Grads’ techno-play goes off-off Broadway

Of all the places Andrew Scoville expected to be just months after graduating from Tisch, off-off-Broadway was not on the list. Yet he is currently participating in the Access Theater in the middle of a limited run of his show, “Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” Going from Tisch to the New York International Fringe Festival to the Access in a matter of months, Scoville and his collaborators have climbed the ranks of the New York theater scene quicker than most. It’s not the height of success, but it’s much closer than Scoville said he ever imagined to be at this early of a point in his career.

Scoville began developing the show last fall as a student in the Playwrights Horizons studio in Tisch’s drama department. “Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” began as part of the studio’s Creating Original Work program and is loosely based on James Thurber’s short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” Scoville’s version, which he also directs, is a re-imagining of the short story in a mechanical, futuristic setting. The show tells the story of an ordinary man, Faulty Piston, who works at a baby factory, catching babies as they come out of machines.

Actor Daniel Wood, who plays Piston, explained that the play is set in a “mechanized world, a future dystopia,” where the main character’s only escape from rule by malfunctioning machines comes in the form of a series of wild fantasies.

“It’s a dream landscape juxtaposed with the real world,” he said.

The process was a collaboration between Scoville and the actors and musicians he was working with at the time.

“We started with characters, and the show started to emerge,” Scoville said.

This early version of “Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” was well-received at Playwrights Horizons. Bolstered by the response, Scoville decided to submit the show to the New York International Fringe Festival, a multi-arts festival that takes place each year in August. The Fringe Festival seemed like a logical next step for a talented group of NYU students who were almost done with, or had already completed, their undergraduate years.

The show was accepted and granted a spot in the festival, but the group was not able to obtain the rights to produce it under the name “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” The collaborators began the process of reinventing the show, and “Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” was the result. The version of the show that played at Playwrights Horizons mirrored the Thurber story more closely than the newer version, but “Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” still retains traces of the source material.

“It’s an amalgamation of different influences,” Scoville said, “and deals with the thematic issues I find interesting in ‘Walter Mitty.’ ”

Two of the actors who performed the show at Playwrights Horizons, Elizabeth Alderfer and Sanaz Ghajarrahimi, were able to stay with the project as it moved to the Fringe Festival. Scheduling difficulties prevented the others from doing the same, but Scoville was able to assemble a strong cast with actors he had worked with over the years as a Tisch student. The cast also includes Stevo Arnoczy and Alyssa Yackley.

Wood described the cast as “very brave [and] very willing to embarrass themselves,” traits important to a show without a script. The actors and musicians improvise during every performance, taking risks that usually pay off.

“Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” wasa performed five times at the CSV Cultural and Educational Center on Suffolk Street on the Lower East Side, as part of the 2008 Fringe Festival. Scoville and his colleagues were rewarded with a glowing review on nytheatre.com, but their journey did not end there. According to Scoville, a representative from the Access Theater in Tribeca approached him, saying Access “had been looking for new, emerging artists.”

Now, “Tune Up, Faulty Piston!” is kicking off a series of original work at the Access Theater called the Spotlight Series. The limited run began on Wednesday, and performances continue through this Sunday.

For Scoville and his collaborators, the reality of their success is only beginning to sink in. They are thrilled to be taking their production to a new venue where they will gain even more exposure.

“I didn’t even know if it would have life beyond the Fringe,” Wood said.

As for this uncertain future, Scoville said his goal is merely to transport audiences to a world different than their own. There is no one message or lesson he aims to teach. “I’m a firm believer,” Scoville said, “that the audience, regardless of what I do, can come away with something applicable to their own lives.”


Linnea Bloomquist is NYU arts editor. E-mail her at lbloomquist@nyunews.com.