When Jason Bohon graduated from William Chrisman High School in 1995, a career in theater wasn’t in his plans.
The only theater experience Bohon had before auditioning for a play his sophomore year at Central Missouri State University (now the University of Central Missouri) was in one acts in high school. He didn’t get the part for which he auditioned, but he was cast – and that’s all that mattered. It was, he said, as if he had taken a sip from some kind of majestic tonic.
“Like that, it was all over,” Bohon said. “I picked theater as my major and a decade later, here I am sleeping on my mom’s couch.”
No, he’s not plopped on the couch because he doesn’t have a job. He can count himself among the more fortunate theater majors in his class.
“It’s not like you graduate and someone hands you a job,” Bohon said. “You have to create your own opportunities.”
Bohon is the founder of the Minneapolis-based 3 Sticks Theatre Company, which will perform “The Gypsy and the General” through Sunday at the Kansas City Fringe Festival. The show uses simple props and a five-person cast who must perform without a pre-constructed set.
“It’s an imaginative piece,” Bohon said. “It’s not very literal.”
It tells of a general humiliated by defeat who must bow to the whims of a gypsy, who transports the general and her entourage to lands not governed by logic or reason. Only through the gypsy can the general regain her pride.
“In this play, women can be generals and dictators, ropes can become snakes and a sheet of fabric can transform into a sail,” Bohon said. “The entire world is bound to the props we’re using, which are capable of anything.”
Andrew Lynch, a one-man band, will supply the score, an atmospheric cobbling of sounds including the acoustic guitar, mandolin and melodica.
Each of the company members had a hand in the story’s creation, weaved together at one roundtable session. Such is the means in which all of 3 Sticks’ productions come to being, with Bohon occupying the seat at the head of the table as the company’s artistic director and lead producer.
Bohon has produced 10 plays since 2005 after returning to the United States from a two-year stint in London where he attended the London International School of Performing Arts, a derivative of the Jacques Lecoq school of theater in Paris. Lecoq was renowned for his contributions to physical theater, movement and mime. He was also heralded for his emphasis on audience/actor interaction.
Bohon’s first production with the company was at the 2005 Minneapolis Fringe Festival, a theater showcase in such demand that annually a lottery is held to determine who can participate.
Penning themselves as a mysterious group from London, the company sold out its first performance. Bohon knew the second performance would be more telling.
“For all I knew we’d get booed off the stage,” Bohon said.
A fantastical tale stemming from a Welsh myth, “The Mist” sold out that night, too. In fact, all five performances sold out. Over the next few years 3 Sticks’ offerings would include “A Midwinter Night’s Dream,” “Melancholy Play,” which dealt with the culture of prescription drugs, and a piece on the mounting hysteria from terrorism and illegal immigration called “Borderlines.” Before “Borderlines” began, clowns asked crowd members to step under coat racks meant to resemble X-ray machines, tickling people thought to be suspicious.
This marks the first time Bohon has performed one of his productions in Kansas City.
After a brief stop in Minneapolis, the company will perform at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival in mid-August.
SHOW INFORMATION
‘The Gypsy and the General’
Presented by 3 Sticks Theatre Company
Where: Chakra, 1308 W. 11th St. in the West Bottoms
When: 9:30 p.m. today, 11 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $10 per person
FRINGE FESTIVAL
The fourth annual KC Fringe Festival is packed with live theater, dance, performance art, visual art, spoken word, storytelling, film and fashion. In all, there’s 250 performances of 67 shows at venues all over Kansas City. The festival began July 21 and runs through Sunday.
