It’s the weekend. You’ve got your ticket in hand and you head downtown for some fun, maybe a little adventure. You meet up with your chosen player at a secret location and are transported into another world where things aren’t always what they seem – and downtown Orlando is the backdrop for your trip back to the Prohibition Era and the roaring ‘20s.
This is the premise of writer-director Donald Rupe’s latest play “Bright Young Things,” produced by Creative City Project along with creative direction by Cole NeSmith and choreography by Kathleen Wessel.
Named after a notorious group of Bohemians in 1920s London, “Bright Young Things” is an immersive theatrical experience where you the audience follow one of eight characters from location to location through alleyways and around street corners in downtown Orlando.
“I have never done anything like this and I venture to say not many people have,” Rupe says. “It is definitely the hardest thing I have written. In your head you’re like ‘oh, this would be so cool if it was eight intersecting plays,’ but making each character the protagonist of their own story means each character has to have a climax and that character’s climax is probably coinciding with another character’s climax. It turned out to be a lot more involved.”
Rupe says that while writing the story as been very challenging, those challenges are where the most creativity comes from.
“In theatre, if something is too complicated to do you can just say ‘well this happened offstage,’” he says. “It’s like an easy way out. We can’t do that with ‘Bright Young Things’ because everything that’s happened or is happening, someone is seeing. There is no offstage, so you have to get pretty creative.”
“Bright Young Things” starts out as a “choose your own adventure” play. You pick between eight characters in four storylines: The Entertainers, The Smugglers, The Lovers or The Agents. You will meet your duo at a secret location and from there be taken into an alternative modern society where the ‘20s are in full swing and prohibition was never repealed.
“I kind of have an obsession with prohibition,” Rupe says about why he chose to focus on this time period for his play. “When I started writing this I was seeing parallels with the 1920s and 2020; the prohibitive nature we are experiencing right now with literally our bars being closed and the current pandemic and the 1919 flu pandemic. So it just seemed like a good time to revisit that era.”
Each of the four storylines are a different genre and style, making this not only eight intersecting characters, but four distinct types of theater-going experiences.
The first of the four couples are The Entertainers. Texas, a renowned songstress known as the “Queen of the Night,” and her adoring husband Harry run an underground nightclub that serves liquor.
“Texas is actually based on a real-life songstress from the 1920s Prohibition Era named Texas Guinan,” Rupe says. “There are a couple of good books written about her that I read about a year and a half ago. My obsession with her is also one of the reasons why I wanted to do a play around prohibition.”
Guinan was an entertainer who managed speakeasy clubs in the 1920s which catered to the rich and famous. The Entertainers will include live music numbers and will be more in line with musical theater.
The next duo is known as The Smugglers. They are hired by an underground organization to run alcohol between suppliers and illegal venues like the one run by The Entertainers.
“The Smugglers are supplying the liquor but there is more to these two than what you see in the beginning,” Rupe says.
The Agents, the third couple in this intersecting play, are for all intents and purposes the closest thing to villains in the piece. The Agents are tasked by those in power to keep law and order in the city. The Agents are in pursuit of The Smugglers.
“The stories for The Smugglers and The Agents are both told through an action-adventure genre but in very different ways,” Rupe says. “Their stories are kind of inspired by video games almost. You follow as The Agents are trying and chase down The Smugglers.”
The final pair are The Lovers; two individuals madly in love but pulled apart by forces beyond their control.
“The Lovers are our Romeo and Juliet of the story; one is tied to the Smugglers and the other is tied to the Agents,” Rupe says. “The thing I’m the most excited about with The Lovers is their story is told through a lot of movement and dance.”
The Lovers’ story will mostly be told through the genre of modern dance. The dialogue in their storyline will be in iambic pentameter, most famously associated with the writings of William Shakespeare.
A ninth character in the play appears in all four storylines and is very much integral to the plot — the city of Orlando.
“What’s cool about this is that the landscape of the play is already fantastic so by virtue of the audience traveling from destination to destination they are getting more beautiful architecture and scenery than I could ever replicate on a stage,” Rupe says. “It is a character in that it is such a part of the experience and I try to mimic landmarks downtown that fit for each character and story.”
While setting “Bright Young Things” in downtown Orlando has been fun, Rupe says it has created another challenge that he hasn’t had to deal with in writing his previous shows.
“When I started writing, the first step I had to think about was the geography of the play,” he says. “Where are we doing these scenes and can this character get from point A to point B to meet this other character who is coming from point C in a reasonable amount of time? That part has been a new experience in writing.”
Something else Rupe did differently in writing this show is that he didn’t assign gender to all the characters.
“One of the most interesting parts of writing this is I didn’t want to write the story with gender in mind so in the script most characters is written as nonbinary,” Rupe says. “It was challenging because when you write, how many times do you use a pronoun in dialogue, so when I was writing it I tried to use all pronouns.”
In the casting call that went out for the show [while the show is now cast, at the time of our interview a cast had not yet been selected], both of The Lovers, The Smugglers and one of The Agents are listed as any gender. Texas, The Entertainer songstress, is listed as female identifying and Texas’ husband Harry and one of The Agents are listed as male identifying.
“Casting calls are open to all genders and races but, obviously because it is me, I would like The Lovers to be a same-sex couple,” Rupe, who is openly gay, says with a smile, “but it all very much depends on the submissions.”
As with most anything these days, rules and limitations will be set due to the ongoing pandemic.
“What’s really interesting is we started talking about this before COVID was a thing and then once COVID really started snowballing Cole and I said “this is kind of totally COVID perfect,” Rupe says. “It’s ideal for coronavirus in that it is all outdoors and the audience can completely — depending on their level of comfort — be 15 feet away from the actors and other audience members if they want to.”
Along with socially distancing during the show, all attendees must wear masks at all times and audiences are being limited to five patrons per actor. The walking involved for the show also shouldn’t pose a problem, Rupe says.
“I have physically walked all of the paths myself and I am not a person who loves to be outside and it doesn’t fell like too much to me,” Rupe says. “Each track is around one mile of walking but everyone gets a break. The scenes are 10 minutes. You get to the location; some locations will have places to sit, so I don’t think it will be too much for anybody.”
The show will run two shows each Friday and Saturday evening during the month of October, except for Halloween weekend, giving you 16 chances to see “Bright Young Things” from a new perspective and a different style.
“When you come and see the show, you will get to know your character’s story and follow them on their experiences as they interact with other characters for 10-minute sections. Then if you come back and you follow one of the characters who interacted with your first character you’ll understand more fully what’s going on for that character,” Rupe says. “Our hope is that it does well enough that we’ll be able to extend it and do it as an indefinite thing.”
“Bright Young Things” runs every Friday and Saturday night, Oct. 2-24, with shows starting at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 each and can be purchased at CreativeCityProject.com/BrightYoungThings. When purchasing, you will select which storyline you want to follow and then be notified of the secret location in downtown Orlando where you will meet your couple.
