The Dairy Center for the Arts is beginning to look a little like Hollywood in the Rockies.

No, it won't be Aspen, but starting Friday it will be a sort of summer camp for five film and TV actors who enlisted in Boulder native Jamie Wollrab's latest dramatic project, the play The Mistakes Madeline Made.

"I think the idea was just to go and make it fun. Go somewhere else and be somewhere other than L.A.," says Shannon Woodward, who plays Edna, the central character, while on hiatus from FX's The Riches.

Wollrab is directing the play, which he hopes to restage in Los Angeles. His last work in Boulder was in 2004, when he performed solo in Adam Rapp's Nocturne. This time, he'll be entirely behind the scenes, directing Elizabeth Meriwether's play. In the intervening years, he moved from New York to Los Angeles, where he had production jobs on the films Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and A Scanner Darkly.

"I just wanted to break into the film world a little bit," Wollrab explains. "In New York, my career was mainly doing theater, and then a side job, because you had to have a side job. I really wanted the artistic career to be just the one job. But ultimately, I can't stop doing theater. I came out here to do film and I can't stop doing theater."

His theater company knows no geography, though. Wollrab formed Triptych Theatre with friend Michael Hoch, who remains in New York. They've collaborated with friends and artists around the country,

"It's basically trying to work and collaborate with artists from all over, and work on challenging material and bringing theater to places that we've never worked before," Wollrab says. "We're primarily all new work. That's what I've been really interested in: finding new material and really sharp, relevant plays."

Wollrab also knows that new plays get more attention than revivals, as do celebrities. In addition to Woodward, The Mistakes Madeline Made cast features Justin Chatwin of War of the Worlds and Johnny Lewis of The O.C. Chris Klein was originally supposed to star, but bowed out when his TV pilot The Captain was picked up. In his place is theater actor Zach Shields. The Prodigy's Flipper Dalton composed original music.

"It's always a blend of art and commerce," Wollrab says. "That was one of my biggest issues with Nocturne. I was incredibly proud of the work, but we had a hard time getting people to come see it. Afterward, it was like, 'Well, we didn't make all of our (expenses) back.' "

For the actors, Boulder promises a theater outing combined with summer camp; the five actors will share a rented house during the two-week production.

"I think the idea was just to go and make it fun," says Woodward. "People in L.A., I think they appreciate theater in a different way. It's kind of judgmental."

Woodward, 22, has worked steadily in Hollywood but hasn't done a play since childhood.

"When you do television and film, you do things so separated," she says. "You do a scene and it's all jumpy, like small pieces of a puzzle rather than doing something as a whole."

Her character, Edna, is stuck in a dead-end job and begins to have flashbacks of her brother, who was killed in Iraq. The last time she saw him, he wouldn't get out of an empty tub. She, in turn, develops ablutophobia, refusing to bathe.

"She gets dirtier and dirtier," Woodward says. "I never leave the stage, which is kind of interesting. We're going to put grease in my hat and dirt on the stage. Not glamorous, really, at all."

Wollrab hopes the celebrity of his actors (whom he chose for their talents, not their names) will overcome the obscurity of the play, which ran Off Broadway last year.

"How do we make it exciting?" he asks. "We're uncompromising on the kind of shows that we want to do, so what are the few things that are going to get people really excited to come see a show about a girl who doesn't bathe?

"I hope it all comes together. There's all these really rich elements, and that's my job to make sure it works and it all comes together."

The Mistakes Madeline Made

• When and where: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays (and Aug. 7-8), 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Aug. 11; Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder

• Cost: $26 to $34

• Information: 303-444-7328

Who's in the cast

Shannon Woodward: Dehliah on FX's The Riches

• Justin Chatwin: War of the Worlds, Invisible

• Johnny Lewis: Alien vs. Predator, The O.C.

• Greta Seacat: Actors Studio member, former artistic director of Urban Muse

Zach Shields: worked with Robert Wilson at Watermill Center

bornsteinl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5101

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