Theater roundup
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It's South Sound theater roundup time this week. There is a lot of good stuff going on in front of, as well as behind, the curtains of local theaters.
by Steve Dunkelberger
Mar 01, 2007
The Horatio Theater Company's first full production, "Molly Sweeney," isn't showing at the theater's home stage but in a coffee shop across town, but it is still a stage to watch in the coming years.
The show is a theatrical partnership between the newbie and the South Sound's art house theater company, Studio 21, since both theaters have obviously learned that working together is a lot better for theater than struggling alone. More on this thought later.
The show has a blind Irish woman (played by Anne Wrozynski) going through life without sight only to have it restored, which brings its own rewards and adjustments with her husband (Anders Bolang) and the doctor who restores her sight (Ernest Heller.)
It is very much a Studio 21 production. Henryk Wrozynski, Anne's husband and founder of the independent theater company, has a signature vibe that is all over this work. The masks, the symbolism, the tone, heck, even the selection of the play is very much a Studio 21 sort of thing. It's not theater for everyone. This is not Agatha Christie or Neil Simon sort of stuff. This is more Greenwich Village theater. It is artsy and deep and symbolic and all that is black turtleneck and clove cigarettes — a niche that wasn't being filled by community theaters in the South Sound.
"Molly Sweeney," by Brian Friels, runs at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday through March 11 at Commencement Bay Coffee Co., 2354 S. Jefferson Ave., in Tacoma. Tickets are $15 to $20. Call 253.777.4430 or visit: www.thehoratio.com.
Continuing to take an artsy cue from the same train of thought that gave birth to Horatio, Tacoma Little Theatre continues its second-stage effort by staging a musical in concert — "Titanic." The show — actually done on the main stage since it has 53 people in the cast — has all the good stuff: officers, crew, first-, second- and third-class passengers as they sing their way to disaster on the ill-fated voyage of that famous ship. Cast member Nancy Wilkinson lost a cousin, William McQuillan (of Belfast, Ireland), in the disaster. The 1997 musical is no flop. It received five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book for a Musical.
The show runs only three nights: 8 p.m. March 2, 3 and 4, Friday-Sunday, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $15; 253.272.2281 extension 14, 210 N. I St. in Tacoma; www.tacomalittletheatre.com.
In other TLT news, the South Sound theater landed a big fish this week when TLT, Tacoma Musical Playhouse and The Washington State Community Theatre Association joined forces to bring more than 600 theater enthusiasts, advocates and performers from around the country to Tacoma to celebrate the power of community created theater in June of 2009. The effort will mean Tacoma will host the American Association of Community Theatre’s 2009 biennial festival: AACTFest 2009.
The local partnership presented a formal bid proposal to the AACT in January. TMP founder Jon Douglas Rake and former TLT artistic director Judy Cullen attended the group's winter meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, to state their case.
It worked. This past weekend the Tacoma delegation was informed that their proposal had been accepted.
“Tacoma has a great tradition of community theater, and Washington is one of the western states that is most active in the AACT," says Cullen, who is also the WSCTA president. “This festival will be a great event for our local theaters and our state organization. I am incredibly excited about the task at hand and all of the terrific Northwest hospitality that we will share with our guests.”
And the parade of news out of TLT keeps coming, now that it has selected an artistic director to replace Judy Cullen, who left last year.
The newbie is no newbie. David Duvall is now the top TLT artistic director, a man well known by South Sound theaters.
Duvall is a native of Bellevue and comes to Tacoma with more than 30 years in professional theater and with more than 250 productions to his credit. He has performed in various capacities with such companies as The Montana Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Eastside Theatre Company, Tacoma Actor’s Guild, Evergreen Theatre Company, Studio East, Tacoma Little Theatre, ACT in Seattle, Western Washington University, Western Theatre Summer Stock, and American Revue Theatre, where he served as founding artistic director for four years.
“I am elated to have this opportunity to serve Tacoma’s theatrical community as well as the community at large," Duvall says. "In my 10 years of working at TLT, I have truly grown to love Tacoma, our audiences and particularly the enormously talented people who appear on the TLT stage. To watch them grow and blossom, over and over, is truly a thrill for me! I’m looking forward to what we will all create together in the coming years.”
