Kitsap Sun, by Michael C. Moore, BREMERTON — There was a time when “Honk!”, a musical-theater version of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling,” seemed poised to become the toast of Broadway.
But no one, at the time, was in the mood.
“I think it would’ve been a big success,” said Adam Othman, who’s directing the Mountaineers Players’ production of the show that opens May 25 at the Kitsap Forest Theater. “It was testing out in the U.S., and looked like it was going to be a big hit, but then the whole 9/11 thing happened.”
A success in its birthplace of London, where it won the Olivier Award (the Brits’ equivalent of the Tonys) for Best Musical in 2000, “Honk!” seemed like a sure bet for a similar reception across the pond. After the events of 9/11, however, no one was in much of a play-going mood, and the show moved onto a virtual back burner.
“It’s a shame,” said Othman, who’s a veteran of decades of shows around the Seattle area (including KFT, where he first appeared in 1987, and most recently in 2011’s “Into the Woods”). “This show is one of those undiscovered classics. It was bad timing that it didn’t get on Broadway, but a lot of people knew about it, and it developed a following.
“It has a lot of heart, and the music is very rich and deep,” he added of the show that will mark his KFT directing debut.
The musical — with music by George Stiles and book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe — might not be familiar to a lot of people as other entries in its genre, but the story certainly is: The “ugly duckling” endures the ridicule and ostracism of his peers, only to mature into a beautiful swan.
“It’s a good show for this place, and the audience they get here,” Othman said. “It’s a family show, and it’s got a good message about tolerance, and that beauty is only skin deep.”
As usual for the Mountaineers — who conducted auditions for its 2014 season in both Seattle and Kitsap — the show is a family affair on stage as well as in the galleries.
“We knew we would get the people out (to audition),” Othman said. “For this show, it was a matter of getting the right mix of people, both adults and kids. One of the great things about this theater is that you can have kids and their parents in the same show.”
There are several family connections in the cast of “Honk!”, including Beavan Walters and her daughter, Sophie, who play matriarch Ida and one of her ducklings. The two have been paired previously at KFT, most notably as Maria Rainer and the youngest Von Trapp child in “The Sound of Music.” (Her son, Scooter, is also in his very first KFT show!).
Several others who’ve done memorable turns in past KFT productions are in Othman’s cast, including Jenny Dreessen and Megan Castillo. But there are some newcomers who will make an impression as well, including Nick McCarthy, who plays Ugly, and Jason Gingold as a conniving cat who pretends to befriend Ugly when all he’s really interested in is eating him.
“There’s a lot of wonderful song-and-dance in the show,” Othman said. “A lot of it is slightly vaudeville-esque. But there’s also a lot of sincerity, in the ballads that Ugly and his mom sing, and as he goes through this whole process of finding out who he is.”
Musical direction is by Amy Beth Nolte, a veteran of several KFT shows both in that capacity and as a performer. Costumer Barbara Klingberg might well find herself up to her elbows in feathers for this show, and choreographer Heather Dawson’s dance steps will be performed at the waddle. Keyboard accompaniment will come from Greg Smith And Victoria Casteel.
“I’ve worked with Amy Beth here before,” Othman said. “As soon as I got this (assignment), I knew I wanted her for musical director. Heather’s new here, but she’s worked with me (with the student program at Seattle Prep, which he directs).
Hey guys, if you want to fill in that time between the Superbowl and the first Pre-season game, I have a suggestion. In fact, it’s a little bit like football:
1. It's outdoors
2. There's a paying crowd for every "game"
3. There is a "pre-season"
4. You can do it by yourself or with your family and friends
5. You have to enjoy standing up in front of crowds while you participate
6. It's a timed event
7. There is a coach to help you memorize your "route"
8. You can "try out" for the better positions if you have the talent
9. You get to sing theme songs with a bunch of other "fans"
10. When the season is over, you look forward to the next season
That’s right guys, now there is a way for you to fill in that gap.
All you have to do is go to a special website, and let them know you want to join.
Because the people at Kitsap Forest Theater are looking for men who are looking for a new challenge: to be a part of outdoor community musical theater! Just go to http://www.foresttheater.com/auditions, check out the times and dates (we know you have it available, unless you are a hard core baseball fan…)
There are plenty of parts available if you want to be in the Ensemble, or if you have been on the stage before, or sung in a choir, try out for one of the male roles! Rehearsals are in Seattle, with some in Bremerton. During the run of the show, you get to experience the woods by camping in tents – how cool is that?
