NEWS COVERAGE

Grass-Roots Theatre Company Gaining Audiences with Greek Classics

"There's more to life than money," proclaims David Luby, artistic director and founder of Gorilla Theatre. "There's theater."

Nodding in agreement is Luby's pal, Tyler Miller, president of the board of directors of Gorilla Theatre and live-in caretaker of the Ape House, the no-frills downtown headquarters of Kansas City's most persistent alternative theater company.

"I was going to be a history teacher and a swimming coach," Miller said of his life before being smitten with treading the boards. "I've always been more attracted to the possibilities than whether or not it turns a dollar."

The nonprofit Gorilla Theatre -- best known for its yearly summer solstice productions of classic Greek plays -- has come a long way since Sept. 9, 1989, when it was formed by Luby and 12 other young idealists from the University of Missouri-Kansas City theater department. For one thing, the company's shows have been performed in nearly 60 venues in the metropolitan area.

Did Luby think the grass-roots company would be around 13 years later?

"No -- but I did," he said, laughing at the contradiction. "I had hoped and dreamed that it would be, but I really didn't think we'd make it."

Other than a lack of money, the biggest obstacle to the bootstrap company's longevity has been its tireless devotion to unconventional material.

"We didn't want to do your typical Neil Simon plays," Luby said. "We wanted to do plays that nobody else was doing. In college we did the academic material, which is really the good material. Why do you have to stop doing that?"

Because it won't make money, skeptics said. To that, Luby replied: "Let's do it anyway. Let's educate the audiences of Kansas City about what this type of theater is."

But thanks to guts, grant money and its increasingly popular Greek productions -- this summer's four performances of Aristophanes' "The Clouds" drew 1,500 people to Wheeler Amphitheater in Volker Park -- some are suggesting that Gorilla Theatre is finally becoming mainstream.

Maybe, said Luby, whose day job is teaching technical theater at Paseo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts. Before that he worked for 12 years as a cook at Charlie Hooper's Restaurant in Brookside.

"We're getting more acceptance," Luby said. "...But we're still doing risky, dangerous-type productions. It's working."

Luby and Miller, whose non-theater job is construction, hope to reach new audiences by performing next summer's Greek show, "Agamemnon," at Volker Park and three other geographically diverse locations yet to be determined -- thus kicking off a yearly Greek road show.

The two theater instigators met in 1993 when Miller tried out for a Gorilla Theatre play.

"I didn't cast him," Luby recalled. "Then he came back again and he was hired -- and he moved in. We have a good relationship. Tyler was my best man at my wedding, so there you are."

How do they work together?

"We've switched," Miller said. "I used to be the kind soul who was out to help everybody and make sure everything was OK. David was the impatient, `Damn, it has to happen now, let's go, let's go, let's go!' Now I'm that bastard."

Why did that happen?

"Because he got married," said the single Miller.

Luby and Miller are united on something else: staying in Kansas City. It saddens them that so many others have left town to seek their thespian fortunes in places like New York and Chicago.

"I told all of my friends as they were leaving, `My job is to make sure that when you get back I'll have a place to hire you,' " Miller said. "I'd love to be able to do that."