In 2012, Wittenberg Adjunct Professor Jason Podplesky began a five-year journey to create a one-act play with music about love, loss and living with the present. After staging a workshop production at the 2017 New Works Festival in Cincinnati, Podplesky now has a hit play on his hands, Led Thespian, which will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
Podplesky has been teaching at Wittenberg University for six years where he directs mainstage theatre productions and teaches classes on theatre history and performance. Students have often described his directing and teaching style as "eccentric, goofy and down-to-earth." Just last year, the popular culture website Buzzfeed noted Wittenberg's Improvisation class, a course taught by Podplesky, is "[not] for the faint of heart."
Podplesky says that the relationship between his academic and artistic careers is symbiotic. "Without one, the other isn't possible,” he says. “Each informs the other."
He also truly cherishes the relationship he has with his students as student artists.
"I enjoy working with young and hungry artists, which students tend to be, and then feed off their energy and creativity," he says. "I am very fortunate in that I often get to make art with my students and so, for me, making or working in my field isn't necessarily something I do separate from my students but often something I do with them. The work I do professionally outside of academia informs and strengthens the knowledge I bring to the work with my students."
The aesthetic of his classroom and his professional work are quite similar. Podplesky was inspired to write Led Thespian while performing in New York City in a series of 10-minute plays called The Stickies at The Bowery Poetry Club. Each play took place at tables and a bar with music from a band in between plays.
After this opportunity, he set out to create a theatrical experience that expanded on this concept in greater detail.
"I loved the environment, but the material felt more like tapas, rather than a substantially full meal," Podplesky said. "I set out to write something that could capture this same environment but incorporate all the scenes and all the music into one plot line."
The Cincinnati LAB Theatre has had a hand in the advancement of Led Thespian. LAB first took on Podplesky's play in its 2017 New Works Festival, and after high praise from audiences, LAB decided to submit the play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The largest arts and culture festival in the world, the event is home to thousands of new works that are performed on hundreds of stages all over the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Podplesky, his cast and the rest of his production crew are currently preparing for their performances that will be staged from Aug. 6-11, 2018.
Podplesky only has positive things to say about LAB.
"I owe them a huge debt of gratitude," he said. "The LAB's support means so much to me."
Podplesky says that having his play presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival lines up perfectly with his current goals. He hopes that other theatres will pick up Led Thespian for future productions, as well as present him with other writing opportunities. He also hopes for his play to be published in a book of one-act plays, much like those his students use to choose their plays from in his directing class.
This summer, Podplesky is continuing his relationship with The Cincinati LAB Theatre by directing an original play as part of their 2018 New Works Festival. The play is called The Hired Man by Heather Meyer and will run July 26 and 28 at 7:30 p.m.in Cincinnati. For more information, visit http://cincylabtheatre.wixsite.com/cincylab/current-production.
-By Logan McCord ’19
