By Ben Fulton

| The Salt Lake Tribune

If you’re familiar with Wendy MacLeod’s play "House of Yes," or the 1997 film adaptation, you won’t be surprised to learn that the three actors playing the central roles in her new play, "Find and Sign," approach it from different points of view.

Fans remember the film version of "House of Yes" for Parker Posey’s prickly portrayal of a young woman unhinged by her brother’s impending engagement, which vexed many viewers with its story of siblings on the edge of incestuous relations, all while re-enacting the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

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At a glance

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The drama of the music world

Pioneer Theatre Company presents the world premiere of “Find and Sign,” a play by Wendy MacLeod.

When » Jan. 13-28: Mondays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees Saturdays.

Where » Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. 1400 East, University of Utah campus, Salt Lake City.

Info » $25-$44; 801-581-6961 or pioneertheatre.org.

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MacLeod’s new play, "Find and Sign," will receive its world-premiere production Jan. 13-28 at Pioneer Theatre Company directed by artistic director Charles Morey. Ask cast members about the play and you can hear the nervous laughter when they talk about a play so sly and ripe with context at so many levels it’s difficult to talk about at all.

The play is set in the music industry of New York City, drawing upon archetypes from William Shakespeare’s "Othello." MacLeod recasts Iago as a lone white man working for a black record label tasked with discovering the newest hip-hop talent.

Facing the promise of a promotion from label boss Andre, Iago is also negotiating his romantic life with Julia, a public-school teacher. Then there’s his relationship with Mac, an up-and-coming rapper who is deciding whether to attend a top-tier college or shoot for stardom via Iago’s overtures.

"I immediately saw it as a hilarious romantic comedy when I first read the script," said Molly Ward, who plays Julia. "Then I read it again, and the darkness crept in."

Keith Hamilton Cobb, who plays Andre, the record-company boss, describes it as a play about sexual shenanigans in the music industry, "but my colleagues tell me it’s much more than that. They’re right."

Even Karl Miller, the actor who as Iago is ostensibly at the center of the action, admits to a sense of vertigo sometimes during rehearsals. "My brain keeps going back to ‘Othello,’ but I have to remind myself we’re onto something completely different with this play," Miller said.

Completely different is right. "Find and Sign" breaks many theatrical rules, from MacLeod’s mischievous script to its world premiere status, a rarity for Salt Lake City’s largest professional theater company. MacLeod will be in attendance to observe proverbial jaws dropping and has worked closely with Morey during rehearsals.

It was a 2008 British production, starring Ewan McGregor as Iago, that sparked MacLeod’s idea to create a play that might serve as something of a prequel to "Othello," with the backstory of how Iago met his wife and came to be passed up for promotion. The more the playwright mused over elements of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy of jealously and ambition, the more it also meshed with her reading of Jonathan Kozol’s book Savage Inequalities, which contrasted poorly funded public school districts with lavish opportunities afforded suburban children.

Both influences gave MacLeod the springboard she was looking for to write a play laced with issues of race and romance, but with a touch light enough to make the proceedings humorous and sexy at the same time. A heady mix, to be sure, but one PTC cast members and MacLeod are confident will be achieved in the production.

MacLeod’s play deals with race more directly than "Othello," which Cobb says is anchored in Elizabethan notions about the exotic nature of black men.

"Wendy has a way of making the mundane interesting simply by holding her own magnifying glass to behaviors and events," Cobb said. "A lot of times these are behaviors that don’t hold a lot of integrity, but she shows us how they work all the same."

MacLeod, who received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, has seen her works premiered in Chicago and Seattle. She said she was proud to add Salt Lake City to that list.

"The bottom line is that you can get a bad production in New York City and a great production in Salt Lake City," MacLeod said. "It’s always preferable to get a good production, and it’s being so well-served here."

Morey said working with MacLeod on her contemporary work has been a pleasure, as well as a contrast to his work last fall directing the Shakespeare classic "The Tempest."

"In directing a new play, the director is bit more submerged when you’ve got the playwright in the room, but it’s not any more easy or difficult," he said. "You walk away from [‘Find and Sign’] with a host of questions and insights about these characters and our world. They stay with you."