February | 2013 | Ashland Theatre

Southern Oregon University associate professor David McCandless is directing the premiere of his play “Invisible Threads,” which opens Thursday in SOU’s Center Stage Theatre. We chatted in his office in the Theatre Arts Department.

DM: The premise is, a mysterious figure recruits some down-on-their-luck actors to apply their thespian skills to rescue some people from real-life crises. It preys upon that ethic angst that a lot of actors have: that they’re not contributing to the world; that they’re not really doing anything to help people; and that they’re just indulging themselves.

It explores the thin border between illusion and reality. It has to do with that theater and life continuum. It’s meant to be an examination of role-playing and identity, and the joys and the limits of theater.

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Jim Edmondson, who is directing the “The Cyrano Project” at Southern Oregon University, is an associate artist at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he has been an actor and director for 38 seasons. We met one afternoon in the Center Square Theatre at Southern Oregon University.

EH: When did you discover that you wanted to do theater?

JE: It was about the time I was a junior in high school, as so many people do. I had always been a pretty imaginative kid. It just was clearly where I was happiest. We hear a lot of people say, “I found my tribe,” but I really did. They laughed at the same things I did; they accepted everybody. It seemed a good match.

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