showcase magazine | fall 08
To end the year, Olympia Little Theater will bring back its beloved WOLT radio play. A distinctly retro show, WOLT mimics the set of an old-time radio show. This year the Christmas classic Yes, Virginia is the show. The response to a little girl’s plaintive question to the New York Sun, the show follows Frank Church, the reporter tasked with answering. OLT does a bang-up job on these radio plays, and they make a wonderful holiday tradition. Harlequin Productions, just shy of 20 years in existence, does things a bit different from most theaters. Instead of following the Fall-Winter-Spring season, the Harlequin starts in January and pushes on through the year. While most companies are taking the summer off and retooling, this company is in full swing with the dynamic stage show of the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show. While so popular it is being held over the entire summer, Dr. Frankenfurter and family will be sent off in time for Harlequin’s fall offerings. Harlequin Productions barely take a break, opening with Stardust for Christmas, a holiday musical show with a twist. Set in the 1940’s, featuring a nightclub, gangsters and a card-game gone wrong, this show is a holiday classic made especially for those with low tolerance for holiday schmaltz. The Washington Center for Performing Arts offers a wide variety of entertainment this season. Starting in October, the center ushers in the hypnotizing boundless energy of Natalie MacMaster a celtic music fiddler. The following month another female performer takes the stage. Linda Eder vocal talents have packed Carnegie Hall and Broadway’s Gershwin Theater.
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After the bitter tragicomedy of I Hate Hamlet, OLT presents the spine-tingling suspense of Wait Until Dark. The role of Susy Hendrix, the blind housewife who finds herself in the clutches of evil, won Audrey Hepburn the Oscar for the film adaptation. Susy, and the brutal, violent Roat, leader of the gang of criminals tormenting her, are iconic stage characters. The finale, when Susy casts the stage in darkness, is a not-tobe-missed moment.
The New Year is in full swing at as five-time Grammy winner Billy Joel and legendary director/choreographer Twyla Tharp have joined forces to create the spectacular new musical Time Magazine declares “The #1 show of the year!” The New York Times calls Movin’ Out “a shimmering portrait of an American generation. The Broadway Center, proprietors of downtown Tacoma’s Pantages and Rialto theaters, always bring strong quality shows to the area. In October, the Center features the Tom Robbin’s counterculture classic Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. Sissy Hankshaw is born with enormous thumbs that she uses to best advantage from a young age: she begins a hitchhiking odyssey across the United States. On her adventures to far-flung places, she accumulates a collection of renegade women—cowgirls—who only want their fair share of the myth that is the Wild West. While that plays at Theater on the Square, the Tony Award winning The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee comes to the Pantages, plus celebrated humorist David Sedaris does a reading at the Rialto. And that’s just in October! In November, the Center starts the holiday season with a bang, bringing a new telling of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge story, this one based on the hit Bill Murray film Scrooged, to celebrate Tacoma’s tree-lighting ceremony. Theater in the South Sound is a vital, glorious part of the local culture. There will be a show for everyone this fall and winter, so go out and grab an aisle seat. w 13