When the Tobin Center’s latest in-house theater production, an eight-show run of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly, gets underway Wednesday, Feb. 12, there will only be two actors onstage.
However, the production is providing an artistic voice, a creative outlet and a paycheck for far more members of San Antonio’s creative community, said Rick Frederick, the Tobin’s creative and resident relations director.
Staged by the Tobin’s 100A Productions, Talley’s Folly relies on the artistry, ingenuity and hard work not just of its actors and director but also of lighting designers, sound designers, set dressers and costumers. Not to mention the venue’s union stagehands.
“Those people are all in the room. They’re all part of the process,” said Frederick, who did decades of theater work in Detroit and Chicago before relocating to the Alamo City to run the Tobin’s prior in-house company, Attic Rep. “It even extends to the audience. We want to create space for everyone to have a take.”
Talley’s Folly, which stars San Antonio actors Mark Stringham and Eva Laporte, is the second of three plays 100A will stage during its second season. David Connelly, a longtime theater educator who’s worked with Attic Rep and the San Antonio Public Theatre, is directing.
The production, staged in the Tobin’s Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater, marks a return for Connelly, who also directed 100A’s inaugural production, The 39 Steps, an adaptation of the 1935 spy film by Alfred Hitchcock.
Set during the 1940s in a boathouse in rural Missouri, Talley’s Folly is a romantic comedy that follows the two main characters as they come to grips with a complicated but longstanding connection. Wilson won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Drama with the work, which takes place over real time in a single act.
Frederick said the real-time nature of Talley’s Folly and its vintage stage set allowed the production to work through some unconventional approaches, such as staging the set at an angle so the actors appear to weave in an out of the scenery.
“I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever been involved in,” Frederick said. “It makes me want to cry.”
100A launched in 2023 as theater companies across the country struggled to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. Frederick said it’s been vital to make sure the company feels like it’s part of the San Antonio community.
To that end, 100A puts on four “Industry Night Readings” in addition to the three full-scale productions it stages each season. The informal readings allow the audience to have a view of the creative process as it unfolds, including the interaction of the actors and director as they work through the play for the first time together.
Following the readings, production members join the audience for cocktails, which provides a chance for direct input, according to Frederick. Members of the community can use the interaction to ask questions, suggest future works and discuss what the’d like to see from 100A’s productions.
“It’s our responsibility to reflect the image of the community and amplify the voices of the community,” Frederick said.
$26.25-$35.00, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12-Friday, Feb. 14, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater at the Tobin Center, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org.
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This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2025.
