'Smell of the Kill' Play Opens this Weekend at Racine's Sixth Street Theater

For this weekend’s production of The Smell of the Kill, it all comes down to a kitchen island.

At least that’s what Joseph Piirto might tell you.

For the master carpenter from Mount Pleasant, the show about a get-together-gone-wrong (or not depending on your perspective) after three husbands get locked in a walk-in freezer, is all about the island.

The island is the place where the wives kvetch about what to do after their idiot husbands get stuck. It’s the lone symbol of the $1 million home where the dark comedy is set; all other opulence is an allusion. And the island is where Screw Baby and Costanza Doll will wait to greet actors as they walk on stage. But more on that later …

“The island is the only piece in this play that is in reality,” said Piirto, technical director and set designer for Over Our Head Players, which is putting on the show.

“The rest of the house is kind of implicative; it’s a neutral, black background. For this show, the island is a big deal. It’s almost a character in the house.”

Building that island was just the latest challenge for Piirto, who led of a life of business – he ran several of his own -- and building before joining the Players about six years ago.

Usually Piirto’s challenges center on a different architectural feature: the two columns that flank 16-foot proscenium, the part of the stage in front of the curtain.

“Every design that I make has to consider those damn two columns,” Piirto, only slightly bitter, said.

Other times, Piirto’s biggest issue is where to put Screw Baby and Costanza Doll. (Told you we’d get back to them.)

Screw Baby came to the company, shoved through a mail slot around 1999, shortly after they moved into the Sixth Street Theatre. Costanza doll, a cupie-doll likeness of the infamous George Costanza from Seinfeld, came sometime later.

For luck, the dolls get screwed somewhere on set where the actors can see them, but the audience can’t.

“It’s a little demented. But, hey, whatever works. We’re theater people,” Piirto said.

If you go

What: The Smell of the Kill

When: Weekends, March 25 through April 10. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays, March 25 and April 1 and 8; 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., March 26 and April 1 and 8; Saturdays, March 26 and April 2 and 9; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays, March 27 and April 3 and 10.

Where: Sixth Street Theatre, 318 Sixth Street, in Racine

Cost: $15.50 on Friday and Saturdays, $13 on Sundays.

Tickets: Call the box office at (262)632-6802, or go on at www.overourheadplayers.org. Tickets are available online for a $1.50 service fee.  Advance reservations are recommended as previous productions have sold out.