Queer Theater Company Between the Willows Makes Its Debut 

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• Daria Bishop
• Ry Poulin (left) and Nicole Dirmaier

Ry Poulin and Nicole Dirmaier are making up for lost time. Three years ago, they were Essex High School seniors with major roles in the school's student-run production, Beauty and the Beast. Poulin was directing; Dirmaier was choreographing. But COVID-19 upstaged their plans, and the show was canceled about two weeks into rehearsals.

Poulin felt defeated. Besides losing the spring musical, Poulin, who uses they/them/their pronouns, had been undergoing rigorous auditions at three colleges. They were accepted to study acting at the Hartt School in West Hartford, Conn., but acting amid pandemic restrictions seemed futile, if not impossible. So Poulin stayed home, working mall and barista jobs before gradually returning to theater.

Dirmaier attended Saint Michael's College in Colchester and then Marywood University in Pennsylvania — and she continued her dance career.

But she and Poulin kept returning to the conversation that, as Poulin recalls, started during their shared free periods senior year, when Beauty and the Beast planning sessions dissolved into talks about life: "What if we started our own company? What if we, like, got out of high school, and we just, like, did it?"

In January, the two, who are queer, launched Between the Willows, an Essex-based theater and dance company designed to provide space for queer artists — though all artists are welcome — to tell mostly queer stories.

Its first show, Beasts of Crete, runs August 10 through 13 at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington. Conceived by Dirmaier and written and directed by Poulin, it's a gender-bending retelling of a selection of Greek myths designed to reflect societal oppression of queer love.

The script draws from the story of Theseus, the labyrinth and the Minotaur, and from the myth of Icarus and Daedalus. In this version, Theseus still falls in love with Ariadne, but Theseus is a woman. "It's kind of this classic hero's tale entwined with queer romance," Poulin said.

Fourteen actors — including veterans Jon van Luling and Roya Millard — comprise the cast.

Producing a show with paid actors at a downtown theater seven months after incorporating is ambitious, Poulin acknowledged. "Nicole and I both have, like, sort of an unending work ethic when it comes to the arts. We really, really, really care about creating."

They could have joined an existing company, Poulin said, "but for this, it feels right that we're starting our own company and being able to begin working towards our own voice in the community."

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• Courtesy
• Beasts of Crete poster

It's costing Between the Willows $4,400 to produce Beasts of Crete. The startup company is sponsored by Winooski-based pediatrics software company PCC and by Main Street Landing. Poulin and Dirmaier have helped cover costs, and remaining revenue has come from selling stickers, jewelry and baked goods.

The area needs new theater companies, actor van Luling said, because they can pivot quickly and jump on original stories that more established companies can't tackle because they have to satisfy boards of directors and trustees. "When you're running by the seat of your pants, you're kind of free," he said.

Queer actors say they are grateful for the welcoming environment, collaborative spirit and fresh take on queer stories that the company provides.

"I think it's just important in general to have minority voices, or marginalized voices, be at the forefront of telling their stories," actor Nuala Dougherty said. When mainstream media present queer stories, they tend to focus on queer trauma, disadvantages and the difficulties of being gay, Dougherty said. "And it's really, really beautiful and wonderful to have a space that's solely dedicated to expressing queer joy and queer experiences."

While theater is generally a welcoming environment for queer people, cast members say, a company founded and administered by queer people with the mission of telling queer stories is even more welcoming and affirming, "gentler, even, than spaces that are like, 'Yes, we love gay people, but we're not gay,'" Dougherty said.

Stories, too, take on a different tone, actor Arlie White said. The story is the story, and the characters happen to be queer, unlike more typical productions that make sexual identity a plot point. "I feel like sometimes it's 'Oh! These people are gay, and look at them doing gay things!'" Or, White said, the typical story makes it sad to be gay.

While Beasts of Crete is a sad story and it is a queer story, White continued, "It's not sad because they're queer; it's sad because it's sad."

In addition to high school theater experience, Poulin and Dirmaier, both 21 years old, have accumulated many performing arts credits. Poulin starred as Shrek in Lyric Theatre's April production of Shrek the Musical. They also were cast in Lyric's 2022 production Ivy + Bean the Musical and in the 2022 Vermont Stage production The Pitmen Painters.

Dirmaier is a longtime dancer and relatively new choreographer. Currently a soloist with Ballet Vermont and a dancer with contemporary company Slow Shapes Dance, she has performed with Vermont Youth Dancers and Elan Academy of Classical Ballet. She will play Theseus in Beasts of Crete, the first time she will portray a queer woman as a queer woman herself, she noted, "and I've been performing since I was 5 years old."

Dirmaier conceived, directed and performed in the first show she and Poulin put together. They staged The Four Seasons, a half-hour dance performance, between two willow trees in Poulin's parents' Essex yard last summer.

The site inspired the name of their company, which, if all goes as planned, will have a full season next year. "I'm still pinching myself," Dirmaier said. "I can't believe it's actually happening. Like, we dreamed of it for so long. And once the ball started rolling, it just never stopped."