The legendary playwright George S. Kaufman was quoted as saying plays aren’t written, they are rewritten. It was his contention that only 20-30 percent of his first draft usually made it to the stage on opening night. 

Working on a new play adds a layer of joy and excitement to the work of a theater artist. And we at Playground 630 have had the wonderful experience of working on David Rousculp‘s new play, The Sexton. It is Rousculp’s followup to his terrific play My Dead Clown, which I produced in the summer of 2018. Like My Dead Clown, he has given Fort Wayne another wonderfully quirky, funny, and heartwarming play. It has been a joy to help shape it over the past several months.

The Sexton is set in Pioneer Cemetery (Rousculp runs Harper’s Funeral Home in New Haven, so it seems death follows him into his art), where Walter “Wally” Boswell has started a job as the sexton, think caretaker of the cemetery. Wally has a special sixth sense in that he is able to communicate with the dead. 

Turns out Pioneer Cemetery has five troublesome ghosts who have not found a way to cross over from their earthly lives to whatever awaits them next. And so, they hang out together in a kind of limbo, each refusing to confront issues from the lives they have lived, so they are unable to fulfill their spiritual potential. 

The play is also peopled with Wally’s boss and a developer. They plan to turn the cemetery into a commercial and condo development. So there is an urgency to Wally helping the ghosts make the leap to whatever awaits them.

Playground 630 has assembled a marvelously talented ensemble of actors and tech people to breathe life into Rousculp’s play. The five ghosts include Cortney White, Nancy Kartholl, Scott McMeen, Robyn Pasko, and Rodney Pasko. The cast members playing the living are Chuck Fenwick as Wally the Sexton; Chevas Hefflinger as Karen, his obnoxious boss; Mitch Harper as town council president the Rev. Steve Adams; Benjamin C. Roney as Jacques Diesal, a developer of big-box stores; and Sarah Hodgin as a young widow who befriends Wally. 

Costumes are designed by the ever-talented Jeanette Walsh, technical direction is by Corey Lee, and the whole thing runs smoothly because of the stage management of Courtney Leigh Wallace.

Playground 630 is a 501(c)(3) corporation, which is the Company in Residence at Purdue Fort Wayne’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. As such, most of their performances happen in the Studio Theatre in Kettler Hall on the Purdue University-Fort Wayne campus. 

To reserve tickets, go to the thesexton.eventbrite.com, or call (260) 416-4461. It is so important to support new work in our community, it’s what allows the next original script to make it to the stage. Hope to see you at the theater.