After getting to know a little bit more about the group, I can affirmatively report that the essence of The Missoula Oblongata and what exactly that company does is hard to communicate in words. Perhaps you ust need to show up at the bakery counter of Food City at 8 p.m. on November 12th to understand.

Suffice to say, The Missoula Oblongata is a collaborative, experimental theater group founded by (but definitely not limited to) Madeline Ffitch (Ohio), Donna Sellinger (Maryland) and Sarah Lowry Pennsylvania).

Dedicated to transforming vastly diverse and large-scale creative challenges into original pieces of transportable theater, these performers are not your run of the mill town thespians. The group focuses n a unique collaborative writing technique they've developed to create plays in which the fantastic meets the mundane.

The members are not only the creators and actors of their work but also serve simultaneously as the stage crew. The group focuses on the premise that "anyone can do anything regardless of budget" ccording to Ffitch. The company designs and fashions their sets and props from found materials and salvaged goods and operates everything themselves while performing.

"We want to put on a show before we want to do a bunch of fundraising," Ffitch explained. That premise leads each member of the company to continuously develop their repertoire of skills to include hings like carpentry, sewing, papier mache, even welding. This do-it-yourself approach has allowed The Missoula Oblongata to create grand and spectacular theatrical experiences on a shoestring budget (or
less)!

I asked Ffitch how she felt about performing their latest piece, The Daughter of the Father of Time Motion Study, in a supermarket.

Ffitch told me she and her fellow performers would feel right at home in the oddest of theater spaces. "It's a place where everyone goes," she noted correctly. "Even people who wouldn't normally consider themselves theater-goers. We like to take a space people say can't be a theater and turn around to say, "Look, everyone! It's a theater!"

Food City manager John Steiner said his market is looking forward to the event, which begins with a local food reception at 7 p.m. on Saturday, November 12th. "We're excited because we're locally-based, and I think they chose us because they wanted a local business," Steiner said.

The inspiration for the performance piece is rooted in time-motion study, a theory used to analyze the efficiency of factory workers in first part of the 20th century. The theory prescribed a set of 18 ovements to minimize time lost at work. The play takes place in Antarctica, features both a robot and walrus, and promises to grapple with the big questions of life like: can inefficiency be cured? and what xactly does it take to get oneself on a postage stamp?

The show is brought to Turners Falls as the third installment of the ongoing producer's series of art installations and happenings funded through Turners Falls RiverCulture. The series has featured juried art exhibits in downtown Turners Falls that re-imagine the urban space. This is the third installment of the series after the successful "Solar Sounds" and "River of Lights" pieces.

When asked why the committee selected The Missoula Oblongata for this installment of the series, Jodi Baker, an organizer of the event, said each member of the committee would probably give a different answer. For her, "They have a very experimental, do-it-yourself aesthetic that I think goes really well with Turners Falls."

A reception featuring a local food tasting will precede the performance from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Food City, which has been working to offer more local foods and local growers recently. Concessions will also be available for purchase from the aisles before the show. Now, that definitely beats choosing between a couple of kinds of candy at your typical concession stand!

The event is free, but RiverCulture is requesting that people who plan to attend RSVP at the RiverCulture website (www.turnersfallsriverculture.org) or by phone at 413-230-9910 as soon as possible.

True to the company's belief in sharing skills with the wider community, The Missoula Oblongata will follow up the performance on Saturday night with an intensive workshop in collaborative writing for theater on Sunday, November 13th from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., at the Brick House Community Resource Center at 24 3rd Street.

Workshop attendees will learn a condensed version of The Missoula Oblongata collaborative writing process and have the opportunity to realize their visions through the use of found objects. The three-hour workshop will be followed by the performance of short pieces created by participants. Attendance is free, but the space is limited to only 25 people, so be sure to RSVP for this event as well!