Over Our Head Players Kicks Off Season with Hard-Hitting Drama

A Chicago cop drama with parallels to the Jeffrey Dahmer story opens this weekend at Sixth Street Theatre in Racine, unofficially kicking off the 20th season of Over Our Head Players.

Playhouse members didn’t expect to get permission to produce “A Steady Rain,” which recently came off a professional run in Chicago, said Rich Smith, managing artistic director.

But, despite that recent run and its record setting production on Broadway in New York, which featured actors Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, Over Our Head Players got the green light to bring the play to the small stage as part of it 2011-2012 season.

Director Brad Kostreva likened “A Steady Rain” to an episode of TV cop shows “The Shield” or “NYPD Blue.” And, he said, he was drawn to “A Steady Rain” because of the moral ambiguities facing lead characters Joey and Denny.

Friends since childhood, their relationship is tested after they get a domestic disturbance call that mirrors the infamous decision of two Milwaukee police officers, who unwittingly released a teenage boy – Dahmer’s last victim – to one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.

“We get to see them make these decisions and decide if we would have gone the same way,” said Kostreva, who hoped the moral dilemma would carry people from the playhouse to the corner pub, where they might dissect and discuss the play.

To some extent, all the plays on this year’s bill at Sixth Street Theatre are meant to spark conversation, Smith said.

“We look to get a couple of things in the season that are really new, and then a couple of things that are odd and unique – things people around her won’t get a chance to see unless we take a crack at it,” Smith said.

This year, that meant revisiting a few plays the company tackled years before, including the bedroom comedy “Do Not Disturb” and, when it opened for OOHP in September 2011, the ill-timed “ART,” a debate about art wrapped in a play about a white painting.

Both plays are homage to the play company’s 20-year run, which began in a back room of George’s pub on Main Street in Racine.

“It started off as all just stuff that we wanted to do for fun and for art and to bring things to our community,” Smith said. “And I think good things have come out of that.”