But you have to hurry! Auditions are in 2 weeks – but if you are not sure what you want to do, give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to find a part that fits you perfectly.
Feeling blue after the football season is now a thing of the past. Thanks to the Seattle Mountaineers Players and Kitsap Forest Theater you now have something to look forward to in the off season.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Jerry Dreessen
Mountaineers Players Member
Kitsap Sun's preview by Michael Moore, May 22, 2013
Directors come full circle in Mountaineers’ ‘Narnia’
BREMERTON — The last time Jenny Estill and Amy Beth Nolte were involved in a production of “Narnia” at the Kitsap Forest Theater, they were performing.
“Amy Beth was Lucy Pevensie, and I was the littlest mouse,” said Estill, who was 8 when the Mountaineers Players last performed “Narnia,” back in 1996. “Amy Beth (who went by the surname Lindvall then) was 7.”
This time out, the two Kitsap Forest Theater veterans return as the brain trust for this latest mounting of the musical take on C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the first tome in his “Chronicles of Narnia” series. Estill is directing at the Kitsap Forest Theater for the second time (the first was “Oklahoma” in 2010), while music director Nolte is a veteran of several recent KFT musicals.
Estill, who cut her theater teeth on the rustic amphitheater’s hard-packed dirt “stage,” said she and Nolte have two main challenges in their directorial roles.
“This is where we both learned to be theater artists,” she said. “This place is a village, and we really want to pass that along so that the young people here now will understand that this is something they can enjoy for a whole lifetime.”
“It’s a mix,” Nolte added. “Of course, we care about the professional quality of the show, but we’re both teachers, too.”
Tradition is not something they take lightly at the Kitsap Forest Theater, where the Seattle-based Mountaineers Players have been producing at least one musical a year since 1923 [note: except for 4 years during World War I].
The Kitsap Forest Theater, an amphitheater carved out of a rhododendron-riddled wilderness, seems an apt setting for a fantastical place like Narnia, which the four Pevensie children access through the back of their wardrobe. Unbelievably, Estill decided the venue needed even more trees than nature already had provided.
“We’re going to have some human trees,” she said. “They’ll be doing lots of things, including helping move the set. I’m a stickler about quick set changes.”
The trees, and all the story’s other fantastical characters, will be brought to life by veteran costumer Barbara Klingberg, who also dressed the cast of Bainbridge Performing Arts’ just-completed “A Chorus Line.” Choreography is by Lynda Sue Welch, with fight choreography by Ken Michels.
Estill’s also played a role in keeping things moving during rehearsals, when she says she’s been able to take over the role of the prompter, or the “book” (the person who sits in front of the stage with the script, nudging actors who might be struggling to remember their lines).
“I am the book,” she laughed. “I remember every word.”
Both Estill and Nolte, it turns out, have some deep roots in the story.
“Being Lucy when I was 7 changed my view of Narnia,” Nolte said. “That’s the magical thing about being young. You really can believe that you’re in Narnia.”
Estill said the show’s been on her to-do list practically since she served her mouse stint in 1996, letting it drop that whenever it came up in the Mountaineers’ rotation, she’d be happy to helm it.
“I’m just glad they didn’t do it last year,” she said of the 2012 season, when she was working in Ohio.
One of the biggest challenges for Estill has been to match the large, multi-generational talent pool who showed up for auditions with the characters, from the Pevensies right down to those human trees. Aslan the lion, the show’s most iconic role, was the final one to be cast, when Dave Holden (Ovation! Musical Theatre Bainbridge’s summer 2012 production of “The Pirates of Penzance”) was recommended by Mountaineers regular Jenny Dreessen, who will play the White Witch.
It isn’t lost on Estill that Dreessen also played the witch in the Mountaineers’ 2011 production of “Into the Woods.”
“She’s collecting the witch roles,” she said of Dreessen, whose daughter, Katie, is cast as Susan Pevensie.
“For our White Stag, we didn’t really have a dancer,” Estill said, “so we took Megan Castillo (who’s shone in several KFT shows) and cast her, and we just changed it from a dancing role to a singing role.
“The challenge is how best to use and showcase everyone,” she said.
In other words, you have to be able to see the forest for the human trees.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2013/may/22/local-theater-directors-come-full-circle-in/#axzz2U22xSJ41