Buffalo Theater: Play making premiere at Canterbury Woods

By Elmer Ploetz

When “The Girl in the Washroom” makes its world premiere tonight (Friday, Oct. 24), it will mark a number of collaborations.

The play is a co-production between Buffalo United Artists and First Look Buffalo, matching the first — dedicated to producing provocative and relevant work regarding the LGBTQIA+ experience — with the latter, a company dedicated to taking plays from creation to staged readings, workshops and, eventually, mainstage productions.

In the case of “The Girl in the Washroom,” the playwright is Bella Poynton (who also does some theater writing for The Buffalo Hive). She has been a major part of First Look’s playwright program, and this play received a reading in First Look’s New Play Reading Festival last December.

Poynton’s plays tend to take a science fiction bent, but this one is perfect for the Halloween season, said BUA Co-Artistic Director Rick Lattimore, who is also co-producer along with First Look’s Michael Audet.

The play is BUA’s first at Canterbury Woods Performing Arts Center in Williamsville. The theater is at 705 Renaissance Drive (off Youngs Road), home to First Look.

“It’s a beautiful theater. It’s just a wonderful space,” he said. “The acoustics are great. And with the tech and the lights, it allows us to kind of do a lot of a lot of fun, little technical, spooky things to kind of add to the atmosphere of the show. … That was another aspect that really fell into (place) too. It was the opportunity to do something a little scary around October.

“Bella’s plays seem to have a supernatural fantasy kind of aspect to them. … This is actually more more of a ghost yarn.”

The plot starts in 1965 in New York City, when a couple escape a violent brawl into a nearby hotel room; then it picks up in 2025 when Daphnie and Sage, the cute couple behind a hit ghost-hunting YouTube channel, find themselves in that some hotel room and their relationship in peril.

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Lattimer said Poynton was a pleasure to work with as the play was fine-tuned for its premiere in front of an audience.

“She is, we like to joke, an ‘undead writer’ — partly because it’s a Halloween thing — but also because there are certain plays that they’re locked in because the playwright has been dead for 100 years. But with her, she’s here, and that was a testament to her to want to hear our input.

“And Bella was very open to it; she did a lot of editing to her and took a lot of (director Mike Doben’s) notes. And Mike just had a great eye for it. … Bella took it and really ran with it. So I think the script really went up a level through the whole process.”

The play has a small cast, but between the cast (Paige Cummings, Stefanie Warnick and Bob Rusch) and crew there are some significant creative forces from the Buffalo theater scene.

“One of the things that I think really helps this production is how many just not only actors we have in it, or like people from different communities, but so many artistic directors,” Lattimer said. “Like Mike Doben, who is is directing this; he’s also BUA artistic director. Stefanie is in this (as Daphnie), but she’s the Brazen Varlets artistic director. Bob Rusch is in it, and he’s the artistic director of First Look.

“So you just don’t only have actors, but you have people with an eye that have also directed and come from a production standpoint. They have so many different viewpoints, and then when it comes together, it just helps to make the overall product that much more rich and authentic and hopefully more exciting for the audience.”

Lattimer said the group shared a common approach.

“Maybe that’s why we are friends outside of this, too, because we all kind of have the similar mindset,” he said. “There is no kind of alpha, ego-driven megalomaniac in the group, and it’s easier to work with people that you really can collaborate with.”

“The Girl in the Washroom” will take the stage on Friday (Oct. 24) at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday (Oct. 25) at 5 p.m. ; October 30 and 21 at 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 1 at 5 p.m.; Nov. 2 at 2 p.m., Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Nove. 8 at 5 p.m.

Tickets are $30 general admission and $20 for seniors and students. Tickets available at www.firstlookbuffalo.com