Interview between TUTS co-founders, Chris Compton and Holly Erin McCarthy

HOLLY: So, what do we talk about?

CHRIS: Our play, probably.

HOLLY: Right, well okay but also thank you so much to CCTFA for giving us the chance to use their brand new space...

CHRIS: To PREMIERE their brand new space...

HOLLY: With our production of NO EXIT by Jean-Paul Sartre which will be, believe me...

CHRIS: A hoot.

HOLLY: A barnburner.

CHRIS: A Dyonisian orgy of tragedy, rage, and comedic irony.

HOLLY: Right, that too.  So, yes, Theater Under the Stairs is really about two things, I think.

CHRIS: Just two?

HOLLY: Well, primarily.  One is accessibility, we want everyone and anyone to be able to enjoy our plays, which means that Chris and I take zero pay...

CHRIS: And she means zero...

HOLLY: And do all our own leg work, so that we can afford to charge only 10 bucks for a ticket and still pay for the rights to a show and give our hardworking guest performers a hard-earned stipend.

CHRIS: The second thing is character...

HOLLY: Character?  Why if I had any character, I...

CHRIS: To me, the most exciting thing about theater is being able to watch an actor, in three dimensions, inhabit the body and mind of a truly complex and fascinating person...

HOLLY: And so we gravitate towards plays that offer an actor a lot to bite into when building a role, be it a hero play, like Euripides' MEDEA, our next planned production...

CHRIS: Or a character-driven drama like NO EXIT.

HOLLY: So NO EXIT is a play about these three people who have just died, and find out that hell is, well...

CHRIS: They're expecting red-hot pokers and devils sticking forks into their eyes or whatever but they find themselves, instead, in an ugly living room with these two other people with whom they have absolutely nothing in common and...

HOLLY:...And basically they just drive each other nuts.  It's an intelligent play and a funny play but the real joy comes in watching these characters completely unhinge...  Rob Anderson, for example...

CHRIS: We met Rob when Holly was in Side Man with him over at Cape Rep...

HOLLY: Plays this journalist named Joseph Garcin, and watching him in rehearsals go completely bonkers night after night has been...

CHRIS:...Terrifying...

HOLLY:...Delightful.  The show also stars Susan Winslow who plays this vicious woman named Inez Serrano who's really...

CHRIS: She steals every scene she speaks in.

HOLLY: And we have Stephen Coltin as a quite creepy employee of Hell.

CHRIS: And our very own Holly Erin McCarthy as Estelle Rigault, who appears at first to be simply a very charming...

HOLLY: If bratty...

CHRIS: Aristocratic type, but later is revealed to...

HOLLY: Have more than a few secrets.

CHRIS: As I said, we like complexity.  And shock and scandal.

HOLLY: Anyway please come see our extraordinarily inexpensive and thrilling production of NO EXIT.

CHRIS: We're just a couple of young pups with a love for telling stories, and we need folks like you to come on out and enjoy them...

HOLLY: Or we'll shrivel up like prunes.

CHRIS: Right.  Or raisins.

HOLLY: For example.

No Exit Poster!

All-Star "No Exit" Cast Announced!

Hello!
We are pleased to announce the cast list for our production of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit!
Valet: Stephen Coltin
Garcin: Rob Anderson
Inez: Susan Winslow
Estelle: Holly Erin McCarthy
Directed by Christopher Compton
Performance dates:
Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays.
February 4 - 20