EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published in the February edition of our new magazine, IFN Monthly. Click HERE for a list of locations where you can pick up a copy.

BY JAIME GATTON

If all the world’s a stage, two professional theatre actors have turned the spotlight on Statesville.

Tess Hogan and her husband V Craig Heidenreich are the talented twosome behind Infinite Space, the newest and only professional theatre company in Statesville.

Of all places, how did two professional actors, directors and producers — one having trained at Juilliard School in New York City and the other holding a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama — end up in Statesville?

“It was pure accident,” Hogan conceded. “We didn’t know a soul here.”

Statesville was a planned 48-hour stop on the couple’s trip from Florida to Asheville. Once they arrived, however, “it was love at first sight,” Heidenreich said.

It wasn’t long afterward that the couple put their Florida home on the market. In April 2020, they moved to “charming” Downtown Statesville.

“We have not regretted a single second of coming here,” Heidenreich said.

“If you want to be an American stage actor, you don’t have to live or work in New York or Los Angeles anymore,” he said. “Now we want the opportunity to bring something to this part of the world that it, frankly, does not have, which is professional theatrical arts.”

Statesville has roots in the arts, and that hasn’t been lost on the two actors. “There’s a great deal of interest in the arts here,” said Hogan, citing the historic State Theatre which, the couple would learn, was a major theatre seating 800 in Downtown Statesville reportedly from at least 1940 to 1960.

“We’re not doing something unheard of; people here are very worldly,” Hogan said. “We’re just doing what we know how to do.”

The Infinite Space website reads: “A significant measure of any community is the quality of its art. It is the primary measure of all destination cities.”

Hogan and Heidenreich say Downtown Statesville should and can be a destination for people who value the arts. The foundation is already here, they say, with Lee Dellinger’s Art Gallery, Performing Arts Live Iredell, the Iredell Arts Council and the Full Bloom Film Festival.

Infinite Space began as the Complete Theatre Alliance in California in the early 1980s, producing works like Hamlet, Merry Wives of Windsor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and My Fair Lady. In 2002, the company was reborn as The Banyan Theatre in Sarasota, Fla., and played to packed houses works of literary significance, such as Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell, Pinter’s Betrayal, Lion in Winter and Sea Marks and Stoppard’s Rough Crossing. Hogan and Heidenreich began including celebrations of poetry and short-story performances, too.

“We hope to bring some of these and more to Statesville with professional artists and artisans,” the couple’s website reads.

Above all, Hogan and Heidenreich believe people shouldn’t have to drive to big cities to enjoy the arts.

“We are surrounded by people who are interested in having something different here, and there’s no reason we can’t bring performances of high quality, on a smaller scale, here to Statesville,” Heidenreich said.

“We’ve found ourselves in a community we’ve fallen in love with very quickly,” he added. “We want to be a part of the community here, and we want to give something back: something bigger than us and sustainable beyond us.”

Professional art is expensive, and volunteers are any theatre’s lifeblood. Infinite Space welcomes tax-deductible donations, community sponsors/advertising partners and volunteers in administration, carpentry, painting, lighting, sound, events, marketing, ushering and more.

“Our commitment to utilizing talented, experienced professional artists while maintaining low-cost tickets necessitates the support of the community and individual donors,” their website reads.

‘An Evening with Carl Sandburg’

Infinite Space presents in February, direct from United Solo Festival in New York City, the solo play, “An Evening with Carl Sandburg,” starring Jonathan Gillard Daly, will be featured for three performances on February 24-25 at the Iredell Arts Council/Old Jail.

For tickets and more information on Infinite Space, visit www.theinfinitespace.org.