SM East grads regroup for new Fringe Festival stage production

Winter House cast and crew, from left to right, Sam Slosburg, Carly Putnam, Rachel Linder and Lee Conrads.

Local natives Lee Conrads, Carly Putnam and Sam Slosburg shared a love of theatre when they graduated from SM East in 2008.

Four years later, they’ve maintained that passion, and have turned it into an original stage production that will make its debut during the Kansas City Fringe Festival this weekend.

“Winter House,” penned by Putnam, tells the story of a young couple moving into — and eventually out of — their first home, located in Massachusetts.

It’s not the first time Conrads, Slosburg and Putnam have collaborated. At SM East, they put on a one-act play Putnam wrote called “The Air is Colder.”

“We enjoyed working together in high school and kept in touch, and so as we got to the end of college and started thinking about this summer, we decided to put a new production together,” Conrads said.

Conrads’ college friend Rachel Linder, from Austin, Texas, plays Zoe, the play’s new bride, who is a physicist by trade. Slosburg plays James, her burgeoning novelist of a husband. Conrads directs and Putnam will serve as stage manager in addition to her role as playwright.

“I have a fascination with place, particularly houses, so that seemed like an interesting lens to use in exploring how people build together and fall apart,” Putnam said of the production.

Conrads’ sister Kim, a 2011 SM East graduate, is the designer and assistant stage manager. The play will be staged July 21 and 23 at 8pm, July 27 at 6:30pm and July 28 at 11:30pm at the Westport Coffee House, 4010 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Mo.