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According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the adjective 'quintessential' originates from the noun 'quintessence,' meaning "the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form" and "the most typical example or representative." Those phrases fit both MadLab Theatre and its 10th anniversary celebration of the popular shorts festival "Theatre Roulette."
"The Quintessential Roulette" (running Aug. 6-29 at MadLab's Grant Street theater downtown) will feature 11 plays from the past 10 years of "Theatre Roulettes," with 21 of 35 actors reprising their original roles and five of the plays being helmed by the original directors.
Earlier this year, MadLab asked its patrons to go online and vote for their favorite show from the first nine "Roulettes." Then, during "Theatre Roulette" 2009 back in May, they asked the audience to vote for their favorite each night. And finally, one show was chosen by the MadLab ensemble and board, which gave them 11 shows representing the best of the past 10 years.
In the beginning
The journey to "The Quintessential Roulette" is a long and trying one, representing the story of a quirky group of theater geeks who just wanted to put on plays that were their own. That dream, from the REM cycle of founder Eric Myers nearly 15 years ago, is now a bonefide institutional franchise.
"That's kind of how I came up with the name MadLab," Myers said, calling from his home in San Francisco. "It was all a huge experiment."
The company began in 1995 with Myers and his pal Dan O'Reilly (who's since left MadLab due to artistic differences) with their first performances taking place in the tiny basement of a hair salon in the Short North.
"We were an underground operation, literally," Myers said laughing. "We become sort of a nomadic company and would bounce from space to space."
A modern reconstructing of Euripides ancient masterpiece "The Bacchae" called "BAkkEE" (1997) brought rave reviews and their first string of sold-out shows. It was at this point that MadLab began to crack the local mainstream, setting itself up as the definitive alternative to traditional theater.
In 1999, they procured an oil-stricken commercial garage downtown and spent four months renovating it into the full-service production space that it is today.
After six years of running the company, Myers said he had become burnt-out, deciding a change of pace was needed and thus making the move to California. However, he couldn't bring himself to cut the strings completely, as he still serves on MadLab's Advisory Board, watching over his artistic baby from afar. He's even thinking about starting a MadLab West in San Francisco.
His departure wasn't easy to overcome, according to Andy Batt, MadLab's managing director.
"[Myers] was so much the life and soul of this company when it started, it was a tremendous blow to the theater when he moved away," he said. "We have people with vision in our company, but [Myers] was visionary. I don't think any of us who are left embody that on our own."
"Theatre Roulette" is born
With a new building, an established fan base and some local legitimacy, the group decided to take yet another risk in 2000: starting the largest and most successful original shorts festival in the region.
"It was my wildly ambitious vision to offer three different nights of programming each week for a month," Myers said. "Trying to pull it off was definitely a bit of a gamble."
Attendance was sparse during the festival's first few years, but the public soon caught on, and "Theatre Roulette" became the company's largest annual hit.
"‘Roulette' has always been our signature show," said Batt, who is the only person to have acted in every "Theatre Roulette" since its inception. "It's developed its own identity."
Batt will be directing Myers' script, "The Secret Life of Mimes" (2000), which was the first play he ever saw at MadLab.
"It blew me away. I remember thinking to myself, 'This is what theater should be,'" said Batt, who's also acting in "The Rebuttal" (2006) and "Alien Hand Syndrome" (2009). "Being able to work with [Myers] was an experience you really can't replace."
Becoming quintessential
From the beginning, MadLab and their "Theatre Roulette" have supported and cultivated locally created original work.
"A local theatre scene without original work is like a local music scene with only cover bands," Myers said.
The compnay has grown from scrounging for script submissions during the festival's early years to now receiving nearly 1,000 submissions from playwrights all over the world.
"I remember giving them a play of mine just to kind of look over, and [Myers] was like, ‘Let's throw in the Roulette,'" said Chris Lane, MadLab's artistic director. "That's just kind of how things were in the beginning."
Today, MadLab and "Theatre Roulette" are legitimate parts of the city's cultural landscape. And as we continue hearing about the many artistic instutions loosing funding because of the recession, they may be the only one in the city that's actually growing financially.
"This year's ‘Theatre Roulette' was our largest grossing show ever, where the box office is concerned, and all of our shows this year have outdrawn our shows from last year," Batt said. "We're actually very surprised, considering the state of the economy."
MadLab started on the premise of redefining the modern theatre experience by presenting controversial, locally created works geared toward a younger audience. Now the troupe is considered by most theater-lovers to be an irreplaceable part of Columbus' theater scene, making the company not only one of the city's top artistic institutions, but a quintessential example of the art form it represents.
MadLab Theatre's "The Quintessential Roulette" begins at 8 p.m. every Thursday through Saturday from Aug. 6-29. Tickets are $12 for adults, $8 for students and senior citizens, and $6 for members. For more information visit the MadLab Theatre Web site.
