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'Off-Bardway' comes into its own For someone who moved to Ashland to live in the mountains, Peter Alzado is afraid of heights. Alzado, the artistic director for Oregon Stage Works, was roused for a photo-shoot atop his latest venue - the Ashland Springs Hotel, where his theater is performing in the building's Elfinwood Room. But the elevation gave him pause, and he waited for several minutes before ascending the ladder to perch atop the roof covering the elevator shaft. "I'm not going up there. No way," Alzado yelled. He would refuse multiple times, before making his climb. Following his ascent, Alzado joined Joshua Heuertz and Shallon Ferris of The Green Room; and Justin Lockwood of the Artattack Theater Ensemble and took in the view. Alzado's face broke out into a grin. The purpose of the shoot was to document - in the same place, and at the same time - the leaders of Ashland's off-Bardway theaters. It was sunset, and with the sprawling expanse of the Ashland watershed, and the rooftops of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as his backdrop, Alzado finally relaxed. But for Alzado, it was a kind of homecoming. He was standing atop his new home - and for now, the home of his new theater. Here in Ashland, there is the Bardway - taking the form of the powerful and well-established Oregon Shakespeare Festival, complete with a multi-million dollar budget, and deep banks of talent. Then there is off-Bardway - a collection of non-profit theaters that dwell in OSF's shadow. Off-Bardway is largely formed by Alzado's group and that of two couples: Justin Lockwood and Nicole Isaacson-Hill run Artattack Theater Ensemble, which is now ensconced in what used to be a grocery store. Joshua Heuertz and Shallon Ferris serve as co-artistic directors for the Green Room, a small theater housed in Ashland's industrial park on Hersey Street. Alzado -the former artistic director of Talent-based Actors' Theatre leads Oregon Stage Works, formed after his ouster from Actors' Theatre last year. Following the rooftop shoot, Lockwood, Heuertz, Ferris and Alzado sat down together for the first time to break bread, have a drink, talk about theater, and what it means to represent the smaller theaters in a town known for just one. Lockwood, 24, whose theater opens for the first time in its own space later this month said Ashland had too much promise to ignore. "I'd rather be in a town that holds so much promise, than a city that's maxed itself out. Why move to a town in which the community is so developed that I can't have a hand in driving the artistic direction of a community. We're in on the ground floor, and we can be captains of our own artistic ships," Lockwood said. Shallon Ferris, the co-artistic director for the Green Room sounded a similar note. "For me, Ashland is my home. It's a place I wanted to do theater, and we're doing it," Ferris said. Ferris' partner, Joshua Heuertz concurred. "It's true, we've always been the underdog. We never got funding, we just went and did it. And I don't really want to be rich and famous. It's nice to be a big fish, and I've always wanted to have fun in the house. It's not more legitimate with 1,200 in the house than with 70. Or that's what I keep telling myself," Heuertz said. Heuertz, Ferris and Lockwood are in their mid-20s. Alzado at 52 serves as off-Bardway's senior statesman, and his reasons for making a stab at founding a theater in Ashland are his own. "I didn't find success in New York to be what it was all cracked up to be. I wanted to find a place in the mountains, raise children and do theater," Alzado said. All three groups have faced their unique trials. For Lockwood, getting the city to lift zoning restrictions made in the mid-1990s that prohibit theaters in certain zones has been nothing short of harrowing. Lockwood and his partner Isaacson-Hill have gone into significant debt in creating their theater, and now have a home for the first time. The pair plan to open with a debut production of "A Lion in Winter" next month, and hope that begins the process of getting out of the red. "Ultimately, it was a time-game. Time was limited, and we had to do something we did not want, and went into some debt. And there's no way to figure out what our lost revenues were. As it was, we lost $15,000 without the lost revenues, and that's just money down the drain," Lockwood said. In the end, Lockwood and Isaacson-Hill went $5,000 into the red to keep their theater. Lockwood said it would likely take the better part of the year to make up that shortfall, unless a donor steps in. "I never feared that it was not going to happen," Lockwood noted. "It just seemed too ridiculous. There are enough people in Ashland that would have gotten up and spoken out. I mean, in Ashland the whole economy is based on theater. It would be like outlawing coffee in Brazil," Lockwood said. The Green Room faced similar restrictions from the city - restrictions that over the past few months are starting to be ironed out with city officials. But even as zoning laws threatened the ultimate fate of The Green Room, both Ferris and Heuertz spent their time immersed in work and keeping the theater open. "We haven't been dark in the last three months," Heuertz said. "We've been able to keep a lot going on - we don't have runs, so every show is different." "City officials are different than the City of Ashland. The city itself has always supported us. The city officials - we don't know who they are, and we don't know if they see our shows," Ferris said. "Since the city hadn't given us as much grief as Justin, I just spent my time working on shows. We're not making money in any grand way, but we are on the way to making the theater more than self-sufficient," Ferris said. For Alzado, while finding a permanent home continues to be the primary mission - outside of fundraising - of Oregon Stage Works board of directors, finding a space to operate in was as simple as checking into a hotel. In this case, the hotel was the Ashland Springs, which had a capacious dining room available. Today, the Elfinwood Room plays host to OSW's production of Talley's Folly. The modular and portable set is sufficient to work, and Alzado said wherever the stage ultimately ends up, the components will serve to erect a stage. The visions for the future of Artattack, OSW and the Green Room are as diverse as their theaters and their directors. Artattack is aggressive in exploring new plays, as well as reinterpreting classics like A Lion in Winter. The Green Room is more focused on new work - sometimes without a script, supplemented by a heavy dose of improvisational theater. OSW perpetuates the Alzado approach of mining a backlist of plays - new and old - that speak to contemporary social and political values. Through their collective efforts, the three groups hope to cultivate a more sophisticated local audience, and an audience that views theater as more than simply Shakespeare. "Ashland really hasn't been a theater town. But it's starting to become one," Lockwood said. "You have venues in New York, Chicago - and these theaters are falling apart, but every seat is filled. Local people don't know yet how great a small black-box theater can be. There's real energy happening there." Alzado concurred that theater is catching on, not just with tourists, but with locals as a form of entertainment. What is needed, Alzado said, is more theaters doing diverse material. "There are people in New York City that will walk up five flights of stairs to sit in a 50 person theater. They are theater-goers. They understand that theater is a forum to look at culture," Alzado said. "At Actors' Theatre we were beginning to develop a sophisticated audience. That process was interrupted, but people were are going to theater to see great writing - that's the process that needs to continue, and slowly it will develop." "The stuff we're trying to do is be Friday night entertainment," Heuertz said. "Movies are entertainment. The question is why more people don't go to theater to be entertained in the same way. What we offer is a different temp. We can be sublime, and touching, but we can also be something that you go out and do on Friday night." LINKS: REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. 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