Tucson theater multitasks with two plays in repertory to end season

Invisible Theatre is closing out its 53rd season this week with two productions in repertory — the kid-friendly “Hopscotch to Infinity” from local playwright Alejandro Canelos and “Going It Alone,” a celebration of the art of monologues.

“Hopscotch to Infinity” opens on Wednesday and runs through June 7; “Going It Alone,” a series of 13 monologues performed by the cast of “Hopscotch” and five other actors, will run Thursday through Saturday. Both are on the Invisible Theatre stage at 1400 N. First Ave.

Canelos based this play on his book “Hopscotch to Infinity,” which follows a group of eight kids from second through fifth grades.

“It’s really all about the joys and pitfalls of childhood and what is so charming about it, and what made me so anxious to produce it, was that it celebrates being a kid,” said IT Managing Artistic Director Betsy Kruse Craig.

The play dives into how kids navigate being kids, from playground arguments to solving the pressing issues of whether or not you will break your mother’s back if you step on a crack, kid crushes, playground politics and “all the things that kids really deal with,” Craig said.

“It’s lovely and fun and quirky and hysterical and poignant, and it’s just a really charming piece,” she said.

Performances are June 4; and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and June 7. Tickets are $30, $15 for children under 18 through invisibletheatre.com.

This is the third year IT has done the monologues showcase, the second under the “Going It Alone” banner, Craig said.

The first year, they called it “Flying Solo,” a name they stopped using because another company also was using it. Instead, they resurrected “Going It Alone,” the name of a short-lived monologue series IT had done in the late 1970s to early ‘80s, Craig said.

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Invisible Theatre last fall solicited monologue submissions and received 250 from around the country; one came from a writer in Australia.

“We put them in a folder and we had a reading committee read them blind in terms of making our selections,” Craig said.

The committee whittled the submissions down to 13 covering a wide range of ideas including a woman talking about giving birth to twins, another describing letting go of her friend’s ashes during Carnival in New Orleans and one about a political prisoner begging for her release.

Another story has a man talking about “a key he carries in his pocket to a house that no longer exists, a family that’s no longer there,” Craig said.

The monologues run five to seven minutes and explore family dynamics, relationships, drama and humor.

“I always say it’s theater for the ADHD inclined, because every five minutes it’s a completely different story,” Craig said of the works, each performed by a different actor. “It’s like changing the channels: If you don’t like one of them, you know there’s (another) one right around the corner.”

Craig and Tucson playwright Gretchen Wirges each directed five of the monologues while actress/director Nancy Davis Booth spearheaded three.

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and tickets are $30 through invisibletheatre.com.

The lineup: “Down A Well” by Bridgette Portman, featuring Emily Fuchs; “See You In English” by Trystan Garcia, featuring Trystan Garcia; “Wife Putting on Makeup” by Alejandro Canelos, featuring Ben Collinsworth and Betsy Kruse Craig; “Spark Bird” by Adrien Loehring, featuring Sean Hazen; “Hireath” by Charles Brestman, featuring Tyler Gastelum; “Strange Love” by Felicia Penza, featuring Robin Mirlocca; “Tomato” by Charlene Donaghy, featuring Lori Hunt; “The Messengers” by Lindsay Joelle, featuring Hannah Turner: “I’ll Have the Salmon” by Jessica Moss, featuring Gretchen Wirges; “Melissa/The Bee Nymnph” by Alex Totillo, featuring Dante Crossroad; “Home Alone” by Rin Oda, featuring Owen Saunders; “Paradise” by Helen Hopcroft, featuring Molly McKasson; “Come On By” by Christopher Woods, featuring Haley Jaeger.