by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Harlequin Productions will bring Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play I Am My Own Wife to Olympia for their first play of 2018. It is the true life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an eccentric and elegant German transvestite who hid from the Nazis in plain sight by presenting as a …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Harlequin Productions’ The Stardust Christmas Fandango is the 22nd show in the series of locally written and produced holiday musicals that has been thrilling audiences for decades. Harlequin co-founder Linda Whitney calls it a Christmas card to Olympia. The series started in 1994, and Harlequin has done …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Few community theaters, or for that matter few theaters of any kind anywhere, are willing to tackle William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. It’s among the bard’s least-produced plays for a reason, but as Harlequin Productions’ artistic director and the director of this show, Scot Whitney, says, there’s a core …
by Rosemary Ponnekanti for OLY ARTS Cymbeline is a romantic Shakespeare play with a ridiculously big cast and totally random plot devices, so why is Harlequin Productions’ Scot Whitney mounting a production this October? For the story. “It’s a handful,” Whitney admits. “People are terrified of this play, but at heart it has a gorgeous, …
Thespian David Wright was born near Christmas in 1946. He died this week in Olympia at age 71. Wright was considered a master of the stage and worked regularly as an actor at many theaters along the West Coast. Wright began working with Harlequin Productions in 1992 in their second season, and performed on the Harlequin …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play August: Osage County by Tracy Letts is a play unlike any other. The story unfolds, or should we say erupts, over a few weeks in the rural Oklahoma home of Beverly and Violet Weston. It opens with Beverly, a crusty but kindly …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS There’s an internationally known star in the cast of Harlequin Productions’ August: Osage County, but don’t feel out of the loop if you don’t recognize her. Seattle actor Ellen McLain is famous chiefly among video gamers. “Ellen has Broadway credits from a number of years back,” said Aaron Lamb, …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS When not appearing on area stages, Dennis Rolly can be found serving customers at Pellegrino’s Italian Kitchen in Tumwater or riding scooters (a Taiwanese SYM 200 and an Italian Piaggio 500) with his wife, Gail, or traveling cross country. The latter is an every-other-year excursion, usually going to Kentucky, …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS This summer, Harlequin Productions is hoping audiences will fall in love with First Date. The musical, which premiered at Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre in 2012 before heading to Broadway, opens June 22. The daters referred to in the title are Casey (Christie Murphy-Oldright) and Aaron (Bruce Haasl), and the …
by Kelli Samson for OLY ARTS With her jazzy voice, inflamed red hair and that mischievous twinkle in her eye, Harlequin Productions’s resident secret weapon has for years been none other than actor Maggie Ferguson-Wagstaffe. She’s currently gracing Harlequin’s State Theater stage as both Miss Erikson and Lady Saltburn in Present Laughter. She describes this …