Proteus (Adam St. John) and Valentine (Jeffrey Painter)

REVIEW: The Two Gentlemen of Verona

THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Quoting director Scot Whitney’s notes in the program for Harlequin Productions’ The Two Gentlemen of Verona, “Probably no one had argued that it is (Shakespeare’s) best work. It’s not…The jokes are often cheap, strained or downright corny. And though Shakespeare always played fast and loose with time …

Read more

Jeffrey Painter, Jessica Weaver, Adam St. John and Kira Batcheller of Two Gents

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS Two decades after he last directed The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Scot Whitney of Harlequin Productions is at it again. This show, featuring costumes and sets that call to mind the art of Maxfield Parrish, runs through Oct. 16. He has a new take on the early Shakespearean comedy …

Read more

Katherine Strohmaier

The Last Five Years: From Beginning to End to Beginning

by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS The Last Five Years, opening Aug. 18 at Harlequin Productions’ State Theater, tells the story of a relationship told from beginning to end—and from end to beginning. The Jason Robert Brown musical opens with Cathy (Katherine Strohmaier) singing about the end of her marriage. Then Jamie (Aaron Lamb) sings …

Read more

Little Shop of Horrors at Harlequin Productions

Faust in a Florist Shop

by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS Audrey II, the people-eating plant protagonist of Harlequin Productions’ Little Shop of Horrors, is a role too big for one person. If the horror-comedy rock musical is Faust in a florist shop, Audrey II is Mephistopheles. Christian Doyle and Maggie Ferguson-Wagstaffe team up to play the vined villain, which …

Read more

Harlequin Productions

Harlequin Productions is a professional not-for-profit theater company at the State Theater in downtown Olympia. Founded in 1991, its mission is to seek to invigorate, educate, and empower our community and all people to feel more, think more, play more and judge less through the mirror of real live theatre. Through a dynamic selection of …

Read more

Scot Whitney and Israel Horovitz

Harlequin’s Love Affair With Israel Horovitz

by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Local theater company Harlequin Productions has a love affair going with playwright Israel Horovitz. It began with a surprise email the playwright sent to Harlequin co-founder Scot Whitney early in 2009. For Whitney it goes back much further than that, to sometime in the late 1980s. Whitney and his …

Read more

Skip to content