Out of Pocket and into the ‘Deep Blue Sound’

Out of Pocket’s groove is presenting excellent contemporary plays you haven’t necessarily heard of, says Jeff Siuda.

This weekend, the company is definitely in the groove, staging an excellent contemporary play—“Deep Blue Sound” —with outstanding local actors.

Established in 2008 and performing at the Multi-Use Community Cultural Center since 2016, Out of Pocket has presented a wide range of work, from familiar titles by Lillian Hellman and Neil Simon to plays by important contemporary writers like Annie Baker, Lisa Kron, and Lucas Hnath.

And the company’s name? Part of the box office proceeds from each production is donated “out of pocket” to a different local nonprofit. In keeping with the play’s environmental theme, the “Deep Blue Sound” recipient is Braddock Bay Bird Observatory.

For many people, “Deep Blue Sound” will fit the “excellent contemporary play you haven’t necessarily heard of” category. The play had successful, award-winning runs Off-Broadway in 2023 and 2025, and, under Siuda’s direction, Out of Pocket brings it to the MuCCC starting tonight until May 30.

The setting is inspired by Vashon Island in Washington State’s Puget Sound, where the playwright Abe Koogler grew up. The fictional island is the site of an annual sighting of Orca whales, but one year the pod simply doesn’t show up. Led by their ineffectual “mayor,” the islanders band together to find out what caused the whales’ absence. But the answer remains a mystery, and so do the islanders’ connections with each other.

Siuda sees “Deep Blue Sound” as a play about the difficulty of making spiritual connections, even with the best intentions.

“They want so much to come together as a community,” he says. “But their personal problems and fears and agendas keep them apart.”

Siuda compares “Deep Blue Sound” to Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” in its portrait of a small community and its tackling of big themes in a simple production. Here, this consists mostly of several deck chairs constantly rearranged.

“There are only five scenes,” says Siuda, “but probably 50 ‘scenelets’ that bleed into each other. Perfect timing is essential, because actors can overlap lines and even switch back and forth between characters in a single scene.

“The author doesn’t give you a lot of help,” he admits. “But it washes over you, and it all works. I guess I would call it wistful. There are very sad moments, but plenty of funny scenes as well. And in the final moments of the play, all those emotional notes are plucked at once.”

Eight actors play myriad roles in the play’s 90 minutes. All of them portray various anonymous “Islanders” simply referred to as A, B, C, etc., who provide many different overlapping voices. More developed characters include Ella, who is dying of cancer and decides to end her own life. Her best friend, John, is wondering how he will get on without her and tries to befriend a homeless man. Annie, the island’s “mayor,” ineffectually leads the investigation into the whales’ disappearance. There’s even an Orcan point of view, provided by a whale named Gary (played by Wyatt Doremus).

For “Deep Blue Sound,” Out of Pocket has recruited a deep bench of experienced local actors. They’ve found the play challenging but rewarding.

Samantha P. J. Gibson, who recently performed with Bristol Valley Playhouse and Blackfriars, plays Ella.

“Ella is a happy-go-lucky kind of gal,” she says, “but she has a journey, from denial of her cancer, to anger, to acceptance. There are real moments of death and loss in this play, but she still has a sense of humor.

“The island life is a snapshot of a larger society,” Gibson continues. “It’s a mirror of ourselves, of a world where we seem helpless, at a loss to solve any problem.”

“I mostly do musicals, so this role is challenging for me,” says Jodi Beckwith, who plays “Mayor” Annie and has performed at the JCC, Downstairs Cabaret, and Rochester Children’s Theatre. “She really gets on people’s nerves! She wants to figure out what’s going on with the whales, but just doesn’t know how to move it forward.”

Beckwith’s advice to audiences encountering the play’s quirky construction: “Don’t try to understand everything at first. The author eventually tells you everything you need to know.”

Jasmin Singer recently played Judy Garland in the JCC’s “Beyond the Rainbow,” and has acted in Los Angeles and New York City. In “Deep Blue Sound,” she plays the island’s newspaper editor, who is helping Ella write her obituary.

Singer is finding this subtle, small-cast play “a joy, and a wonderful collaborative experience. This play is like an onion—you just keep peeling back layers to find deeper and deeper layers. It’s genuinely about the human condition in its rarest form; all these characters have their own oceans they’re swimming through.”

For Aaron Duclos, who plays John, “Deep Blue Sound” is “like a collection of short stories. I’ve done a lot of classic theater”—including recent productions of “The Seagull,” “The Lion in Winter,” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”— “and this is very different, very contemporary and fresh. The topic is very specific, but the themes are timeless.”

Out of Pocket, Inc. presents “Deep Blue Sound,” by Abe Koogler, May 22-30 at Multi-Use Community Cultural Center, 130 Anderson Ave. Tickets and information are here.

David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.

The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing  [email protected].