Jeff Ames writes, directs first play
CHERYL SCHWEIZER | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years AGO
Playing the stand-in, Jeff Ames (right) studies the script in a recent Masquers Theater rehearsal. His original play 'A Window Ajar' is part of 'Them Three,' the company's current production.
Standing in for an absent cast member, Jeff Ames (left) gets an earful during Masquers Theater company rehearsal. The world premiere of his one-act play 'A Window Ajar" is part of the 'Them Three," the company's current production.
Senior Reporter Cheryl Schweizer is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience serving small communities in the Pacific Northwest. She began her post-high-school education at Treasure Valley Community College and enerned her journalism degree at Oregon State University. After working for multiple publications, she has settled down at the Columbia Basin Herald and has been a staple of the newsroom for more than a decade. Schweizer’s dedication to her communities and profession has earned her the nickname “The Baroness of Bylines.” She covers a variety of beats including health, business and various municipalities. | February 17, 2016 5:00 AM
SOAP LAKE — Jeff Ames said his first play, which had its world premiere last Friday, started with the set.
Ames, Moses Lake, had one idea, he said, “which was that the set probably would need a window.” And the result was the one-act play, “A Window Ajar.”
“I just started with a couple of characters and a window.”
The play is part of a trifecta of one-act plays presented by the Masquers Theater company as “Them Three.” Ames not only wrote one of the plays, he’s directing it too.
Ames is a longtime actor with Masquers, but this is his first directing gig, he said, at least since high school. “I call it directing for the adult world.”
“A Window Ajar” is “kind of a farce,” about “a married couple in an apartment, and they’re just trying to throw a good party.”
Alas, things happen.
Early guests, menu troubles – and a couple of burglars on the verge of retirement (just one last job) who need a place to hide when the job goes wrong, and look, there’s a party in that apartment and the window is open.
Hey, it could happen to anybody.
The directing gig came first. Fellow Masquers actor (and now director) Justin Rowland said the company’s board was looking to expand its pool of directors. They approached Ames, Rowland and Adam Zaleski, and asked each to choose a one-act play.
Ames said he started by reading a selection of one-act plays, but none of them were quite what he wanted. So he proposed writing his own, and the Masquers board said OK.
This is his first original play in a while, he said, but not his first writing project. “I would love to do more.” There are lots of ideas percolating, and some partially finished manuscripts. “I’ve got some unfinished business, you might say. A big storehouse of ideas that are going to get written eventually.”
Putting it on stage for everyone to see is a little bit scary nonetheless. “The risk of writing your own thing — it’s very personal.”
Along with that comes the need to stop being the playwright and become the director. The director has to collaborate with the cast to bring the playwright’s work to life, and that turns out to be a good thing, Ames said.
The cast brings its own interpretation, Ames continued, and makes suggestions along the way. “I find it’s good to be open-minded about that, because sometimes it’s even better than how I wrote it.
“It becomes like a stone soup of comedy.”
“Them Three” continues the next two weekends, with 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday performances and a 2 p.m. Sunday matinée. The theater is located at 322 East Main Ave., Soap Lake.
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