Haus of Ruckus' “Spaceworms,” February 24 through March 3

Saturday, February 24, through Sunday, March 3, 7:34 p.m.

St. Ambrose University's Studio Theatre, 2101 North Gaines Street, Davenport IA

Led by company founders T. Green and Calvin Vo, Haus of Ruckus is set to open a new comedy (with puppets) featuring the duo's stage alter egos Johnny and Fungus. If you feel like you just read that information on this site, like, days ago, you're not far off the mark: Haus of Ruckus' previous Johnny-and-Fungus adventure Punk Rock Lobster debuted on January 19 and closed on the 28th.

“It's not necessarily weird that we're doing another one so soon,” says Vo. “I'd say it's less weird than … . What's the word?”

“Stressful,” says Green.

“Yeah. That's it.”

Yet Vo/Johnny and Green/Fungus are indeed already back for more theatrical nuttiness, with Spaceworms enjoying a February 24 through March 3 run at the Studio Theatre of Davenport's St. Ambrose University. That's a fast turnover for the troupe that generally has at least a couple of months of down-time between shows, and as Vo admits, “I don't know if we're gonna do it like this again.

“I mean, obviously,” Vo continues, “without having our own space and working with other theatres' programming, we're trying to fit in where we can and get our shows on. But this is very close [between productions] for us, and I think it's gonna be a nice vacation after these two shows are done.”

“Normally after we open a show,” adds Green, “there's this feeling of closure at the end. 'We did it, and now we get a break.' But instead, this was going home from celebrating Punk Rock Lobster and then getting started on pre-production for this one. I do want to say that this show is a good time, and it's been a lot of fun to work with people we don't normally get to work with. But you know … .”

“I'm thinking there might be a big hoo-rah for us once this show is completed,” says Vo.

Spaceworms itself is its own kind of hoo-rah, because when we spoke last month, Green said that the company's upcoming comedy was “our first concept we ever came up with” – the idea that eventually led to Haus of Ruckus' creation. Now, the company is producing its eighth full-length stage piece since the fall of 2021, and sending slacker best buds Johnny and Fungus, as Green says, “to another place where they shouldn't be able to breathe. Last time it was underwater; now it's space.”

Adding that “this version of the script is unrecognizable compared to the draft we had five or six years ago,” Green explains that Haus of Ruckus' latest is an adventure in which “Johnny uncovers a VHS of a sci-fi movie he liked as a kid called Spaceworms. But he discovers that it's really bad. So he goes online to speak badly about it – and in doing so, he attracts the anger of the real spaceworms who made the movie. As we joke in the script, there's no real reason why they make these movies, and they don't particularly enjoy it. They're just very defensive about them.

“So then they beam us up onto their spaceworm ship,” Green continues, “and Johnny and Fungus try to escape the wrath of these worms. It's maybe our most puppet-heavy show yet. Almost every character is a puppet except for Johnny, Fungus, and I think two other characters.” As those familiar with the Haus of Ruckus oeuvre can attest, that means there'll be a lot of puppets.

“It's gonna be your glorified sock-puppet hour,” says Vo. “We really thought it would be funny to have a show where all the puppets were like Muppet-y sock puppets. But we also decided that we wanted to do it in a way that was engaging and dynamic and fitting with our style – we didn't want to lose any of that.

“Our shows are sort of silly,” Vo continues, “and in their own way have a haphazard style about them. But when we work on our puppets or our sound of whatever we're doing in a show that has a design element, we try to make it … . What do we call it?”

“Serious comedy,” answers Green.

“Serious comedy. So when we were approaching the puppet idea for this show, as people who've been doing quite a few puppets in different shows, we were really making sure that the irreverence and shoestring vibe is there, but without sacrificing the quality in anything we do. So we've done a couple puppetry workshops, and the major thing we focus on is 'puppet focus' versus 'actor focus' – how to make the puppets come alive as actual characters on stage. And a lot of that has to do with what the actors are doing themselves, so when they handle the puppets, they sort of tell the audience what they're supposed to pay attention to as far as character goes.

