“What is Fringe?” I asked Kim Nuzzo, actor, artist and therapist, as we sat on the porch outside Dos Gringos on a breezy and pleasantly rainy afternoon. “It’s kind of like off-off-off-off-off-Broadway,” he said. “Way on the edge.”
Zephyr Stage (ZS), of which Kim is associate director, produces original plays that have been staged at Fringe festivals in Edinburgh and Denver. Now, Kim, his wife Valerie (ZS executive artistic director) and actors Finn Benham and Joe Simic, Finn’s partner, are bringing an original Fringe piece, “Johnny Jane,” to Thunder River Theatre on Aug. 5-6.
ZS is a small but mighty company. Based in Fruita since 2017, it’s made up of community actors. “I would say there are probably a dozen that have worked with us,” said Valerie via Zoom. “But now that we’ve taken it on the road, it’s just the four of us.” She said they’re “theater nomads,” like medieval traveling players who set up a stage wherever they go. “Our Green Room is the grass,” she mused.
Original productions include “Gilgamesh and Enkidu” and “Multitudes,” a one-man show starring Kim as Walt Whitman, written and directed by Valerie, who was co-founder and former associate artistic director of Thunder River Theatre Company.
“Johnny Jane” took about a year from sharing ideas to the full production. Several months in, Benham suggested writing about “othering.” Kim explained that “othering” is a manifestation of fear, hate and prejudice. “How do we push people to the outside, make them outsiders, and how does society bring them back in?” he said.
As each shared their thoughts and writings during the process, a plot emerged. Kim wrote about the dark side of addiction. Valerie wrote about disappeared and lost women, and why society doesn’t look for all of them. Benham, who identifies as non-binary, trans-masculine, wrote about gender, and the character of John was born. “That’s his actual name,” said Benham. “Johnny Jane is a nickname that he’s been called since childhood to essentially mock his transition.”
Benham plays the titular character, struggling to come to terms with gender identity. Kim plays a heroin-addicted fallen angel, for whom Benham’s character is caregiver. Valerie’s character is the suicidal ideation of trans youth in the form of the Virgin Mary from an alternate universe. “I am that suicidal impulse. I arrive very scared and very stabby, because I think the only thing that can make it better is if there’s this destruction, if we destroy ourselves,” she said.
Benham, also on the Zoom call, summed it up with a line from the play. “I thought I had a choice to express what is within me and live, or to keep what is within me a secret and let it destroy me. But, the truth is, either way can get you killed.”
In a Rocky Mountain PBS interview about the production, Benham said that all the characters are a piece of all of us. “Johnny Jane is a piece of me in the sense that we share that feeling of wanting to be accepted for being trans-masculine,” they explained.
Kim said the characters are not pure. “They’re not good or bad. All the characters have both qualities,” he explained. “That, to me, is a rich part of it.”
Benham has been with ZS for almost six years. They caught a rehearsal for “Art” (by Yasmina Reza) in Fruita, which led to acting lessons with Valerie, writing plays and musicals and eventually to the current collaborative partnership. Acting lessons, said Benham, made them feel vulnerable in a new way. “It was scary, but Val had a way of making it feel incredibly comfortable, which is what made it so easy just to kind of merge into the group,” they said. “Acting immediately became hugely emotional and important in my life and therefore, Val and Kim became hugely important in my life for being the forces that guided me through that.”
The Nuzzos agree that Benham’s youthful energy is the engine of the company. “They were instrumental in finding this strange, wild, wonderful story,” said Valerie.
“Johnny Jane” takes the TRTC stage on Saturday evening, Aug. 5, and for a matinee performance Sunday, Aug. 6. Tickets and more information are at thunderrivertheatre.com