Por Charlene Baldridge

Introducing the fledgling Backyard Renaissance Theatre

In 2001, beauteous and talented actor Jessica John founded a homeless gypsy theater company called Backyard with her friend, actor Lauren Zimmerman Wilson. Sound: A whoosh of water under the bridge.

At precisely the same time, a talented San Diego newcomer Francis Gercke, a graduate of The Actors Studio Drama School at the New School for Social Research in New York, co-founded New Village Arts Theatre (with his then-wife Kristianne Kurner), now located in the village of Carlsbad. Whoosh of more time: John and Gercke, who’d been paired extensively together onstage, married.

In 2015, they founded their own gypsy company, Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company. He is artistic director and she executive director, producing two shows, “Parlour Song” and “The Elephant Man,” co-produced with Oceanside Theatre Company and starring Gercke and John.

Watch out San Diego and Diversionary Theatre: With Gercke and John acting as producers, Backyard Renaissance has gathered significant forces and will present the San Diego premiere of the off-Broadway musical spoof, “Gutenberg! The Musical!” in which Bud and Doug think they’ve written the greatest musical of all time — a big, splashy, song-and-dance spectacular about the inventor of the printing press, Johann Gutenberg. The audience plays backers and an audition where Bud and Doug play all 30 roles, and hopefully find a big-time producer to make their Broadway dreams come true.

The piece is staged by Kim Strassberger, who recently co-directed (with Claudio Raygoza) Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George,” a co-production of San Diego Museum of Art and ion theatre company. She also directed Diversionary’s “A New Brain,” which starred the guys in her upcoming show.

Starring in the two-person off-Broadway musical are spectacularly talented San Diego theater artists Anthony Methvin and Tom Zohar (they just celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary) — and there’s a story worthy of a book musical. Having received much acclaim for his San Diego area performances in productions at Diversionary, La Jolla Playhouse, Cygnet, Moonlight, New Village Arts and more, singer/actor/pianist/composer Zohar took off for New York City in 2010, determined to knock ‘em dead with a round of auditions and become a Broadway Baby.

“I met him a week after he arrived,” actor/singer Methvin said. They fell in love and married, and as time went by became increasingly burned out with life in the Big Apple. So they decided to continue their life as a married couple somewhere else, somewhere more humane. Where better than San Diego?

The first show Methvin did after his arrival was the world premiere of “Harmony, Kansas” at Diversionary Theatre. Zohar was in the company, too. Then they got to play opposite one another in “A New Brain,” also at Diversionary, where Anthony works as programs and events manager.

“It wasn’t until we moved to San Diego that I was able to really feel a part of the theater community and make my living in the theater,” Methvin said. “I feel more creatively energized here than I ever did in New York City.”

Currently, Methvin is shifting his focus from dramaturgy to directing, having assisted at The Old Globe, Cygnet and Diversionary. He is also in the early stages of writing a new play.

Asked how two similarly gifted men manage to get along, Zohar said, “Anthony and I are creative in different ways. We don’t always get along perfectly — but I feel that would be boring. We work in different ways, but I think that’s a good thing. He’s a lot smarter and more calculated than I and likes to think everything through. I just go with instinct and throw things at the wall to see what sticks. But in the end we have a good time together and it works out.

‘“Gutenberg!’ was a 100 percent Anthony find,” he continued. “It’s a big musical theater parody so the music varies and can sound like anything from ‘Phantom of the Opera’ to ‘Music Man’ to ‘Wicked.’”

—Charlene Baldridge ha estado escribiendo sobre las artes desde 1979. Siga su blog en charlenebaldridge.com o comuníquese con ella en [email protected].