This coming weekend, The Wrecking Crew Theater Company will bring their production of Adriano Shaplin’s Pugilist Specialist to Wallingford’s Stone Soup Theater. Described as a “piercing look at our nation’s military power through the eyes of a group of soldiers assigned to perform a black-ops mission,” Pugilist promises to step outside traditional theatrical boundaries and engage spectators on an exploration of “freedom, gender equality, power and what it means to be a soldier in the modern age.”
A core mission of this company is to present the “riskier” side of theater–that which provokes the audience and prompts response across the barriers of that ever-pesky 4th wall. The company, director Tyrone Brown and actors Colin Featherston-Wilkinson and John-Paul Wilson, was formed in 2009 after performing another of Shaplin’s plays, Wreck the Airline Barrier. Inspired to action by Shaplin’s use of language, space and reaction, The Wrecking Crew’s productions are alive with ideas and emotions.
What: Pugilist Specialist, by Adriano Shaplin and directed by Tyrone Brown 
Where: Stone Soup Theater at 4029 Stone Way North
When: Friday and Saturdays from May 11th through May 19th at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15-$25, purchased at Brown Paper Tickets