“Pounding Nails in the Floor with my Forehead,” a play that is performing at the Maintenance Shop this weekend, has many different characters and emotions, but it involves only one man.

As the first production from the newly formed Blue Moon Theatre Company, “Pounding Nails” is a one-man play starring Marty Ellenberger, a longtime actor who won awards for his work with this same play three years ago.

Ellenberger, a worker at the Instructional Technologies Center at Iowa State, performed a one- hour cutting from the play for the Iowa Community Theater Festival.

The show won a first-place award, which led to another at the regional competition.

He received excellence in acting awards at both levels.

But when the opportunity arose to do the play in its entirety, Ellenberger couldn’t resist.

“We had always wanted to present the whole show because we had some tough choices to make when we were cutting it down to an hour in length,” Ellenberger said.

“We had to leave out some really good stuff. It’s really enjoyable to be able to get the whole thing out there.”

The play was written by Eric Bergosion, an author and playwright whom Ellenberger speaks very highly of, pointing out the emotions this play allows him to portray.

“Frustration, explosion,” Ellenberger said.

“I really like Bergosion. One of the reviewers of his stuff said, ‘you can’t really be alive until you look at everything, including a lot of things that people work really hard not to see.”

Ellenberger said that in each of the 12 characters he portrays in the play, there is something repulsive about them, but at the same time, something really familiar about them.

“This is part of life, you shouldn’t be denying this. OK you don’t like it, well that’s good. What about it don’t you like? Think about it,” Ellenberger said. “I guess that’s why we put it out there.”

“Pounding Nails” has no real plot; it is what Ellenberger describes as “snapshots of 12 different characters.”

“Some of them are funny and at the same time a little bit grotesque,” Ellenberger explained. “You know, I guess like real life can be.”

Ellenberger admits that while playing 12 distinctly different characters can be difficult, it was also enjoyable, and that was the main reason he chose to be involved with the play.

“That’s part of the challenge. As an actor I’m always looking for good pieces to do, and it’s always a real gas when you can find something that you have to do something like that,” Ellenberger said.

“You get out there and you get intense into one thing and then all of a sudden you got to throw it away and be into something completely different like that.”

Another quality that intrigues Ellenberger and director Stacy Brothers is how this play can relate to anyone who sees it.

“What happens if people see this show is they find a character and they identify with it and say, ‘I know that guy or I know somebody like that or partly like that,” Ellenberger said.

“For me, there are pieces in each of these people I do know, I don’t think any of them are me but I think there is a piece of me in every one of them.”

Brothers thinks this a great experience for the college crowd because it isn’t the kind of theater most people expect.

“A lot of people just think theater is boring; they don’t go to theater, they go to movies, they go to bars, they go see bands, they don’t see theater,” Brothers explained. “And that’s because of the kind of theater they’ve mostly heard about or went and saw in high school. This isn’t like that, this is the kind of entertainment that they would enjoy, they would love.”

And why would they love it? Brothers likes the way it makes you think, and how it is a more modern style of theater.

“It’s raucous, it’s bawdy, it makes you laugh, it’s new, it’s exciting, it’s current,” Brothers said. “And I like plays where you get to say ‘fuck.'”

Blue Moon Theatre Company was founded by longtime community theater activist Keith Wirtz, who has been involved with it for years.

He wanted to start a company that did more contemporary and alternative plays that were more on edge than the average community theater production.

And that’s exactly what “Pounding Nails” is.

“I think students will like it,” Wirtz said.

“It’s a little different kind of show: it’s adult; it’s fast; it’s funny.”

Although he says he doesn’t want to be the only person who organizes shows for Blue Moon, he admits they won’t be doing as many shows as other companies.

“Blue Moon means once in a blue moon, so we’re not going to be doing five shows a year, maybe two or three shows at the max,” Wirtz says.

And if you are having trouble filling your boring summer nights, Brothers has another suggestion for you.

“I would recommend it as a date option because I think it could be very stimulating,” Brothers said.

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Who: Blue Moon Theatre Company

What: “Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead

When: Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.

Where: The Maintenance Shop

Tickets: Students $5, Adults $7