Ë®¹ûÅÉAV

Just over a decade later, the superlative is fitting. They're almost there.

This month, Wood will direct a one-act play written by Hlywa and Pat Galante, at the New York Theater Festival. It'll be performed May 21, 24 and 25 at the Hudson Guild Theater.

The debuting play explores the worlds of two women, June and Sky, who live next to each other in a New York City apartment building. Despite the wall separating their living spaces, their lives intertwine.

"It explores the judgments we put on other people," Hlywa told Ë®¹ûÅÉAV during a video call with Wood and Galante. 

"Once you get past that, you find out you have more in common than the wall between you."

'Theater is about humanity'

Hlywa and Galante met while taking acting classes at the Chekov Studio. "Common Wall" is not only their first professional attempt at a one-act play, but the first time they've written together. 

For Hlywa, the process was difficult and "took bravery." She and Galante had to acknowledge and accept each other's craft, creativity and vulnerabilities.

Pulling from their personal lives was inevitable, Hlywa continued, and separating them from fiction was challenging. But that was instrumental to creating an intimate experience with a live audience, Galante added. Such a setting is the best way to convey their play's message: That fear and insecurity often hold people back from connecting with each other.

"We had a lot of things we wanted to explore," Galante said.

"The walls — physical, psychological, emotional — that we put up intentionally and subconsciously, and how that manifests when people interact."

From a director's perspective, Wood said, expressing what June and Sky feel is difficult technically and emotionally. But by giving the audience a glimpse at the private moments of their lives — moments even their closest friends and families don't see — "Common Wall" makes the two characters relatable.

In a sense, Galante said, June and Sky are in their own separate plays happening at the same time — just like life.

"The world would be a better place if we could all learn that," Wood said.

"Working in theater is about humanity," he continued. "It’s about helping teach people or asking people important questions."

'A compelling and meaningful message'

With "Common Wall," Wood and Hlywa have come a long way from their eighth-grade production of "Annie" in Auburn, where he was Daddy Warbucks and she was his secretary, Grace. 

"Through middle and high school, we were in every show together, playing opposite of each other," he said.

But Wood didn't agree to direct the one-act play just because he knew its co-writer. 

"I read it on the train and cried in front of other people," he said.

"I wouldn’t have said yes to doing this if I didn’t like it," he continued. "I really want to be involved in art that actually moves me and has a compelling and meaningful message."

Aside from directing, Wood is busy with acting and trying to start a nonprofit theater company. This August, he's directing an eight-part show that Hlywa is helping produce.

The play's writers are keeping busy as well. Hlywa said she caught the writing bug again thanks to "Common Wall," and hopes to continue. 

Galante, of Illinois, is producing shows and hopes to take a solo one on tour next year. It also takes some inspiration from her personal life, and social issues. 

Similarly, she and Hlywa hope to publish "Common Wall" in the near future and see it performed elsewhere. It doesn't take much to set up, they said, making it accessible for just about any venue.

The Auburn native said she'd like to bring it to her hometown, possibly as part of a performance circuit between western and central New York.

Galante, who's never been to Auburn before, said she's impressed by the amount of support the community has shown for Hlywa and Wood.

“It's been really cool for us to come together again in the same way we started," he said.