By Cassandra Santiago
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One airport. One dying man. Seven characters. And too many unlikely links to one another.

The Queue, a dance-theater performance, transforms the passive act of waiting in an airport into an artistically humorous showing of what happens when private matters are aired in a public setting.

Lucky Plush Productions, a Chicago-based ensemble, will return to North Hall’s Space/Place for the first time since 2012 at 7:30 p.m. today and Friday to bring the production to life.

“We just had such a great experience last time that we’ve been looking forward to coming back and deepening our connection with [Iowa City] audiences,” said Julia Rhoads, the founder and artistic director of Lucky Plush Productions.

The show, which took about a year and a half to construct, was co-created and conceptualized by Rhoads, along with collaborating director Leslie Buxbaum Danzig. But the performers always play a key part in the development process; Rhoads views Lucky Plush as a highly collaborative ensemble that contributes equally to the artistic value of shows. Nevertheless, she believes the work never stops developing.

“Even though [The Queue has] been touring for a year, we still tweak it all the time because that keeps it alive for the performers,” Rhoads said. “They’re not sort of settling.”

Fifteen years ago, she decided not to settle. She was an ensemble member in a company when it elected to go in a different direction than the dance and theater field she’d been in for years.

Knowing dance and theater were her passions, Rhoades and another ensemble member decided to form Lucky Plush Productions in 1999 as the platform for their work. A few years later, the company went through the process of becoming a nonprofit organization in order to fund productions and pay ensemble members.

“I love creating original dance-theater work, and I love doing that with a team of people who share my artistic and aesthetic values,” Rhoads said.

And at least one of the company’s performers has definitely shared those values for the last 11 years.

Meghann Wilkinson, who, as a 2003 alumni of Northwestern University, received formal training in dance, saw Lucky Plush perform an excerpt in a Chicago festival. She decided to keep her eyes on the company.

“It was doing movements that I thought were really beautiful and that I connected with on a physical level, but the piece was also funny,” she said. “They were making me laugh, and I thought it was really smart in the way that it was crafted.”

Fortunately for her, during the summer of 2004, the company had an opening. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, Wilkinson auditioned with more than 100 people. Today, she considers herself “very lucky to have found her niche” with Lucky Plush for more than a decade

Wilkinson will perform in The Queue as Rose, the great-grandniece of the dying man. Rose’s role will be quite complicated and secretive throughout most of the play.

The play’s simplicity will come from its set. The Queue will rely heavily on the performance of the ensemble and lighting of Space/Place.

“Instead of having actual walls and things that would be in an airport … we accomplished a lot of that through lighting and through the arrangement of how our bodies are on the stage,” Wilkinson said.

Some of the only props used are folding chairs, suitcases, backpacks, and a makeshift conveyor belt. While many may see this as an obstacle, Wilkinson said the performers prefer this type of set. The majority of this company’s ensemble, like Wilkinson, have a modern-dance background, in which the use of a scenery and props is minimal.

“The audience knows they’re supposed to be in an airport, and we can carry them through to a certain extent,” Wilkinson said. “[But] I think there’s something funny and charming about how it’s not super slick and doesn’t have everything that would actually be there.”

What The Queue does require is a hefty amount of speaking. In order to prepare for this aspect, the ensemble depended less on coaching for acting and more on enhancing performance skills that involve integrating the voice with movement.

“We train in our rehearsal process to be as comfortable as possible with being themselves on stage,” Rhoads said. “We’re training for them to respond in a very authentic way.”

Lucky Plush focuses on doing hybrid work “in which both dance and theater share an equal voice,” Rhoads said. She, in particular, is concerned with producing work in which neither dance nor theater is compromised.

Audiences this weekend can expect an additional musical treat: The Claudettes, a neo-vaudevillian drum and piano duo, will be featured in the show. The pair will not only play music but also be pulled into the narrative and drama of the production.

“[The two] are an intricate part of the show … part of the development, part of The Queue,” said Jacob Yarrow, the Hancher programming director.

Yarrow decided it was time to bring Lucky Plush back to Iowa City after seeing its performance of The Queue in Chicago last year. His rapport with the company began around five years ago, when he saw it perform in St. Louis. Ultimately, Hancher selected Space/Place for The Queue because of the space’s aesthetic fit.

“The audience will feel very close and very engaged because of the nature of the Space/Place Theater and the nature of the art,” Yarrow said. “I’m really excited to see the electricity that will develop between the audience and the performers.”

As for what, exactly, will cause that electricity, Yarrow won’t say.

“I can’t tell you what they are,” he said. “[I’ve been] sworn to secrecy.”

It seems the only way to know the secrets of the “vigorously composed” show is to take Rhoads’ advice: “Come and see The Queue.”

DANCE | THEATER

Lucky Plush: The Queue

Where: North Hall Space/Place

When: 7:30 p.m. Today & Friday

Admission: $10 Student and Youth

$31 Senior Citizen

$35 Nonstudent