Maren Ward is playing Scrooge while also directing theater company focused on homelessness

It’s not lost on Maren Ward that she’s the executive director of a theater company focused on the stories of unhoused people, and she’s also acting in a play performing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, who famously tells visitors requesting alms for the poor: “Are there no prisons?” 

Ward has been a part of zAmya Theater Company since its very beginnings 20 years ago. Founded by Lecia Grossman, who dreamed up the idea of using theater to address homelessness, Ward got involved with the group with her collaborator, Josef Evans, whom she’d also worked with at Bedlam Theatre. 

With casts made of both people who have experienced homeless and housing insecurity and other collaborating artists, the company uses a community-based theater model. “For a long time, it was a project that I was working on in the midst of everything else I was doing, and then it just started to kind of grow and become a bigger thing,” Ward said.  

Through the years, the organization has been a consistent place for people who have experienced homelessness to find community and connection. As the increase of encampments in recent years has shifted the public conversation around homelessness, Ward says some of those conversations have shown up in zAmya’s work. 

“At the same time, I feel like zAmya’s world is a little bit more like in the shelters and more as a place for people who’ve been through that experience, and who are now in housing and trying to stay in communities,” she said. “I think what zAmya is trying to do is be a place where people can still connect with other humans.” 

Ultimately, zAmya acts as a bridge between people concerned about homelessness and wanting to hear more from people who have experienced it in order to come up with solutions, and people who have those stories to tell. “That’s why we’re still around and so relevant,” Ward said. “And busier than ever.” 

zAmya’s got a lot coming up, including a 20th anniversary performance at the Minneapolis Central Library, another project with Catholic Charities Twin Cities about the legacy of the Dorothy Day Center, and a collaboration with Avivo Village and the North Loop Neighborhood Association next year. 

In the midst of all that, Ward is taking time to revive the titular role of “Scrooge in Rouge,” created by Ricky Graham, Jeffery Roberson & Yvette Hargis, with original music by Jefferson Turner. Open Eye Theater produced the madcap comedy last year, and is bringing it back. It’s created in the British Music Hall style— a variety-show format of songs and acts similar to American vaudeville. The bawdy style — full of cross-dressing, sexual innuendo and hijinks — was popular in the second half of the 19th century through World War I. 

Open Eye’s artistic director Joel Sass directs the production, and it stars four actors (Ward, Abilene Olson, Tom Reed, and Patrick Adkins) who play characters who are all performers employed at the British Music Hall. In the conceit of the show, the four actors are supposed to be part of a 20-person cast of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” with the majority of the cast not showing up due to illness. The audience watches as the four actors-playing-actors-playing multiple characters race through the storytelling, while performing sometimes unrelated song and dance numbers at the top and bottom of each act. 

“It was super fun to do and perform last time, and so I’m just delighted to be back and doing it again,” Ward told me over the phone. “This is my Christmas party. This is my fun. I get so much joy performing. And you know, this particular role is kind of in the vein of these classic male archetypes that I just get to delight in so often at Open Eye.” 

Ward told me that while her work with zAmya is very fulfilling, performing is her happy place. “The funny thing about this particular play is there’s this hilarious irony of having my job at zAmya and then getting on stage and playing Scrooge. I’m relishing playing the enemy for a minute,” she said. 

The role Ward plays, who is the actor playing Scrooge, is a bit of a diva character. Loud, conceited and gregarious, it’s the kind of part Ward excels at because her stage presence is so immense. While she’s playing a female character playing a male role, she doesn’t think too much about gender in this particular play. 

“Everybody is going in and out of different genders in the show,” she said. “I just think about the character that it is, the person that it is, and the energy that I’m trying to bring forth.” 

I had a lot of fun seeing the show last year, and I’d recommend it as you’re putting together your holiday show plans this season. (Most of the cast is returning with the exception of newcomer Tom Reed.) There’s a lot of physical humor, quick gags, broad audacity, and non-sequitur tunes that steal the show. The play runs Friday, Nov. 29,  Saturday, Nov. 30, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 1, at 2 p.m., through Dec. 29 at Open Eye ($30). More information here. 

Meanwhile, if you want to take in zAmya’s anniversary performance, it’s a selection of scenes the group has created over the last 20 years, followed by cake and lemonade. That’s Saturday, Dec. 14, at 2 p.m. at Minneapolis Central Library (free). More information here.

Sheila Regan

Sheila Regan is a Twin Cities-based arts journalist. She writes MinnPost’s twice-weekly Artscape column. She can be reached at sregan@minnpost.com.

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