Can Two Planks do it again?

Here’s a question for you: how do you make something really good better?

That’s the challenge Two Planks and a Passion Theatre Company will have to address next week when the second season of their Theatre Off the Grid series begins.

Last year’s production of The Odyssey was landmark, literally and figuratively: it featured outdoor performances that engaged the spectacular landscape at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts and treated audiences to an interactive theatre experience rarely seen in the region.

This award-winning production and its director, Ken Schwartz, who is also artistic director at Two Planks, will be hard-pressed to replicate last year’s success, but if you know Ken at all and the people associated with the company, you have to think they’re totally stoked and ready to kick ass.

They live this stuff. Indeed, what Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Act 2 scene2, burns bright within their hearts: ‘The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.’

They did that and then some with The Odyssey, which put a stranglehold on the imaginations of all who saw it and successfully suspended disbelief to the extent that the audience felt as much a part of the theatrical mosaic as those involved in the production.

I expect no less from the two productions on the docket this summer. Thornton Wilder’s Our Town premieres Thursday night, 6 p.m. at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts. As far as anyone can reckon, it’s the first time this American classic has been staged outdoors.

It’ll all happen in daylight hours at the edge of a forest and in treehouses, no less, which strikes me as a novel concept that harkens back to those carefree days when life was simpler and play was a larger consideration than the unceasing grind of nine-to-five.

Schwartz says, “marrying nature with the imagination can have unexpectedly moving results.” I think with Our Town outdoors, the sky’s the limit.

Unwilling to rest on their laurels, Two Planks has raised the bar in another way, too, by mounting a second production for the summer season. Jerome – The Historical Spectacle has a couple of things going for it: Scott’s Bay bestselling author Ami McKay, who wrote The Birth House; and an intriguing tale of a man found cast away in Sandy Cove, N.S., in 1863 whose legs had been amputated just above the knees and who could not or refused to speak. All he offered anyone was his name – Jerome. He never discussed what was done to him and took that secret to his grave.

Many rumours swirled concerning the man’s nationality and how he came to be abandoned on the Acadian shore with nothing but a jug of water and a tin of sea biscuits. None were proven conclusive, despite the fact Jerome was cared for by people in the community for the next 50 years.

This is a tale rich in theatrical promise and there’s little doubt McKay has the chops to bring it to life. Sound interesting? You bet. ‘Jerome’ opens Aug. 2 and will be staged outdoors as well.

So, will Two Planks manage to top what they accomplished last year? There’s only one way to find out, and the quest begins Thursday at 6 p.m. For more, visit: www.twoplanks.ca/. Have fun; see you there!