When members of theater troupe Level Ground Arts brainstorm for ideas, their focus rarely is on what the masses will think of it.
“We kind of do the shows we’re interested in doing,” says Bill Fountain, the White Rock area resident who founded the troupe last year. “The best thing we can do is what we’re passionate about.”
That philosophy is working out pretty well for them so far.
Their production of “Plan Nine from Outer Space”, based on the awesomely bad Ed Wood cult classic, received excellent reviews from Theater Jones and the Dallas Observer. And the troupe is nominated for 23 awards from the Column, Texas theater critic John Garcia’s website.
Amid its first official season at the Dallas Hub Theater in Deep Ellum, the troupe is performing “Cannibal! The Musical”, written by “South Park” co-founder Trey Parker, through March 20. And then “Dark of the Moon”, a Romeo and Juliet story set in 1920s Appalachia, opens April 2.
Fountain, a middle school theater arts teacher, took his first part in a Dallas play when he was 3 years old, and he’s been acting ever since. A few years ago, he started directing and writing plays, and a few of them were published and produced.
“I kept wanting to do my own shows, and I developed a group of actors that I really enjoyed working with,” he says. “And we came up with the idea to do ‘Julius Caesar’, and take it on tour to a bunch of theaters.”
The four or five actors who were in “Julius Caesar” had such a good time that they decided to form the Level Ground Arts theater troupe last January. Now there are about 38 people in the troupe from all over the Dallas area.
In December, the troupe decided to create an entire season schedule of performances.
“We’re doing shows that no one else is doing,” Fountain says.
In June, troupe members will perform “Poseidon! The Upside Down Musical!”, a send up of the “Poseidon Adventure”. And in August, members will stage “Lysistrata”, an ancient Greek comedy, but the troupe is setting it in Bollywood.
Paying royalties for plays and producing them is expensive. Not every show turns a profit, and troupe members scrape up all the cash they can to put on their shows. But Fountain hopes the troupe can obtain nonprofit status and move into its own theater space next year.
The troupe’s members are dedicated, and even when they’re not cast in shows, they work to build sets, make costumes, sell tickets, serve as ushers and anything else that needs doing.
“It’s been pretty awesome because we’ve been pretty successful at it,” Fountain says. “It’s truly a labor of love.”
The Level Ground Arts theater troupe performs at the Dallas Hub Theater, 2809 Canton. Tickets are $20 per show, or $50 for a season pass to all five, and available at levelgroundarts.com.
