Three debuts are happening this week on the Charlotte theater scene — simultaneously. When J.D. Lewis's AmerWrecka opens this Thursday night at the Charlotte Art League in SouthEnd, it will mark the Queen City debut of the play, the first time the Arts League has been used as a theater, and the first production by Lewis's company, The Actor's Lab. Since a former president of Paramount Pictures is flying in to see this production, we thought it would be a good idea to check out the source of all the excitement. Here's our Q&A with J.D. Lewis.

Creative Loafing: What is Actor's Lab and why is it in Charlotte?

J.D. Lewis: I started The Actor's Lab about 20 years ago in Los Angeles as an acting coach. I was an actor and all my friends were asking me to coach them for auditions. Then one of them said, "Start a class." So I started with eight people, and now I teach a master class, and I have teachers that teach my beginning and intermediate classes.

I have two sons that I adopted as a single parent at birth, and one of them was turning 11, and we were living in Venice Beach. And I thought, "It's time to get out of L.A. I want to be with my kid in someplace cool." And we came here. I just loved it here, and I loved that the mountains were really close. I feel like Charlotte has Southern hospitality and also this intelligence of a metropolitan city. I feel like it's such a good match, and it has an artistic community. I was commuting back and forth from L.A., and then JTA and a few of the agencies in town -- including Carolina Talent -- got wind that I was here and said, "Would you be willing to start a class?" And I said, "Yeah, I guess."

Next thing, I have full classes with a waiting list. Apparently right place, right time.

How did this visit to Charlotte turn into semi-settling here before you even started up your local wing of The Actor's Lab?

I had actually been in a relationship with somebody in this town. That's how I knew about Charlotte. We're not together anymore, but that's how I was introduced to Charlotte, and I just fell in love with it. I flew into Charlotte, saw the downtown area, and I just had one of those weird feelings like, "Uh-oh, I'm going to live here!" Cut to a year-and-a-half later, and we're living in Plaza Midwood, and my older son goes to Northwest School of the Arts, and my little one goes to Eastover. I couldn't be happier.

If you'd told me three years ago that I would be living in Charlotte, North Carolina, I would be like, "What!?" I honestly thought that Charlotte was on the coast. That's how much I knew about Charlotte. I can't tell you what a surprise Charlotte has been for me. And my kids just adore it. They're really involved here. I discovered NoDa, and I got a little studio at the Hart-Witzen Gallery.

And now I'm discovering the SouthEnd. You know, we're doing the show at the Charlotte Art League, and my older son Jack is 11, and he's a painter. He goes to Northwest School of the Arts, and I took him down to the Art League, because when I lived in New York as an actor, I used to hang out at the Student Art League on 59th Street. It was all displays of these artists with cubicles, and everybody was painting, and it was just a cool scene. So I took Jack down there, and I walked in there and thought, "Wow! This place is cool."

And the whole idea came together. It was like this place needs to be known! I felt like the Charlotte Art League didn't have sort of the hubbub it deserved. I talked to the owner, Jewel, who's this great hippy that I love, and I told her about my plan. I told her, "I think I'm supposed to do my play here." And she was like, "Well, that's bizarre." And I said, "I really would love to use this space to do it, and how would you feel about that?"

And she read the play, and it's about the four kids who died at Kent State University, so it was right up her alley, and she said, "I'd love for you to do it here." So that's how all that came about.

You know, I took this to the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland originally, and it took off. I mean, it was a huge hit at the Festival, which was a shocker, and then we got invited to headline a theater festival in Ireland, and then we opened it in L.A. Then it was kind of done. I have written the screenplay, and it's been optioned for a film. Then Cher Ferreyra, who's on a show called Veronica Mars ... Veronica Mars got canceled, and Kevin Patrick Murphy had a break before pilot season, and I said, "Would you guys come to Charlotte to do the show if I did it?" And they were like, "We'd love to!" So they are basically sacked out at my house!

Along with Kellin Watson, who's this amazing folk singer from Asheville. It was a wild situation. I went to see Amos Lee, who was in concert at the Neighborhood Theatre in NoDa, and she opened for him, and I was just stunned by her talent, and I sent her an e-mail. That's how I met her. I said, "Listen, I listened to your music. It was incredible, and I bought your CD at the gig, and I just think you're talented, and I'd love to work with you at some point, and I'd love to introduce you to some A&R people in Los Angeles if that would help you get your career happening."

And we became friends, and subsequently she works a lot and tours with a lot of great bands. So I'm really glad she's in the show, too. She's incredible in it.

So is Actor's Lab going to be bicoastal, or will future productions originate here in Charlotte?

I'm really based here now, and I have teachers who teach my classes in LA. So I'm just sort of building it here. I'm at the Hart-Witzen now, but I think I'd like to actually create a theater space. I love all of those old warehouses, and I'd love to find one of those old warehouses and renovate it into a 100-seat theater. Over the years, my thing has been I love developing new work. That's my calling, and we have a group of actors now in Charlotte, who have all studied with me, who are doing writing workshops. After we do AmerWrecka, we're going to focus on doing an evening of original one-acts.

The Lab has been going for 20 years, and we just are always creating new theater.

From here on out, then, the casts aren't going to be fueled from L.A.

Ninety percent of the cast for AmerWrecka were students of mine here in Charlotte. You know, I tell everybody -- I go to L.A., and I go, "Watch out, because the people in Charlotte are way more talented than you people." I'm not kidding. Listen, I was shocked. And I told Keisha at JTA, one of the agencies here -- I go, "I'm floored by the level of talent in Charlotte."

