Kyle Bass of the Syracuse (N.Y.) Stage, left, with the co-writers of 'Tales From the Salt City,' Sara Zatz and Ping Chong. Zatz and Chong travel the country, creating shows from the lives of cast members in each city. (Photo by John Berry)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — For nearly all theatrical productions, the director has a completed script in hand during the casting process.

But in the case of "Tales From the Salt City," director and playwright Ping Chong is holding auditions now, months before he's written a word.

That's because the cast members' personal stories will determine the play's message.

It's all part of a series of oral history productions, collectively called "Undesirable Elements," that shine a light on stories unfolding outside the view of mainstream culture.

Since 1992, the Ping Chong Co. has mounted at least 36 productions of "Undesirable Elements" in cities around the world.

"We've lost count," Chong said, sitting in Syracuse Stage's sunlit atrium.

It was a one-time show that sprouted legs.

"I had no plans for it other than doing that first one," Chong said. "I had never done anything like this before, this kind of documentary, real-life, real-people whatchamacallit. Whatsit. It's not a play; it's a whatsit."

Chong and collaborator Sara Zatz, project manager for "Undesirable Elements," just wrapped up a two-week visit to Syracuse, to interview prospective cast members for the next incarnation of the series, called "Tales From the Salt City."

The pair will write the script together this summer. Then the play will have its world premiere at Syracuse Stage in October.

Zatz and Chong met with 17 Syracuse residents, ages 16 to 89, including residents from Macedonia, Ghana, Vietnam, Cambodia, Sudan and Ukraine, as well as African-Americans, a Mexican-American, Jewish Americans of various ancestries and a person whose parents hail from Belgium and Burundi.

"It's important that people understand it's not just a project about immigration," Zatz added. "Some people have said, 'Oh, well, I was born in Syracuse, so they wouldn't be interested in talking to me.' And that's not the case. It's people who, for whatever reason, have lived outside the mainstream culture, in whatever way that is."

Kyle Bass, literary associate at Syracuse Stage, found the subjects and participated in the sometimes emotionally wrenching interviews.

"What Ping and Sara are so good at is really not being afraid to interrupt as (the subjects) speak, to really draw out detail, which is really important," Bass said.

"I'm ruthless," Chong said, laughing.

"I'm gentle," Zatz countered.

Zatz and Chong, whose six-year collaboration has fostered a finish-each-other's-sentence rhythm, plan to return for a second round interviews in July, to narrow the field of prospects. In the end, they'll pick a cast of six or seven from the pool of 17.

"I think the thing that really distinguishes this project from a genre of interview-based or documentary-based theater is that the people who are participating in the interviews are the performers in the show," Zatz said.

"We're not having actors play them, and that's the power of the project," Chong continued.

Zatz: "It's very human."

Chong: "The person up there is the person these experiences happened to."

Zatz: "So there's no filter through an actor. It's very direct."

Bass predicts Syracuse audiences will be surprised and delighted by "Tales From the Salt City."

"I've seen some of the other work on DVD," Bass said. "And it's very moving. But it is still extremely theatrical. It's theatrical in language, it's theatrical in emotion, and it's theatrical in its truth. And there's something about pulling away from the artifice of acting that just really opens it up. It's like sitting in front of an open window."

Chong said the production gives cast members and local audiences an opportunity for "widening their world, widening their consciousness, widening the richness of the world right here in their midst."

(Laura T. Ryan is a staff writer for The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. She can be contacted at citynews(at)syracuse.com.)