Next to a garage door adorned with a mural sits a single black glass door framed in compact discs, with a hot pink awning hanging above. A single poster is stuck to the doors, reading, “Hot Shot.”

The door belongs to Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, located on Mission Street, and host to Hot Shot, the award-winning play penned by SF State graduate student Terrence Beswick. “Hot Shot” enjoyed a successful opening weekend on April 3 to 5.

“We were sold out two nights, and one night was at about two-thirds,” said Beswick, a native San Franciscan.

“Hot Shot,” which Beswick described as a “semi-autobiogra-phical tragicomedy,” tells the story of three San Francisco men and their spiral into the dark depths of an amphetamine addiction.

“At its heart, it is a play about the spiritual devastation wrought on these men by years of dealing with homophobia and AIDS, and their futile attempts to find love and acceptance in the wake of these twin tragedies,” he said.

The play has a twisting plotline, according to production stage manager Cecilia Palmtag. When she first read the play she thought the character Marty was in control, but somewhere down the line the real truth became clear, Palmtag explained.

“The power is in the drug,” Palmtag said. She is currently finishing up her theatre arts degree at SF State. In fact, all but two of the 22 people involved in the production of “Hot Shot” are current or past students of SF State, Beswick said.

“We didn’t set out to make it an ex officio SFSU company, but we assembled talented people who we knew and liked and trusted and who were interested and available. It worked out beautifully,” Beswick said.

“Hot Shot” was inspired by what Beswick refers to as his “lost year.”

“I had fully given myself over to addiction and had very little contact with friends or family. I knew I wanted to write a play that would convey the horror of that experience,” Beswick said.

“Hot Shot,” originally written as an entry requirement to the masters of fine arts program at SF State and since then has won the James Highsmith Playwriting Award. The award is given annually to a play with a gay or lesbian theme by the SF State Creative Writing department, Beswick said.

Beswick’s play is the first production for his self-founded theater company, Guerrilla Rep, the SF State playwright said. Guerrilla Rep was originally started as a way of producing “Hot Shot,” but Beswick said he hopes it will develop into much more.

“The main focus is on building an audience, hopefully getting some favorable reviews and getting a track record so that we can apply for foundation grants for future projects,” Beswick explained.

We hope to do a production in the summertime, said Palmtag of Guerrilla Rep. There have been discussions of doing “To Tame a Shrew,” a version of Shakespeare’s “Taming of The Shrew,” written for SF State’s Brown Bag Theatre.

There is also talk of making Guerrilla Rep the resident theater company of Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, Beswick said. The Voice Factory, which caters to queer and activist art, was chosen as the appropriate venue for “Hot Shot” because of its intimate and flexible staging, he added.

“We’ve had a wonderful working relationship and he loves our company,” Beswick said of Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory and its proprietor, Dwayne Calizo.

Guerrilla Rep applied for the Do-It-Yourself Residency Program, and out of the 27 theater companies who applied, it was one of only three groups chosen, Calizo explained.

“Hot Shot” will continue performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. through April 26 at Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory. The theater is located at 1519 Mission St. in San Francisco between South Van Ness and 11th Streets.

Tickets run between $10 and $15 and can be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com. For further information about “Hot Shot” or Guerrilla Rep visit www.guerrillarep.org or www.voicefactorysf.org.