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28 Artscene Sign up now for guitar, bass, drums, and piano OAKVILLE'S MUSIC STORE · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009 RIZIERO VERTOLLI / OAKVILLE BEAVER THE JOY OF DOING LAUNDRY: Oakville playwright Peter Gruner is having his first play, Laund-O-Mat at the End of the World, restaged from Oct. 22-30 as part of The Best of The Fringe at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. The show was a hit at this summer's Hamilton Fringe Festival. Gruner scribbled down the idea for the play as a high school student back in 1975. Local playwright venturing back into familiar territory By Tina Depko OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF It could be said that Peter Gruner has come full circle. He started writing plays as a high school student, and then majored in English and drama at University of Toronto. He had hopes of earning a living as a young actor after he finished school, but the need for steady income, followed by the decision to start a family with his wife, Deb, led him to enter a career in the IT industry. Several decades later, Gruner is gaining acclaim as a playwright with his first show, Laund-O-Mat at the End of the World. The play ran for seven performances at this year's Hamilton Fringe Festival and was selected by Ron Ulrich, the artistic director of Theatre Aquarius, as part of a double feature called The Best of Fringe, running Oct. 22-30 in the studio theatre at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. "It is so exciting for me because I didn't expect to have it staged again so soon," said Gruner, who has called Oakville home for the past 16 years. The seed for Laund-O-Mat at the End of the World was planted when Gruner was in high school. "The germ of it was back in 1975 when my high school teacher read a Ray Bradbury short story called The Last Night of the World, which is basically about people realizing the world is going to end tomorrow and they sort of go about their daily lives, and that idea really stuck in my head," he said. And while you are probably wondering why an English major would spell a word wrong in a play title, rest assured, it was intentional. "There was a Laundromat right near me, where the sign was painted and they had misspelled the word," he said. "I never actually finished writing it, I just had a page." It wasn't until a playwriting workshop at The Pearl Company in Feb. 2007 that Gruner revisited the plot and expanded his one-page scribbling into a one-act play. The script was selected to be performed as part of the Freshwater Pearl Series at The Pearl Company, with four performances in Nov. 2007. Laund-O-Mat at the End of the World is a comedy and a love story, according to Gruner. He says it could be categorized in the Theatre of the Absurd (think Waiting for Godot), but with more laughs. In the play, Brian is convinced that it is the last night of the world. There won't be a tomorrow, but he's got nothing better to do, so he's doing his laundry. Carmella, on the other hand, believes nothing of the sort. It's Friday night. Laundry night. Over soap and sarcasm, two strangers grapple over the relevance of love and family, God and miracles, coincidence and fate, spelling and the end of the world. Gruner said he hopes audiences find something to laugh at, but also take the show to heart. "I hope that maybe this is a gentle push for people to go and do something," he said. "There's also a lot of talk about coincidence versus fate. One of the thoughts I have is that everyone has a cosmic GPS and you have the free will to take direction, but if you decide down the road to go a different way, there's that recalculating where you should go." The script saw the light of day again for this summer's Hamilton Fringe Festival, with seven productions at Hamilton Theatre Inc. Gruner worked sound for the show, which was produced by Quarter to Nine Productions. It starred his two friends and community theatre actor colleagues, Shari Vandermolen and Mike Hannigan. "They are wonderful and really make the show," he said. The same theatre company is staging the work for the upcoming run, with both actors also returning for the show. Gruner said he'll likely be involved with the production, possibly as a stage manager, not wanting to miss a single second of what he considers to be his real calling. Gruner already had his second play, a oneact comedy called Cast Party written in 2008, staged as part of Black Box Fire's Emerging Artist Series in early July at Hamilton Theatre Inc. A third play is already underway, with a working title of Mulling Kilt Attire. Gruner said he is hoping to make the comedy a full-length work, with the intention of catching the eye of an artistic director of a theatre company. "To get plays looked at by professional companies, they are really only looking at the full-length ones," he said. "I'm working towards having a show done in a professional theatre on the main stage. I'd love to be on the main stage of Theatre Aquarius." Gruner said his family is very supportive of his craft, including Deb (a community theatre actress in her own right), daughter Caileigh, 17, son Keaton, 14, and daughter Tara, 11. See Play page 29