And in fact, a number of my students here who've studied with me ... One is Paul Shaw, who works a lot here in Charlotte, just moved to L.A., and I got him an agent in L.A., and he just read for a lead in a sitcom pilot. I mean, I think it's great to be here and do the work, and hopefully we can create a little company here. Then if people want to go out and pursue TV or more film work, they can either go to Wilmington or L.A. and sort of keep the hub here.

That definitely sounds like you're putting in some commitment to the community here.

I feel honestly that I came here at a time -- and I'm not blowing smoke -- I feel like I'm in Haight-Ashbury in 1969. I feel like it's just about to explode artistically. NoDa is really cool. To tell you the truth, I didn't know that much about SouthEnd until we got involved at the Art League, and I really love that whole area, too. People say different things. A lot of people say, "Oh, the SouthEnd's the one that's going to explode," and other people say, "NoDa is really about to take off.", I just feel like, while the rest of the country is in recession, Charlotte's a cool place.

Well, we've had some really dismal developments in the theater realm dating back to when Charlotte Rep folded. North Carolina Stage Company, similar to Actor's Lab, was looking toward being based in Asheville and Charlotte, but they just canceled the rest of their Charlotte season. And Epic Arts is retrenching with their season. So it is rather strange amid all the layoffs and all the handwringing to hear you sounding so upbeat.

Well, as an acting coach for the last 20 years, I've been through a few hard times of recession, and you know, actors act -- whether there's a recession or not. I think art's an important thing, especially in a recession. People want to escape and sit in a theater or a movie theater. It is tough times, but during the Depression, you know, Hollywood made movies. I guess I'm just such a hippie and an artist myself, and I don't buy into the whole recession thing. Whatever, I'm making art!

And it's possible that AmerWrecka might have an afterlife after the production in Charlotte?

I guess we're going to New York is the story. David Kirkpatrick, who's a really dear friend of mine, is on the East Coast now. He's opening a studio called Plymouth Rock Studios, which is going to be the largest film studio on the East Coast. He used to be the president of Paramount Pictures and Touchstone. He's coming down, and he's actually seen the show in L.A. But we've sort of revamped it, and he's going to sort of help me put it together as far as the New York run, and I'd love to do it off-Broadway. We have our eye on a few theaters. But if we end up not doing a run off-Broadway, what we're going to do for sure is the Fringe Festival in August.

The New York Fringe Festival.

Yeah, which I think would be really fun. The only un-fun part is that it's in August. If you know anything about New York, August is like dying and going to hell.

Yeah, I'd much rather be in Scotland.

There you go. I'd rather do it off-Broadway in April than the Fringe in August, but hopefully we'd get a theater with air-conditioning.

So you conceived AmerWrecka for a fringe Festival like Edinburgh, where you have to set up and strike down in a hurry?

It was written as a Festival play, so it's really bare bones, which is great. It's an easy touring show and really not expensive. The thing that I'm adamant about now is, if we do tour, that all the actors get paid in a big way. Since the set and the rest of it isn't that expensive, the budget can go to the actors, which I'm all about, being an actor and starving for years.

It's a badge of honor, I suppose.

I vowed, when I would produce theater, that perhaps someone would get paid, even if it wasn't me.

So after conceiving AmerWrecka for a Fringe Festival, has it been fleshed out for the Charlotte production?

Yeah, it's a different play. It was originally written after Bush got re-elected. And the short version of the story is I was so flipped out about that. I thought, "How can this guy get re-elected?! This is insanity." I applied for a job in New Zealand at Unitech, which is a university in Auckland, and they actually wanted me to fly down there to interview for the job to be the head of the Film and TV Department at the University. Then I thought, "Oh my God, there's a possibility I may be living in New Zealand!" Here I was, I had two kids, and I was a single dad -- and I thought, what am I doing? Should I go to New Zealand?

And I thought, "Well, maybe I'll just stay here and write a play."

So I decided to write a play called AmerWrecka, and when we decided to put it up, I thought, "Let's go to a place where it can be seen." I had done the Edinburgh Festival as an actor 25 years before, so that was kind of cool to go back. In fact, the Festival paper did a big article about me working as an actor in a show, because we won a Fringe First Award when that played.

But anyway, I wrote it because I wanted to bring it to an international audience and say that not all Americans are Bush supporters or supporters of what's going on globally. So the play was originally just about us going over there and saying, "Hey guys, there are a few Americans over here that didn't vote for Bush!" The truth of the matter -- and I hope you see the play -- is that it's not an anti-Bush play, really. It's more about what happened to the fervor of the '60s.

The whole idea behind the play really is what happened to the passionate youth of the '60s who decided to drop out and stand up for something they believed in? It's funny, because I was having dinner with some friends of mine, and their daughter was going to school at Berkeley. She had come back right after the election, and I said to her, "So what is everybody at Berkeley thinking about Bush being reelected?" And she said to me, "Well, there's nothing we can do about it."

And I thought if students from BERKELEY are saying there's nothing we can do about it, our country is in definite trouble. So the play is about the four Kent State kids who got killed: they go up to heaven, they're given an assignment to come back, present day, and wake up four contemporaries and lead them to revolution. And all the music is '60s music.

You could go into a Hollywood producer's office with that capsule and make a convincing pitch. You're a pro.

I guess that's what sold the screenplay. You know, like, "Wow, great pitch."

That's a good one.

It is. And not to blow my own horn, but I do think it's an original idea. And you know what's cool? We're getting a lot of kids who want to come to the show and the hip young artist crowd and NoDa people. It's like they didn't even know what Kent State was.

Right.

I'm a 50-year-old guy. It was a defining moment in the '60s, you know? And it's nice to introduce those guys to a whole generation, not just politically but the music. All the kids that are in the cast, the four young people that play the hippies, have fallen in love with Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Joni Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix. They're listening to music all the time, and they're like, "Wow, this is great." I'm like, "How can you not know this music?! You're making me feel really old!"