Introducing actor Troy Brooks of ‘Something Clean’

There’s high-stakes drama onstage at St. Petersburg’s Studio Grand Central. Something Clean, the drama that wraps up a two-week run this weekend, is ostensibly the story of Charlotte Walker and her husband Doug, whose 20-year-old son, a college basketball star, is in prison for a violent on-campus rape.

As the Walkers’ normally-mannered world is turned upside down, Charlotte anonymously volunteers at a sexual abuse crisis center, seeking absolution, perhaps. Maybe seeking answers. Desperately seeking something.

There she meets Joey, the abuse survivor who runs the establishment. And the two become unlikely friends and confidantes.

Joey is played by Troy Brooks, who works by day at American Stage; as the Health and Safety Manager he is currently administering daily Covid tests to the enormous cast and crew of the show-in-rehearsal, Green Day’s American Idiot.

Tiny, 55-seat Studio Grand Central, by contrast, is the ideal showplace for a drama as intimate at Selina Fillinger’s Something Clean, with its minimalist three-person cast. Along with Brooks, Debbie Yones appears as Charlotte, with Alan Mohney Jr. as Doug.

Some of the conversations are so private, the audience is practically eavesdropping.

“It tackles a very serious and important issue in our society,” explains Brooks, “but it comes in from a point of view that’s not at all black and white, very mixed and messy. And that’s what drew me to it, too – it’s so complex. I constantly go back and keep thinking about this situation that Debbie’s character has found herself in. She’s in a tough situation, and with the decisions that she’s making, you want to wonder, is she right or is she wrong?”

Charlotte lives in different shades of blunt denial, blind bliss and abject horror.

“But that’s not what it’s about,” continues Brooks. “They’re just humans struggling with really difficult situations, and humans aren’t perfect. Humans aren’t clean. And Charlotte, in this OCD fashion, is obsessed with keeping things black or white, or clean – and not being able to handle the mess in her life.

“And it’s gripping to watch. It’s almost like a cringe drama.”

RELATED STORY: At Studio Grand Central, Debbie Yones seeks ‘Something Clean’

A St. Pete native, Brooks is a graduate of the Pinellas County Center for the Arts’ musical theater program. Most recently, he’s appeared in American Stage’s staged readings of smaller plays.

Something Clean got his attention.

“I read the script and said ‘This is really daring, fascinating stuff.’ And I knew I had to audition for it. I read with Debbie, and it was just immediately like lightning.”

Observes director Ward Smith: “Troy had the part pretty much nailed at the audition. He had such a solid base on how he saw Joey from the jump.

“It’s always great when you see a young actor grow in their craft in rehearsal, and helping him discover the shades, tones and nuances to find where Joey lives in him was something to experience.”

Joey’s bond with Charlotte, Smith continues, “is quiet genuine.”

Brooks, too, has kind words for his director. “Ward would ask us for these value clarifications: ‘There are lines on the pages; why is your character saying them?’

“And for Debbie, ‘It’s now three months into your son’s prison sentence, it’s now four months …’ and how that weight just gets heavier and heavier.”

Although the rehearsal process, due to the subject matter, was taken “quite seriously,” Brooks says a few moments of levity-slash-pressure relief came during a “pickup” rehearsal a day or two after Something Clean had already opened.

“We just kind of relaxed and cut loose,” he explains. “There was one moment in that rehearsal when something onstage went off wrong, and that got me into giggles, and then all three of us were laughing through the whole thing. We couldn’t contain it.

“We really needed it.”

Remaining performances of Something Clean are Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Find tickets here.