Word up, peeps! It’s time once again for another FringeFamous Five! For this round, we got together with Jason Ballweber, one of the Artistic Directors of the up-and-coming Four Humors Theater. Their current production of Romeo and Juliet was directed by Ballweber and runs until May 18th over at the Bedlam Theater.

For those who are not familiar with Four Humors Theater, can you give us some background on the company?

JASON BALLWEBER: The company was started by Nick Ryan as a platform to produce his own works. Brant Miller helped him with their first production of Deviled Eggs. After that Nick wanted someone to direct Inspector Rex for the Fringe Festival. Brant and I worked together for a while and I was brought on. Later, during Bards. Matt Spring was made an official Artistic Director. We work together on mostly original productions where our focus is having fun during the process of creation and rehearsal. We are currently working under the mission statement of “We make the beautiful foolish and the foolish beautiful.”

Romeo and Juliet (and Shakespeare in general) is done everywhere all the time. What’s going to be different about this production?

JB: This production started with a very heavy investment on the text. We went back to the First Folio and with the help of Kelley Ristow picked the hell out of it. We made discoveries and read scenes that are almost always cut from the play. It was very important to me to do a new cutting of the text so I worked on that. In the rehearsal process we worked very hard on finding the honesty in the text. There are wonderfully beautiful moments in the text that people usually ignore because (I can only guess) they aren’t dramatic enough. This script, and our production, is sweet, funny, beautiful, playful, and tragic all at the same time.

Until Romeo And Juliet, every play Four Humors has done has been an original work. Why the change?

JB: There are many plays out there that the Artistic Directors of Four Humors want to work on. The main reason for Romeo and Juliet was it was the script that I wanted to do that we felt everyone knows. With our work before it has been very hard for an audience to really see how Four Humors as a whole tells stories. Because it has always been Nick Ryan’s writing we wanted to show that we are much more of a collaborative theater company than what people think.

Sorry to jump the gun, but I gotta know about Four Humors’ fringe festival entry, Mortem Capiendum. You’re one of the writers and you’re in it. Give us the run-down.

JB: I would like to not talk about the story so much and talk about the process. This is the first show that the Artistic Directors will be creating together. We have worked together a lot and do improv together whenever we can, but this will be the first time we create a show with just the four of us. It is very exciting for us to bounce off of each other this way.

Mortem Capiendum will also be playing at 4 other fringe festivals around the country. Besides the obvious monetary advantage, what’s the reason for a touring show?

JB: One of the main reasons was because it sounded like fun and it was a good time for us to try it out. We are really excited to see how other audiences respond to us. Quite honestly, the money was a little farther down our “pros” list than what you might think. The four of us like spending time together, we love theater, and we all have a little wanderlust in us, so a traveling show sounded like the best thing we could do as a company and as friends.

Jason Ballweber is one of the Artistic Directors of Four Humors Theater. For Four Humors, he has directed Inspector Rex, Deviled Eggs, Spaceman Chronicles, Bards, and now Romeo and Juliet. He will also be performing in the touring Mortem Capiendum which is the latest show created by the Four Humors Artistic Directors. Jason has also performed with companies such as Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Three Sticks, Jon Ferguson Theatre, and The Minnesota Orchestra.