Beyond Huck & Jim

Matt Sanders: Have you acted together a lot?

Desmond Gray: The only time I remember acting with Andrew was in an acting class ...

Andrew Kruep: We did one scene together.

DG: I was God, he was Adam. Other than that, just dance concert stuff.

MS: Is it weird to play a character that's from a totally different time?

DG: No, just because that's what it's all about to me. You rarely play a role in theater when it's current times, it's always in the future or the past, so it's just something you get used to. I never expect to be in a present-day play.

AK: I always look at it as ... instead of what do I have to be ... what do I get to be ...

MS: Was it pretty cool to get to be Huck and Jim?

AK: Yeah. [<I>To Desmond<I>] I don't know if you, did you guys read it in high school?

DG: Yeah.

AK: Yeah, we did, too, and it's just something that's had, not really controversy over it, although it has ... it's cool to see the history behind it, and getting to play something like that is pretty amazing.

MS: What about the whole race controversy Desmond? Does the story mean more to you because you're a young black man?

DG: I think it's an important story. I think it's one that needs to always be told, no matter how ... progressive or no matter how equal we think that we've become, I think it's a story that should always be told.

MS: You're opening the first stage production here? Does that make it any different, or is this just another show?

DG: The idea that it's the first show isn't intimidating to me, it's just getting used to the new space, really. Since we've been acting on the Rose [Theatre stage] for a good two years, and just to be thrown into this new space can be intimidating, but it's excited that it's the first show. It's not intimidating, it's not making me afraid any more than I already am. It's exciting to me.

AK: About the same thing. And the fact that we've had all this, this last weekend was the big opening, and ... this is kind of the first time we've had like a preview, kind of advertisement thing, and all this stuff that's going on, all the tech stuff, that we're going to be doing all the way up to opening night. It really is just getting used to the new space.