At Creede Repertory Theatre, Graham Ward plays 40 different characters in a one-man tour de force.

How do you remember all those lines?” may be an actor’s least favorite question. In the one-hander Fully Committed, it’s not how many lines Graham Ward recalls that’s worthy of high praise, but the number of distinct roles he commands in this 90-minute bravura performance.

Playing into September at Creede Repertory Theatre, Fully Committed is set in the late ’90s when online reservations were still a new thing and if you wanted a table, you had to make a phone call. Sam, the guy fielding those calls in a dingy basement office at an unnamed fancy New York restaurant, is a struggling actor making do in a relentlessly shitty job. With the head reservationist a no-show, he’s the only person handling a firehose of pleading patrons looking to get a table while the ornery head chef and other unseen staff members compound his problems.

It’s just before Christmas, and Sam enters in the dark and removes his coat and boots. The shabby surroundings and a couple of lame Christmas decorations hung carelessly tell us all we need to know about where these people sit in the restaurant’s pecking order. Sam has but a second to orient himself before the first phone call comes in — and they never stop.

Fully Committed demands that the sole actor play Sam as well as everyone else on the phone or over the restaurant’s intercom (it’s about 40 different characters). Up center is an ominous red phone on its own table that we soon learn is the head chef’s hotline. Coming in on the desk phone is a long line of characters: a celebrity assistant with outrageous asks, bitchy patrons who may or may not be VIPs, Sam’s annoyingly absent boss and many more.

The actor’s challenge is to pivot instantly from friendly Sam, answering the phone to help patrons, to any of these other characters — and make them all sound distinct. Ward meets that challenge with a colorful palette of personalities, voices, mannerisms and levels of haughtiness. It’s a lot of fun to watch, and with plenty of performances already under his belt, Ward is damn near perfect at the performance I attended.

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Graham Ward as Sam on the hotline with the head chef. | Photo Brooke Ashlee Photography

A well-directed, clever script

This production benefits greatly from having Matt Zambrano as director. A veteran improv performer who recently did his own solo show, Zambrano helps Ward nail the scores of beats and precise timing that make this one really sing. His hand is also clearly evident in surfacing the emotional undertones that make the show more than a fusillade of laugh lines (although it’s that, too).

Jon Young’s set is a model of grubby perfection. The steel desk, the corny signs, the beat-up coffee maker and random office trappings all ring true. A genuine Rolodex and a fax machine top things off (kids, ask your parents) and fax machine top things off. Also worth noting is Pan-Pan Gou’s sound design and whoever was running the board to get every ring in just the right spot.

Becky Mode’s script (her first), based on characters created with Mark Setlock, is terribly clever. It’s clearly built on real-life experiences from both of them, but the reason it works so well is its layered storyline. Sam’s travails as an overworked schlub in a crummy job drive most of the comedy, but as we grow to know him, we learn a lot about the real person and his conflicting demands.

He’s a son trying to ensure he can be with his family for Christmas, despite the chef telling him he’s got to work. In between all the other calls are the ones he receives on his flip phone from his recently widowed father who’s trying not to lay the guilt on too thick.

Stakes are also raised when we discover he’s had a recent audition that seemed promising, and he’s trying to get information about callbacks from his agent’s dismissive assistant. Also on the horn: his acting frenemy who got the callback and likes to rub it in. And some rich guy who, in pursuit of a table, makes him an offer too good to refuse.

The first half of the play makes it seem as though Sam is in an endless loop with no real possibility of relief or escape. By the time the curtain falls, he’s managed to engineer a series of wins that have us cheering him on. His situation is vastly improved over the course of the day, and he also exacts some much-deserved revenge on his oppressors.

Fully Committed is one of those shows that delivers on every level. A comedy with plenty of heart, it’s also a pure acting job. There are no special effects, elaborate costumes or set changes — just a great script in the hands of an actor who looks like he was born to perform it.