SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Feb. 14, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Plan-B Theatre Company is continuing its season with the world premiere of “Go Home Come Back” by Darryl Stamp.
The show goes Feb. 23 to March 5 in the Studio Theater in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Will (Lonzo Liggins) is a sales manager. James (Calbert Beck) is in disaster management. They meet while shuffling off their mortal coils. The show is described as a “heartwarming ‘what if’ of missed opportunities, first impressions, and second chances.”
The play also features Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin, Kris Wing Peterson, Melissa Salguero, and the voice of Flo Bravo.
Playwright Stamp is a member of Plan-B’s Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop. He previously premiered his play “Roar” as part of “…Of Color” with the company. His play “Dumbed Down” also premiered at the 2020 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival.
We spoke to Stamp ahead of the show’s opening, along with Beck and Salguero.
Before he entered the theater world, Stamp worked for an engineering company examining sewer systems in Iowa, then moved to Wichita, Kansas and was an assistant football coach. He also worked in corrections, then went back to school and got his bachelor’s degree in human resources management.
At that time, he was also doing stand-up comedy, and saw an advertisement for Showtime’s Funniest Person in America contest. He was in the Funniest Person in Kansas category and drew the last spot of the night.
“And I go up and I kill it,” he said. “And I win the [Kansas part of the] competition. And this was the year, because I’m old, it was the year that Ellen DeGeneres won the whole thing. And so I was told, you know, we’ll let you know and we’ll have maybe a five-minute time slot on television, and we’ll decide the winner, and I never got that far. But OK, that’s my claim to fame. So I continue to do stand-up comedy in Wichita, which had a comedy club, and whenever I went out of town on business, or vacation, I would try to walk in and try my stuff out.”
At the same time, Stamp was cast in “Driving Miss Daisy” at the Wichita Center for the Arts, and started taking acting classes, subsequently moving into professional theater. He also had six part-time jobs to make ends meet.
During that time, he met his wife, who was at University of Kansas finishing her master’s and working on a PhD. She wanted to come back to Utah to be closer to her parents, so the pair moved to the Beehive State in 2007. Stamp performed in the Page-to-Stage event at Wasatch Theatre Company in 2011, and directed a piece, then did a couple more shows for that company. He went on to be cast in “Jump” at Plan-B Theatre in 2018.
Stamp had the idea for “Go Home Come Back” during the COVID-19 pandemic, as he started to evaluate what he had done in his life up until this point, what else he wanted to do, and also what people might say about him if he did pass away.
“I decided to write a play about a couple of guys who find out they’re dead,” he said. “And so I enhanced that opening scene, because it wasn’t about two guys dying. And I thought, what if he’s dead? And there’s this weird guy in his home, who is this guy? Where does he come from, is he from some heavenly place or what? Like, why is he there? And I thought, let’s have some fun with it. Maybe he’s dead too. And so then it’s like, well, now what do I do with this? There’s two people. They don’t know they’re dead yet.”
The men then meet an entity that tells them about a “Go Home Come Back” program meaning individuals can go home for one hour.
“And if you need the wrap up any loose ends, which came from my thought like if I died, have I done everything I wanted to do?” Stamp said. “Have I apologized to anybody, everybody I needed to talk to, have I continued to live the life that I wanted to live, and most people don’t get a chance, you know, we get a phone call, sorry to tell you, whatever.
“You know, rarely do we get to sit there with our loved ones like I was able to do with my mother, but not with my brother, my father. And watch her take her last breath and watch the straight line go across the machine. And we don’t always get that opportunity. And I thought, well, if we don’t get that, what if we could just settle, have a moment with whomever; I don’t know if it’s going to be a best friend, girlfriend, husband, wife. And so these guys can’t say anything about it. Which is really hard for them to do. They get a chance to go home.”
He added: “You know, it’s from a man’s point of view, and I’m trying to make sure that I have stories that not only include women, but feature women and speak from their POV, even though the story is told from these two dudes’ POV and so I decided that St. Peter has to be a woman, and she should be Latina.”
Beck, who plays James, spoke about what appealed to him about the show and his character.
“Many things appealed to me about doing this show, from the content, which we workshopped last year, to the author, castmates, and production company,” Beck said. “I was lucky to discover that this character resonates deeply with me, due to my history and experiences. The big picture, or theme, of the show is a classic conundrum… who deserves second chances, and would everyone choose to utilize such an opportunity? Personally, I have lived by the motto ‘No Regrets’ for quite some time. With this motto as a backdrop, the character of James is a chance to ‘play out’ the other side of that saying… it has been a reminder of what can happen if you don’t live for today.”
Beck was formerly a football player, and attended the University of Utah on a football scholarship before devastating migraines sidelined the promising athlete.
Salguero added, of her character: “I play both Viola and Monica in this production. I was drawn to both due to the relationship they each individually have with their fathers. Both react to the connection/absence of each paternal figure in similar but markedly different ways. Each character is different, but their hope for resolution is similar. I was drawn to this immediately.”
I also asked Salguero what she enjoys about a world premiere where she is originating a role.
“The process,” she said. “We all discover new things and evolve with our characters. We develop as the production does. While at time it can seem chaotic, it’s so rewarding knowing how collaborative the process is. We evolve and adapt in real time alongside the piece.”
Beck added: “I have to say that being a world premiere is just as special to me as an aged classic,” he said. “I love the opportunity to be on stage. However, there is something to be said about no pressure for being correct, as it is the first time this character has taken a breath. As I mentioned, knowing the playwright has been a joy, as we have the opportunity to dig deeper into what they were thinking or feeling about the character. I can’t even imagine the pressure on our director, as she has final say of what will be ‘the real character’ and their traits. Then again… ’tis totally new, so the audience never knows if you got something wrong, missed a line, etc.”
Beck will also be appearing in Pygmalion Theatre Company‘s “Near Mint,” by Lane Richins, from April 28 to May 13 at the Rose Wagner. Salguero will be working on finishing up a medical memoir entitled “Stiction,” which she hopes will be be produced by 2024.
Stamp also spoke about what else is on his bucket list.
“I would love to direct again,” he said. “And I have, you know, half-a-dozen experiences under my belt.” He added: “I’m working on a piece about an acting couple in their 30s, the wife’s a writer, trying to make her way in the screenplay, writing world and her husband and just he’s not very talented and yet he wants to emulate his wife and he tries all kinds of things… I don’t have a name for it. I’m not sure where it’s going. But so far, that’s the premise because I want to explore the difficulty getting into the arts, whatever art form and especially for a woman as a writer.”
He added about “Go Home Come Back,” “Hopefully, you know, people can relate to it. Not so much, is there heaven or hell, but we really should make the best of the time we have. We just don’t know when it’s going to end.”
For more information and tickets click here.
