After nearly 2 decades, Duluth’s storied Down Right Theatre company is back
In 1992, stage director and producer Scott Ross, his older brother, Sam, and his father, Ray, boldly established the only brick-and-mortar theater in all of Gwinnett County.
When Down Right Theatre (named after an acting position on stage) opened in Duluth, it was just one of a few stage theaters in existence outside the Perimeter. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution praised the company for bringing professional theater to what it described as “the most theatrically underserved part of the metro area.”
But within five years, the history-making company disbanded, sold its theater assets (sans the Down Right name) and went dark for 11 years.
Down Right resurfaced briefly for a single production in August 2007 at the Red Clay Theatre in Duluth, but then disappeared again. Until now.
Eighteen years since its last production, and 34 since its founding, Down Right Theatre company has risen again, this time with the help of a new generation of Rosses.
Scott Ross, his wife, Eileen Land (whom he met when she auditioned for one of Down Right’s early productions back in 1993), their daughter, Madeleine, and son, Spencer, are staging “Doubt: A Parable” beginning Thursday and running through Jan. 31 at Merely Players Theatre in Doraville. The cast is comprised almost entirely of family members, with the exception of Atlanta actor Jessica Wise.
Down Right 1.0
Since the beginning, Down Right Theatre has been a family affair.
There were two sides to Scott Ross’ father, Ray. On the one, he was a sports guy, an All-American small conference football player; on the other, he was a drama teacher and theater director for several high schools in Ohio, where he raised his boys.
“(My brother and I) followed in his footsteps as far as acting and directing,” Scott Ross said.
In the early ’90s, when the three Ross men were living in Gwinnett, they recognized the county’s theatrical desert.
Their thirst for the arts triggered an idea to create something themselves. The three set out to find a space they could transform into a local black box theater.
They stumbled upon a defunct hardware store in downtown Duluth called Parsons that had sat empty for several years and convinced the owner to invest in renovating the interior so they could rent it. The owner believed in their vision and spent roughly $40,000 fixing the place up, Scott Ross remembered. The Ross family converted the store into a 150-seat, 6,000-square-foot theater.
Amanda Taylor Brooks, Down Right’s first staffed stage manager, remembers the space fondly. It had rustic, cinder block walls, an open and intimate house made of a few risers built around three sides of a platform stage and a front lobby that “always smelled like Chick-fil-A chicken,” she said. Scott had secured a deal to sell the brand’s fast food in the lobby’s concession stand.
Within three months, the Rosses launched Down Right Theatre’s first production: N. Richard Nash‘s 1954 American classic “The Rainmaker.”
The Depression-era storyline — about a girl who, against her better judgment, falls for a charismatic traveler who promises to bring rain to her drought-stricken Texas town — was fitting.
The Rosses, in a sense, needed to bring the rain in a theater-dry town. They planned an ambitious five-show first season, knowing they had to sell at least a third of the house for each show (50 seats) to keep funding the next production. That was a risky proposition for a town with no tested track record of supporting local theater.
Bert Osborne, a theater critic for Creative Loafing at the time, agreed to see the new theater company in action. Osborne, Scott Ross recalled, “was notorious” for disliking a large majority of the shows he reviewed. Everyone was nervous.
“(But) he enjoyed everything we did that first season,” Scott Ross said, remembering his shock.
For the company’s fourth show, Scott Ross directed “The Elephant Man.” Osborne raved about it, calling it “an atmospheric, exquisitely acted production.”
“That one kind of put us over the top where all the theater community was going ‘Who are these guys out there in Gwinnett doing this stuff that’s getting these reviews from Bert, who hates everything everybody else does,’” Scott Ross said, laughing.
Momentum built. Actors with equity cards from Atlanta started to audition.
“We were getting some of the best talent from the city,” Scott Ross said.
By the company’s second season, Down Right was selling out weekends and selling season tickets.
Brooks, who had come to Down Right from the Alliance Theatre in Midtown — where she had served as an apprentice stage manager for a year — was pleasantly surprised.
“My standards were pretty high, so I was so pleased that (the Rosses) were so committed to doing things right,” she said. “They also challenged themselves. They chose difficult material and did it really well.”
An early production of “Dracula” particularly wowed her.
“The walls bled and there was fog, and it was just so much fun because (Scott) took it very seriously. We all took it very seriously,” she said.
Some of Down Right’s early stars went on to notable careers, including Patricia French, who played Betty for three seasons of Lifetime’s “Army Wives” and Ms. Sourpuss in “Dumb and Dumber To.”
