'Gentle Larceny' a 1-man show featuring Ligonier actor will be staged at Unity hotel

When he started planning his nonprofit theater company, former University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg professor Stephen Schrum wanted to look for works that strayed from the traditional theater production.

Without a dedicated venue to perform in, Schrum said he hoped to adapt the medium to fit into new and unique performance spaces.

With that in mind, Storyz Studio’s first production will be a one-man play that Schrum said doesn’t really seem like a play at all, and it will be staged at a Unity hotel.

“Gentle Larceny” is the story of Wilson Mizner, who Schrum describes as a “storyteller, raconteur, bon vivant, land developer and entrepreneur, playwright, screenwriter and part-time gentleman, full-time conman, gambler, hustler and swindler.”

The play, written by Terry Hamilton, came to Schrum by way of his fiancee, Joyce Graham.

“She knew someone who knew the playwright, and at some point she handed it to me to read and consider for production,” Schrum said. “The play is a bit of a quirky work. It doesn’t read like a regular play, with a beginning, middle and end, a conflict and a resolution following the development of a character arc.”

Schrum said the play unfolds more in the mode of a person telling their life’s story. In order to tell that story, he turned to one of his former Pitt-Greensburg students, Cletus McConville.

“I shadowed Steve at his job before I was a student and got to know him pretty well,” said McConville, 30, of Ligonier, who graduated Pitt-Greensburg in 2016 and now works as a Westmoreland County tax assessor. “He was kind of my mentor over those four years and that has continued.”

McConville said he’s excited for the challenge of a one-man show.

“I like it because during his story, he interacts with people from all walks of life, and I get to pretend to be those people these little 10-second bursts,” he said. “For me, that’s a lot of fun. I’m flattered that Steve thought of me to come do this.”

Schrum is excited not just to be putting on StoryZ Studio’s first performance, but also to be working with the SpringHill Suites by Marriott hotel in Unity to stage it.

“It’s great we can collaborate with a local venue,” he said. “When I was at Berkeley, I was always excited to see the San Francisco Mime Troupe, where they’d just come into town, set up their truck and perform. That’s kind of what we’d like to do.”

“Gentle Larceny” will take place at 7:30 p.m. March 8-9 at the SpringHill Suites, 115 Arnold Palmer Drive in Unity.

Tickets are $10 and available at Eventbrite.com.