tell a story with the lighting?
Arden: I worked on Ideation in the past, and I was stage manager for that. I’m stage managing this show as well. I took a hiatus from theater during the pandemic. I graduated in 2018 with my Bachelor’s in the Arts, and I needed that hiatus to kind of recenter and work on myself, my personal and mental health at that time. So finding Wheatridge was like kind of finding the needle in the haystack.
When I was looking at your website, I saw that the casting list for the characters had gender presenting instead of specific genders. Was that a practice that started back in 2018?
Maru: It’s a practice that started in 2018 when we created the company, with the idea of being as inclusive as possible, as long as we can accommodate needs. So, for example, when looking at a space to have a company, we were really careful to choose a space that would be accessible to wheelchairs, because that way we can accommodate actors that are in a wheelchair. We’re inclusive and have different perspectives. I believe that the more differences in perspectives that we can share, the better it will be for us as an artistic community.
So could you give me a bridge summary of the story of Triumph Of Love?
Alex: A princess falls in love with a prince who, unbeknownst to her, is slated to assassinate her that day, and, in order to win his heart, she has to come up with all of these disguises and schemes. She ends up seducing his uncle and his aunt and has to figure out a way to untangle the whole mess, win her prince, and not get herself assassinated. The plot is from an 18th century French playwright who was sort of a contemporary of Molière and his name was Pierre de Marivaux, and he did a lot of plays that I don’t know how they got public, honestly. The plot comes from that original play and, same thing: princess falls in love with the prince, has to disguise herself as a man, and ends up seducing all these extra people of different genders. So it did get shut down relatively quickly in the French court because they were like, oh, this is a little weird.
Arden: It takes place in ancient Greece, specifically in Sparta, and Princess Leonid is the princess of Sparta. She pretty much, as far as the show tells us, rules it by herself. She sees this guy named Dejis, and it’s like love at first sight. You know, she sees him, and she’s like, “That’s my man.” The only problem is that he lives and studies in a secret garden where only men are allowed, except for one woman, his aunt, and they dedicate their life to study and books and reason. In order to meet him, of course, Leonid dresses up as a man to enter the garden and get to talk to him. We’re playing a lot with gender and sexuality in this show by, you know, having, like, gender-blind casting, as well as just like really playing up the aspects of the show that are inherently queer
On your website, your mission statement says that you’re committed to producing theater in alternative spaces. Could you expand on like what exactly that means?
Maru: Of course we have our main house; however, we expand to different places. So, for example, we have done drive-through theater. I’m going as part of the theater company to direct a play in New Jersey that takes place in all the rooms of a space, so people travel from space to space. We are planning to have, maybe at some point, a more expensive play called Merlin that is done in the park with different stages. I am trying because I’m passionate about alternative spaces, but the board is in agreement with me to do Alice in Wonderland as a drive-through theater. So we are always looking to find ways of taking theater outside of the confines of the space and that has been since I started doing theater. We do theater but find an alternative, not only people going to the same space. So we love doing theater at a restaurant or a park or a drive-through or in the whole building sometimes.
With casting, was there anything that you looked for specifically?
Alex: I did want to just have that baseline of skill and luckily that was not an issue. I think each and every person that auditioned had the chops without question, and after that. I always want to have, like, a clear idea but not a decision in auditions about, okay, who is this person, what are like three qualities that describe them, what do they want the most in life and what is their character arc. That helps guide me on who I see in auditions is going to fulfill that best.
Representation is also taken into consideration and the idea of figuring out, okay, well, focusing all those other features in mind, how is the story going to change if a non-binary person plays this character, or if it was supposed to be a man but we’re casting a fem person, or things along those lines. But overall it’s like is the person a good performer in the sense that they have the talent and they have the collaborative and like scheduling, availability, skills to be able to commit and make it a good collaborative experience? And then, yeah, what does the audience get to see in the different physicalities, identity, intersectionality of that actor to really help tell the story of that person that is being portrayed on stage.
Arden: I think it really depends on the character and the role that you’re trying to fill, because, I mean, appearance can always change quite a bit, you know. If someone needs to dye their hair, you can say, hey, will you dye your hair for the role? And if not, there’s wigs. There’s lots of things you can do to play with appearance specifically and, like, traits and qualities, but personality is a huge part of it.
