Towle Theater brings life’s ups and downs to stage

Actor Martin Downs describes his May return to the Towle Theatre in Hammond as “a Mother’s Day reunion of sorts.”

Downs is among the five member Towle cast for the play “Hope and Gravity” May 6-22 directed by Suzanne Nyhan.

Showtimes are at 8 p.m.

Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. There is no show on May 8.

“It was this same time of year when I played Lee Harvey Oswald in the play ‘Mama’s Boy’ in 2019 at the Towle and Suzanne Nyhan played my mother, and that run was also around Mother’s Day,” Downs said.

“This time, I get to work with Suzanne in the capacity of being our director.”

Nyhan last directed “Erma Bombeck: At Wits End” in March 2020, the last show staged before the pandemic pause.

“Hope and Gravity” had been planned as the final show title of the Towle 2020 Season, slated for a September 2020 run.

“Even while I was in the cast of ‘Mama’s Boy,’ I was already interested in auditioning for ‘Hope and Gravity’ because I was fascinated by the story and the design of the piece for the way it’s performed and presented to the audience,” Downs said.

“This play was moved to May 2021, and then still had to be pushed back yet again, and so auditions never happened. Being cast back at the Towle for this May also marks my first time back on stage acting for a full theater run since the pandemic happened.”

“Hope and Gravity” is a comedy written by Michael Hollinger which focuses on the intertwined lives of nine people, forever changed by a faulty elevator in a building in a bustling city downtown.

Towle Theater Artistic Director Jeff Casey describes the play as “both comic and tragic.”

“After there’s an elevator that falls in this major city, the audience explores the people involved, and the outcomes, through everything from love and sex to poetry and dentistry in various changes in the timeline of events taking the audience to all these other locations in these people’s lives, like offices, homes and even hotel rooms,” Casey said.

“It’s not an easy play to direct because it’s written and presented to jump around in each of the characters’ lives, with glimpses into the future and the past for how all the dots connect. It keeps the audience focused and engaged.”

While Downs, of Chicago, is returning to the Towle, the rest of the cast Allie Charton, Connor Green and Jared Sheldon, also all of Chicago, and Linda Cunningham of La Grange, are making their debut on the Hammond stage.

“We’ve been waiting to bring this story to our stage since it was first selected after reading it back in early 2019,” Casey said.

“We did the auditions at the start of this year in January. The set stage design is simple, without any walls needed, relying on furniture and the lighting design to change the scene settings as the various subplots unfold.”

Casey said Downs is the only cast member assigned to one role, with the other cast members each assigned to portray two characters, during the two-hour performance which includes one intermission.

“Hope and Gravity” had its world premiere in May 2014 produced by City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh.

“One of the best ways to describe this play is it is nonlinear, so it’s allowed to jump around out of scene sequence,” Casey said.

“This design allows the audience the chance to feel like they are in on what’s about to unfold in the pending scenes, often even before the characters know what will happen, all because of the way the plotline are presented.”

Casey said guests who feel more comfortable wearing masks are encouraged to do so. However, because of the continued decline in COVID-19 case numbers, the Towle Theater is no longer requiring proof of vaccination or masks.