FEATURE: Andy's House of Blank | Know Theatre of Cincinnati | Cincinnati Enquirer
““The story of their first meeting is memorable. If only it were true.
But then, Trey Tatum and Paul Strickland are playwrights and storytellers. Why let a little inconvenience like the truth stand in the way of an excellent story?
The pair’s quirky musical, “Andy’s House of [blank],” which opens Friday, Oct. 30 at the Know Theatre of Cincinnati, begins with a fictional tale about that meeting. In some alternate, imaginary universe, they were 16 and had summer jobs at an oddity shop in a beach town called Florala.””
““It proved to be enormously popular as a part of “Serials.” So when Andrew Hungerford, the Know’s producing artistic director, set out to assemble the theater’s most ambitious season in years, he approached the pair about expanding the show into a full-length production.
’They wrote such a cool piece,’ says Hungerford. ‘What they were able to do in such a limited time was so amazing. What if they had more time and a longer run?’””
““Despite their geographically similar roots, the two have very different creative styles. Strickland’s approach is methodical and straightforward. Ideas may stew around in his head for months or years before they surface in one of the storytelling adventures he tours around North America every year.
Tatum, on the other hand, has a near-manic quality about him. Conversations move quickly and sometimes in many directions at once. You’ve got to pay close attention or he will have raced a couple of ideas ahead of you.
But they have proven to be effective creative foils for one another. Strickland plots out storylines and twists. When he writes, he knows very specifically where the story is headed. That’s when Tatum enters the process. He “thinks like a shotgun,” says Strickland. Very quickly, Strickland’s ideas may get fragmented or turned inside out. Or they may take on a slightly mystical quality.””