By: Monica Puerto / Staff Writer
Ensemble, Experience, Engagement.

That’s Unhinged Theatre’s motto, according to FIU alumni Michael Leon, the company’s founder and artistic director.
Unhinged Theatre is a theatrical company based in South Florida where actors (mostly FIU alumni) and students come together to express their artistic abilities and give the audience a new take on theatrical performances.

Michael Leon started the company in August 2008.
“I had wanted to work with a group of artists that I felt comfortable with and I respected their work. I felt that as a group we could work together in order to put up productions that we cared about and wanted to put our own take on them,” Leon said.
Unhinged Theatre just produced their first classical play called Gaslight, which ran from June 26 to the 28.

For Isbelia Duran, who graduated from FIU in 2004 with a bachelor’s in theater, this was her first performance with Unhinged.
Duran heard about the company through a fellow actor who went to school with the company members.
“I wanted to be a part of this endeavor because I found it exciting. I love the fact that this company has ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas and goals,” Duran said.
She is excited to be among hardworking individuals who work together with a common goal: producing great theater.
“The energy is charged and goes through many changes throughout the play, keeping the audience engaged,” Duran said.

Duran played the role of Elizabeth in Gaslight, which she found challenged her to become a better actress since the character appeared to be duplicitous and was very complex.
Keeping the audience engaged is one of the main goals of Unhinged Theatre.
Dixon Gutierrez, an original member of Unhinged Theatre who will be graduating with a B.A. in acting from FIU, says the show was an experiment to see if they could keep an audience in suspense like they do in movies without the luxury of editing.
“We don’t really have that luxury in the theater. What came up through rehearsals was we had to make sure that we were feeling that suspense and anxiety and hopefully pass that on to the audience,” Gutierrez said.

Unhinged Theatre has offered challenges to the actors through the roles they play in the performances.
For Gutierrez, the challenge of his role as the detective in Gaslight was the language of the show.
“This is a period piece so it’s very wordy and very eloquent, certainly more than I’m used to.
“Some thoughts or sentences will go on for quite a while for instance, so it was kind of tough at first to keep the energy and the intent going through the whole line and just taking your time with it.”

The future goal of Unhinged Theatre is to move toward performing original work, in part because it would be more cost effective.
According to Leon, “Money has become a great issue and all of these plays are published, meaning they have royalties we need to pay. So part of our decision to go in a new direction with original work is because of our lack of funds.”
Leon states that they have a lot of ideas for creating new pieces and is looking forward to developing them.

For more information about Unhinged Theatre, e-mail UnhingedTheatre@gmail.com.