The Grinnell Area Arts Council presents, for the first and second weekends of October, A Body Of Water — a play written by American playwright Lee Blessing and directed by Zach Bey, 47. The play stars Brian Mitchell, 59, as Moss, Mary Noer, 57, as Avis and Alexis Steele, 40, as Wren.
The play follows a middle-aged couple Avis and Moss, two individuals with no recollection of their previous lives or relation to one another. The two set out to determine who they truly are, relying on information from a young woman named Wren who seems to know everything about the pair.
Bey said he chose to stage this play for its thought-provoking nature.
“I like plays that force the audience to ask the question, ‘what did we just see?’” Bey said. “‘How does this relate to what’s going on in my world?’ I like questions like that. I like ways that make us think.”
“In this world, I think that we need more thought provoking activities,” he said. “I think we need to engage in those thought provoking activities because that’s where creativity lies and I think the world needs more creativity.”
Bey said that the big question of the show for Avis and Moss is “who am I,” a question that does not have easy answers.
“The only other person that can give them those answers proves to be an unreliable source,” Bey said, referring to the character Wren. “So then what do you do with that? How do you know who you are? How do you know what it means to be without memories, without clear anchor points?”
Assistant Director Jenna Stark, 45, added that she thinks that this feeling of loss of sense of self is very common right now.
“A lot of people today are constantly feeling like, ‘who am I? Who are we as a community, as a state, as a country, as a whatever?’ You know, as this person or that person, ‘who am I?’” Stark said. “And then you have somebody coming in and throwing a wrench in that, or trying to tell you who you are and it can change your reactions, your perspectives, how you perceive yourself.”
Unlike normal plays where the audience is all seated looking in the same direction, the directors decided to rearrange the Loft Theater, located in the Grinnell Arts Center, so that the stage is surrounded on three sides by audience members.
“I wanted to have audience numbers on most sides of the stage to force the actors to never know quite where they have to look,” Bey said. “They have to kind of look everywhere, and everybody kind of looks in almost as if the audience is the body of water, looking in.”
Mitchell, who works at the Pioneer Bookshop and has been doing theater for 30 years, said that this was a particularly challenging play for him. Part of the challenge was memorizing 440 lines and the amount of stage time he gets as one of three characters in the play. Another part of the challenge was the tone of the play.
“It’s been a real challenge for me. I tend towards comedy. In this play, I’m kind of an ass, and if it weren’t for the directors telling me how to be more of an ass, I would have trouble doing it,” Mitchell said.
Noer, who plays Avis, said that this was her first time acting.
“I just did it for the audition experience,” she said.
“It was much more time consuming than I had … I had no clue,” Noer said. “At the beginning, there was a lot of talk about … what the author means by this. I’m like, is this like an English class? Is this what you do? all the time?”
Fellow cast member Steele, who portrays Wren and has been acting since age 12, assured Noer that this was not in fact how she usually prepares for plays.
“Yeah, it’s a weird ass script. It’s really good … It’s weird,” Steele said.
Having worked in professional theater Steele said that she enjoys community theater because everyone there is there to have fun.
“It wasn’t fun because everyone was in it for themselves,” said Steele on her professional theater experience. “And this community theater, everyone’s here to have fun and to put on a good show, and it’s such a better vibe and I love it.”
Bey said that a show like this brings together the smaller theater community within Grinnell for a singular vision and purpose.
“We become family in a way, and it’s an image that I think that can have ripples out into the larger world,” Bey said. “We do something on stage, we make some good shows, we have some fun, some laughs, and we get the audience to ask serious questions. That is what community theater is really all about.”
Stark encourages audience members to come more than once, and switch where they sit each time.
“You will get a different perspective depending on where you sit in the theater and it will end up being a slightly different show as a result of that,” Bey added. “What is presented on stage isn’t necessarily what’s going on. So keep that open mind and just let your imagination see where it takes you.”
The play is being shown at the Loft Theater at the Grinnell Area Arts Council building on Oct. 3 and 4 at 7 p.m., Oct. 5 at 2 p.m., Oct. 9 and 10 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 11 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased on the Arts Council’s official website and in person.
This article has been updated to correct Jenna Stark’s age. Updated on October 8, 2025.
