He's riding high with Cirque du Soleil

For ''KOOZA," Cirque du Soleil's new show, creator David Shiner wanted to put the focus back on the artists.

Dorchester native David Shiner went back to basics to create Cirque du Soleil's latest show, "KOOZA," which opens today under the Grand Chapiteau at the Bayside Expo Center. But of course, when you're dealing with the stylized and often otherworldly look of Cirque du Soleil, "basic" is a relative term.

"I wanted to put the focus back on the artists," Shiner says by phone from Germany, where he's lived with his wife, Micaela, for more than two decades. "As the director, I didn't want to get too elaborate. I wanted to keep it purely about what the performers do."

Although Shiner's had a long relationship with Cirque du Soleil, including performing and directing a segment of "Nouvelle Experience" in 1990, he'd never written and directed an entire show.

"I'm used to collaborating," says Shiner, who teamed with Bill Irwin for the Tony award-winning "Fool Moon" and created the role of the Cat in the Hat in the musical "Seussical." "But when you're a director you have to know what you want and then find performers who can do it."

The story of "KOOZA" follows a melancholy loner who tries to find his place in the world and meets a series of characters, including a trickster, a king of fools, a pickpocket, and a bad dog. For performers, Shiner says he was looking for the kind of circus acts he grew up loving: high wire, juggling, teeterboard, contortionists, as well as magic and traditional clowning. But he says he was also surprised by some acts he didn't expect to like.

"When I first saw the 'Wheel of Death,' it looked like it belonged at a carnival," Shiner says. "But when Stephane Roy created this sort of costume for it, and we worked it into the story, it surprised me how it could add excitement to the story and be a thrilling act."

In addition to the circus acts, Cirque du Soleil brought in clowns from outside its stable of performers for the first time: Christian Fitzharris and Joshua Ryan Zehner.

"They had to become acclimated to the company as well as be ready to create something completely new," Shiner says.

His preferred style of clowning pays tribute to such classic performers as Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin, with characters that have distinctive personality traits, which can take time to develop.

"The clowns came in three months before all the other performers, and I created situations for them to improvise around," Shiner says.

The director doesn't shy away from the darker elements of clowning, he adds: "Life is made up of both dark and light elements. We have to learn to live with both. I like dark and demons and the underworld, and I know kids do, too. But I'm not trying to deliver a deep, profound message. I want it to be an entertaining family show."

Through Oct. 12. Tickets: $55-$125. 800-678-5440, www.cirquedusoleil.com.

Long-distance playwriting
As a screenwriting teacher and director of the Veterans Upward Bound program at UMass-Boston, Barry Brodsky says he gets about 200 e-mails a day, and plowing through them can be a chore. But when he got one with the words "anti-war play" in it, he perked up. Responding to that e-mail several years ago turned into a long-distance writing collaboration, and the fruits of that labor, "The Boys of Winter," will have its world premiere tonight at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre.

Two playwrights - Dean B. Kaner, based in Arizona, and Eric Small, based in Los Angeles - had written a screenplay about the Vietnam War era with a large cast, which they then adapted for a high school theater production. The e-mail they sent was an effort to reach out to playwrights across the country for help reworking the play for a more commercial run.

"The play is set in 1966, which is the year I graduated from high school," Brodsky says. "It focuses on several high school hockey players who are all sent to Vietnam and is told as a memory play by one who survived."

Brodsky, who served in the Army from 1967 to 1970, says the play's themes resonated for him in a personal way.

"I really knew the time and place they were talking about," he says, "and having served in the Army, I knew what the military was about. . . . When I read 'The Boys of Winter' script I had an epiphany about what was needed to make it clearer."

Brodsky cut the cast down to six actors, and the three playwrights then reworked the script together via e-mail and a few conference calls. After successful readings in Chicago and at Jimmy Tingle's Off-Broadway in Somerville, Brodsky says they think the play is ready.

"Although my interest was initially piqued by the antiwar theme," Brodsky says, "I think the play's developed into a story of characters that are a lot more complex than being simply for or against a war."

Tonight through Sept. 21. Tickets: $20. 866-811-4111, www.ovationtix.com.

Notes
Elliot Norton Award winner and TV star Max Wright appears in a reading of "His Master's Voice" as part of Gloucester Stage Company's New Play Reading Series on Sunday at 7 p.m. The play will be directed by David Wheeler and will feature his son Lewis, most recently seen in Gloucester Stage's "Doubt." Suggested donation: $20. 978-281-4433, www.gloucesterstage.org. . . . Kander and Ebb's "Chicago," starring Tom Wopat, has been added to the Colonial Theatre lineup, Dec. 9-14. Tickets go on sale today: $27.50-$87.50. 617-931-2787, www.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com.