All signs pointed to success for the burgeoning theater company.
But then, about five years in, the Ross brothers began to have different visions for their futures.
Much to the surprise of their community, the Ross family sold the theater’s assets to new owners: Barbara Hawkins-Scott and John Scott, and Phil and Sharon Albert, who changed the name to Aurora Theatre. Anthony Rodriguez took the reins as producing artistic director until 2022 and the group still thrives today in Lawrenceville.
Down Right became a distant memory.
Scott Ross went on to produce films. Sam, who is now the owner and executive director of Windmill Arts in East Point, moved to Los Angeles for a time and worked as an accountant. Land earned a living, primarily as a hairdresser, acting periodically in other shows.
In 2007, Scott Ross staged one Down Right Theatre-branded production, “It Had to be You,” at the Red Clay Theatre. He dedicated the show to his father, Ray, who died in 2006. But then another 18 years passed.
Now, 34 years since Down Right first opened, Scott Ross is attempting to bring back the theater company; this time with his wife and two of their three adult children.
Down Right 2.0
A few months ago the family began rehearsing “Doubt: A Parable” at their Lawrenceville home. Scott Ross moved out furniture to make room for the theatrical set, which he built in the family’s living room. The Rosses ate their Thanksgiving feast in the middle of it.
Together they dissected the script by American playwright John Patrick Shanley about a charismatic Catholic priest in the Bronx who, in 1964, is suspected of having an inappropriate relationship with a young Black student. The play won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play.
The Ross family members have all been involved in theater, off and on, throughout their lives.
Scott Ross and Land often helped with their kids’ high school plays at Collins Hill. Scott Ross coached his kids in acting and stagecraft, helping them block scenes before auditions and perfect monologues. Both parents volunteered to hold table readings and scene studies for drama students.
“Doubt: A Parable,” however, is the first time the family has staged a show together.
Spencer, 27, plays Father Flynn. He grew up with a passion for performance and stage fighting and graduated from Shorter University in Rome with a theater degree in 2021.
He has been on an unplanned hiatus from performing for nearly five years to work and pay off student loans. He is a server at a wine bar and works at Gas South Arena in Duluth. He hopes the revival of Down Right will help him revive his acting career.
Madeleine, 23, who also works at Gas South Arena, grew up dancing and acting. She plays sweet Sister James, a young nun caught between Father Flynn and her superior, Sister Aloysius.
She graduated from Reinhardt University in Waleska and has been pursuing acting opportunities. Last summer she worked as a stand-in for actor JoAnna Garcia Swisher on the set of “Sweet Magnolias.”
Their third sibling, Grant, 22, is the family comedian but chose not to pursue acting after high school.
Eileen Land, their mother, plays Sister Aloysius, while Scott Ross directs, produces and staffs the tech booth.
As a close-knit family, all agreed the most challenging part of the show was merely scheduling time to rehearse together.
The only talent in “Doubt” not related to the Rosses is Wise, who plays Mrs. Mueller, the mother of the student at the center of the scandal. Wise said choosing to commit to the production was easy.
“The role is iconic,” she said about Mrs. Mueller, who was played by one of Wise’s idols, Viola Davis, in the acclaimed 2008 film adaptation.
The play was intriguing to Scott Ross because it is what he calls a two-act play that is actually three acts.
The “third act” happens outside the theater, when the audience leaves and begins to analyze what they witnessed. Did the priest do it? Shanley never reveals a conclusion.
“The whole goal is to have (the audience) walk away talking,” Scott Ross said. “Half the audience is going to think, ‘Yeah, he did it.’ And half the audience is going to say, ‘Ah, he didn’t do it.’ But that’s the whole point — to have the discussion about it later.”
For Brooks — Down Right’s first staffed stage manager Brooks, who returned to manage the production — working with Scott Ross again has been a homecoming.
“Scott is brilliant. … He really is one of the best directors I have ever worked with,” she said. “He understands the text. He understands the tempo and pacing. … It’s been like putting on an old sweater.”
The play is a fundraiser; proceeds from the ticket sales will co-benefit Down Right Theatre and Merely Players, which is working to further establish its new brick-and-mortar theater on King Avenue, where the production will be staged.
As for the Rosses, the family is not sure what the future holds. The family plans to wait and see how Down Right Theatre 2.0 is received.
IF YOU GO
“Doubt: A Parable”
Thursday-Jan. 31. $25. Merely Players Theatre. 3785 King Ave., Doraville. 770-572-6966, merelyplayerspresents.com.
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