Clinton K. Clark is a Bend actor, producer and playwright. As an actor, he’s appeared in ensemble productions such as last fall’s “Heathers the Musical” as well as several iterations of the one-elf show “The Santaland Diaries.” He’s acted and produced outdoor productions of “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” via his Guerrilla Shakespeare Company, which plans to produce “Taming of the Shrew” in summer 2018. In 2016, he appeared onstage in his original play “The Beatles Die on Tuesday,” and more recently wrote “A P.C. Christmas,” which ran in December at 2nd Street Theater. He’s at it again, bringing a reading of “Hello Darkness” to 2nd Street on March 16.

Q: What’s “Hello Darkness”? Is it a play you’re working on?

A: What it is is three short plays. It’s kind of like three one-act plays. They’re each about 20 to 30 minutes. They all kind of have dark themes to them. When I was working on “A P.C. Christmas,” I met a girl who’s new in town. She’s a UCLA playwriting graduate. So I read some of her stuff, and she’s got really dark themes. So this reading, “Hello Darkness,” is to showcase some of her work and some of my new stuff.

Q: What’s her name?

A: Her name is Cayla Clark. And get this: (She) has the same initials as me and the same birthday. It’s just this kind of weird trifecta of coincidences.

Q: Have you checked ancestry.com to make sure you’re not related?

A: I have not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we were.

Q: So which of the plays is yours, and which is hers?

A: So one of them is hers; one of them is mine, and one of them is a collaboration that we both worked on. … The one I wrote is called “Diana’s Child,” and it takes place in the late ’80s in Alabama. All in all, it’s kind of a comment on access to reproductive rights and why that’s important. It’s about this girl who goes to a doctor’s appointment that she’s supposed to bring her kid to, and she doesn’t bring him. So then it’s this mystery as to where he is. The whole play is between the mother, Diana, and the social worker who’s trying to figure out where her son is. The one that Cayla and I collaborated on is “The Games We Play.” It’s kind of a dark piece about this elderly couple who are just kind of unsatisfied with life, and what their ideas are to get their marriage back on track. … The one Cayla wrote is called “State of the Union,” and it’s about this disturbed lady waiting to see her psychologist, and she has kind of a fateful interaction with one of the fellow patients in the waiting room. So it’s all dark-themed.

Q: Do you think you guys will bring these to the stage down the line?

A: I absolutely would love to. This is just kind of a first step in kind of getting them out there into the world and getting some initial reactions.

Q: Are you appearing in any shows coming up here?

A: I’m in “Disaster the Musical,” and I’m just kind of an ensemble member in that play. And then Alastair Morley Jaques is back in town, and we’re teaming up on a bunch of projects. He’s on the production team for “Taming of the Shrew” this summer. … This one is going to be called “Shrew to You.” … We’re (also) thinking about doing some sort of Frost/Nixon kind of little show, in the same spirit (as) Trump and Mueller.

— David Jasper, The Bulletin