“What's really interesting in puppeteering,” says Vo, “is that aside from the mechanical 'open the puppet's mouth when you talk' sort of thing, the rest of it is similar to regular acting technique you would do in your own process without a puppet. You just have to apply that process to a puppet. Things like: What does the character move like? What personality does this character have? What motivations does this character have? What is this character focusing on in the scene? But asking all those things for a thing that isn't you.”

Joining Vo and Green in Spaceworms are three current St. Ambrose students: Zach Ulmer, a co-star in last fall's university production of [title of show] making his Haus of Ruckus debut, and Beckett Conwell and Esther Windt, both of whom appeared in the troupe's Are We There Yeti? at SAU last spring. Also appearing and puppeteering is a sextet of Haus of Ruckus veterans: Amelia Fischer, Sarah Goodall, Max Robnett, Jo E. Vasquez, David Weaver, and Keenen Wilson. And while Vo says that it's always fun to work with company newcomers, there are also considerable benefits to working with established favorites.

“This is eight shows for us now,” says Vo, “and with a crew that, at the core, has stayed pretty similar – it's been a lot of the same people. And by this time, it's much easier to place people in a show. As we're writing lines, our ensemble understands the writing, we understand their deliveries, and the show kind of unfolds on its own. That's not to say that everything's super-formulaic, but we're so familiar with each other, creatively, that I think there's a real flow now, which is nice.”

“I almost think of this as comedia dell'arte,” adds Green. “in the sense that the characters we write for our actors sort of fit a consistent archetype. Like, we know that Max is the guy that gets beaten up. We know that Jo is the weird one that's really nice but off-putting. We know that Amelia is the weird one that's really mean and off-putting.

“These are the characters I'm talking about,” Green quickly clarifies. “Not the people.”

Like other Haus of Ruckus entertainments, audiences can expect music and sound to play significant roles in Spaceworms, though with perhaps less emphasis than in comedies such as Punk Rock Lobster and the video-game-themed Random Access Morons.

“With this show,” says Vo, “we're really focusing on this space-fantasy/space-exploration, B-movie-meets-Muppets sort of thing. We mapped together these funny, quirky, campy bits, and as far as music goes, you'll hear that in the musical personality of the show. And we've got Riley (Carizey) on-board again. Riley and I worked together on that song we did at the end of Punk Rock Lobster; he wrote the music, I wrote the lyrics, and we had some fun with it. This time, there's a song that's sort of a send-up of the alienated-space-farer ballad. Which is a genre, by the way. Things like 'Rocketman' and 'Space Oddity' and 'Satellite of Love.'”

Given their continued focus on aural elements, could a full-length Haus of Ruckus musical appear down the line?

“Yes,” answers Vo. “There have been versions of other shows where we thought, 'Oh, this could be a musical,' and we have other stories in mind that could be musicals. It all relies on our schedules … finding time to sit down with all the people we'd want involved and really sort of musically go through a story. But we would really like to do that some day.”

In the meantime, there's Spaceworms, and the Haus of Ruckus founders want it known that, as Vo says, “We do swear a lot. This show is not children-friendly even though it's bright colors and puppets.” It is, however, front-loaded with talent both on- and off-stage.

“We're really excited about having Matt Elliott involved,” says Green. “We've been wanting to work with him for a while, and he's designing our set and helping build it.”

Vo says, “Aaron Hook is kindly working with us within the theatre department, and also doing us a huge favor by programming some lights for the show. His expertise on that is always so evident.”

“And,” Green adds, “we've got a designer we like working with on sound, puppets, projections, and also miscellaneous props. His name's Calvin. Which is another fun part of the quick turnaround – the amount of design work Calvin has. He usually wears four or five hats for every show, but now it's essentially like he's wearing eight or 10 designer hats at once.”

“Yeah, but I've got a pretty big head,” says Vo. “I can fit 'em all.”

Spaceworms will be performed at the St. Ambrose University Studio Theatre from February 24 through March 3, with performances on Saturdays, Sundays, and the second weekend's Thursday and Friday at the traditional Ruckus start time of 7:34 p.m. Doors open at 6:59 p.m., admission is $12, and more information and tickets are available by visiting Haus of Ruckus' Facebook page.