Johnny Jane: Fringe theater comes to Carbondale

By Amy Hadden Marsh Sopris Sun Correspondent

“What is Fringe?” I asked Kim Nuzzo, actor, artist and therapist, as we sat on the porch outside Dos Gringos on a breezy and pleasantly rainy afternoon. “It’s kind of like off-off-off-off-off-Broadway,” he said. “Way on the edge.”

Zephyr Stage (ZS), of which Kim is associate director, produces original plays that have been staged at Fringe festivals in Edinburgh and Denver. Now, Kim, his wife Valerie (ZS executive artistic director) and actors Finn Benham and Joe Simic, Finn’s partner, are bringing an original Fringe piece, “Johnny Jane,” to Thunder River Theatre on Aug. 5-6.

ZS is a small but mighty company. Based in Fruita since 2017, it’s made up of community actors. “I would say there are probably a dozen that have worked with us,” said Valerie via Zoom. “But now that we've taken it on the road, it's just the four of us.” She said they’re “theater nomads,” like medieval traveling players who set up a stage wherever they go. “Our Green Room is the grass,” she mused.

Original productions include “Gilgamesh and Enkidu" and “Multitudes,” a one-man show starring Kim as Walt Whitman, written and directed by Valerie, who was co-founder and former associate artistic director of Thunder River Theatre Company.

“Johnny Jane” took about a year from sharing ideas to the full production. Several months in, Benham suggested writing about “othering.” Kim explained that “othering” is a manifestation of fear, hate and prejudice. “How do we push people to the outside, make them outsiders, and how does society bring them back in?” he said.

As each shared their thoughts and writings during the process, a plot emerged. Kim wrote about the dark side of addiction. Valerie wrote about disappeared and lost women, and why society doesn’t look for all of them. Benham, who identifies as non-binary, trans-masculine, wrote about gender, and the character of John was born. “That’s his actual name,” said Benham. “Johnny Jane is a nickname that he’s been called since childhood to essentially mock his transition.”

Benham plays the titular character, struggling to come to terms with gender identity. Kim plays a heroin-addicted fallen angel, for whom Benham’s character is caregiver. Valerie’s character is the suicidal ideation of trans youth in the form of the Virgin Mary from an alternate universe. “I am that suicidal impulse. I arrive very scared and very stabby, because I think the only thing that can make it better is if there's this destruction, if we destroy ourselves,” she said.

Benham, also on the Zoom call, summed it up with a line from the play. “I thought I had a choice to express what is within me and live, or to keep what is within me a secret and let it destroy me. But, the truth is, either way can get you killed.”

In a Rocky Mountain PBS interview about the production, Benham said that all the characters are a piece of all of us. “Johnny Jane is a piece of me in the sense that we share that feeling of wanting to be accepted for being trans-masculine,” they explained.

Kim said the characters are not pure. “They’re not good or bad. All the characters have both qualities,” he explained. “That, to me, is a rich part of it.”

Benham has been with ZS for almost six years. They caught a rehearsal for “Art” (by Yasmina Reza) in Fruita, which led to acting lessons with Valerie, writing plays and musicals and eventually to the current collaborative partnership. Acting lessons, said Benham, made them feel vulnerable in a new way. “It was scary, but Val had a way of making it feel incredibly comfortable, which is what made it so easy just to kind of merge into the group,” they said. “Acting immediately became hugely emotional and important in my life and therefore, Val and Kim became hugely important in my life for being the forces that guided me through that.”

The Nuzzos agree that Benham’s youthful energy is the engine of the company. “They were instrumental in finding this strange, wild, wonderful story,” said Valerie.

“Johnny Jane" takes the TRTC stage on Saturday evening, Aug. 5, and for a matinee performance Sunday, Aug. 6. Tickets and more information are at thunderrivertheatre.com

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By Delaney Meyers Sopris Sun Correspondent

SUSTO, an acclaimed altcountry/folk rock/americana/ indie band with a “die-hard fanbase” is slated to perform at The Arts Campus at Willits (TACAW) this coming Saturday evening, Aug. 5, for a standingroom show. If that sounds like a lot of genres, that’s because SUSTO is intriguingly hard to pin down. While the group’s latest album has the rhythmic feel of a rock band, confessional songwriting and catchy acoustic guitar licks are reminiscent of classic country and americana. Their unique sound, blended with electric underpinnings, sometimes verges into the psychedelia, and it is sure to provide an engaging and satisfying musical experience.

The show at TACAW marks one of SUSTO’s first stops on a tour celebrating the launch of their newest record, “My Entire Life,” released July 28. The Carleston, South Carolinabased band has released four previous full-length EPs and now shares a record label with the likes of The String Cheese Incident, Neko Case, Lucinda Williams and Ben Folds, to name a few.

Justin Osborne is the band’s frontman and lead writer, and this album chronicles his experiences over the past several years with illness, divorce and other challenges that life brings. Ultimately, the songs inspire an urgency “to keep living” and “distill wisdom from experience,” and all with a foot-tapping groove.

The band’s name originates from the Latin American concept “susto;” a “folk illness” characterized by somatic suffering due to the soul existing in a state of fear, or being displaced from one’s body — an experience akin to a panic attack. Osborne learned the term as an anthropology student, a pursuit which also landed him in Cuba for some time in the early 2010s. Osborne, feeling he’d hit a wall with music at age 26 after writing songs since 14, was in search of a different path.

However, he ended up surrounded again by musicians who, after hearing his songs, encouraged him to give a career in music a real go. Osborne jokes that he got knuckle tattoos ("Acid Boys") after that to keep him out of any other field, and dove into writing and performing his music.

He moved back to the states and landed in Charleston, in his home state and a town he hadn’t fully explored. Longtime producer Wolfgang “Wolfy” Zimmerman connected Osborne with SUSTO cofounder Johnny Delaware, and the two instantly meshed musically. They went on to record what would be SUSTO’s first self-titled studio album released in 2014.

Many of Osborne’s lyrics deal with the struggles we face in life, loss and the challenges that often come with navigating major changes. Just as much, however, they extol finding joy, hope and love amid the madness. This mirrors Osbornes own philosophy of “finding ways to carry on and manifest happiness” throughout life's “mosaic” of ups and downs. Osborne writes that music is like therapy to him, and his confessional style of songwriting “is [his] way of trying to make sense of the chaos — good and bad — around [him].”

Combined with the fullband sound, Osborne has a way of singing that makes you feel like you’re listening to a classic rock song. But, listening closer, the lyrics reveal themselves as poetry. SUSTO’s sound will have you dancing and grooving all night, and their lyricism will have you reflecting into the next day. Osborne looks at music as a way to remind us that we are never alone in our dichromatic experiences of “being worn down and chasing dreams,” and writes: “the experience of sharing these songs with our audience is something I’m incredibly grateful for.”

SUSTO co-founder Johnny Delaware, who is also a collaborator on SUSTO’s latest release, will open for the band this Saturday, Aug. 5. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm. For tickets, visit TACAW.org