Fortunate timing

Playwright's star rises with Denver production, marriage

Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 21, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Theater

More stories »

Kelly McAllister was sitting in a bar when he heard the words that would form his new play.

Two women were talking to each other.

"That guy thinks you and him are gonna hook up tonight," one said.

"Well, at some unfortunate hour he's gonna find out he's an (expletive)," the friend replied.

Some Unfortunate Hour became the title of McAllister's new play, and his first production since moving from New York to Denver to be with his new wife.

It was inspired not only by the overheard phrase, but by the experiences of his friend, Denver actor Dan O'Neill, who stars in the play, beginning previews tonight at the Avenue Theater.

The two met at the age of 18 in a California Denny's near San Jose State University, where both were attending college. O'Neill, McAllister says, was caught up in being dramatic and dark.

"He was wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses at night," McAllister says, smiling.

"You know why I smoke?" O'Neill said. "James Dean smoked. Marlon Brando smoked. All the great actors smoke."

The next thing McAllister knew, they were doing improv in the parking lot of a Denny's. Fifteen years later, O'Neill was living in Denver and McAllister in New York, where he was making the transition from Equity actor to frequently working playwright.

His first play, Last Call, won the Excellence in Playwriting award at the 2002 New York Fringe Festival and scenes from it were published in two anthologies. He returned to the Fringe in 2003 with Muse of Fire; and with his third play, Burning the Old Man, he found an agent.

"Things just started to happen really quick, a lot faster than it did in acting," he says.

He hasn't had a major production yet, but hopeful signs abound.

"I'm on everyone's radar and they're like, 'Oh, we love it, keep sending us more,' blah, blah, blah," he says.

While visiting the Fringe last summer, O'Neill brought a friend, Lisa Margaret Holub. Within months, McAllister was moving to Denver and marrying Holub in Prague, Czech Republic. Now he's temping here (she's an art teacher) and writing. "As a writer, I have an agent in New York, so I don't have to be there," he says.

O'Neill also spurred McAllister's play, which is being produced by The Other Theatre Co. and stars O'Neill, Karen Slack and Elgin Kelley. O'Neill had divorced in 2004, and McAllister - who at the time had never been married - started thinking about what that meant.

"It was inspired by the idea of getting divorced, and all the stupid things you do," McAllister says.

He created a Denver schoolteacher who has signed his divorce papers that day and wanders into a bar for solace. He communes with his favorite bartender and meets another woman, the young and beautiful Charity.

"The bartender was a non-character, and then I thought, what if she's in love with this guy and she feeds his badness every night?" McAllister says.

The play was inspired by O'Neill's situation, but it is fiction. "It's not about them at all," McAllister says. "It's about life, and people, experiences, and so forth."

There is a through line in McAllister's work, and if it's not alcohol (which it may be), it's pain.

"When people get drunk they get a little more grandiloquent in their language. It affords you a little more poetry," he says.

"The world is full of broken people trying desperately to mend themselves."

Lisa Bornstein is the theater critic. bornsteinl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5101

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News