Michael C. Moore , May 28, 2017
BREMERTON — There have been many Memorial Day weekends when umbrellas were an integral part of the Mountaineers' productions at Kitsap Forest Theater.
Most years, it was because it was raining.
For the 2017 spring offering, though, the bumbershoot played a huge role in the opening-day performance of the much-beloved musical "The Wizard of Oz," even though the day was every bit as idyllic as the al fresco venue could've hoped. Director Craig Schieber might not have been able to pull off this imaginative, judiciously contemporized version of Dorothy Gale's travels to and from the Emerald City without lots, and lots, andlotsandlots, of umbrellas.
(It should be noted that, even though nothing caught fire, extinguishers also made a star-level contribution. Ponder.)
It's not easy putting on a satisfactory "Wizard of Oz," let alone a superb one, and Schieber faced all the usual challenges of trying to bring a special effects-heavy show into the rustic amphitheater. And, as usual, he manages to get over, around and through most of the potential pitfalls by replicating the bells and whistles as best he can, keeping the performance floor a blur or color and motion and — mostly — just letting the story tell itself.
There's also the challenge of trying to please two completely different audiences. Some — like myself, who grew up watching the annual and much-anticipated telecasts of the 1939 movie version — are so familiar with the book and lyrics that you can see our lips moving. For us, a performance needs to live up to iconic images and generally be the stuff of our fond memories.
But there are also those in every audience who, for whatever reason — they're younger than 5, or spent their lives under a big rock — haven't caught up with this wonderful, timeless fantasy adventure. For them, it's Schieber's job to give them a first point of reference, a "Wizard of Oz" against which all others will be measured in future.
On most fronts, he succeeds. And he does so with a cleverly tricked-up visual aesthetic, which turns Munchkins and Winkies into computer game characters, modernized a crystal ball into a cell phone and an hourglass into a flat-screen monitor (albeit an insufficiently sized one).
There are also the tried and true Forest Theatre tricks of having people portray everything from furniture to foliage.
The look overall — with bouquets tossed to costumer Barbara Klingberg and choreographer Guy Caridi — is a close-enough chip off the old blocks to satisfy the life-long Ozniks, but colorful and whimsical enough — not to mention referentially modern — to grab and hold the attentions of first-timers, even the diaper-clad.
Much of the acting is cursory at best, as Schieber's huge cast was charged primarily with getting through the long, episodic proceedings without bogging down.
But there are some highlights, starting with a delightfully 2017-ish Dorothy delivered by Jasmine Harrick, who's theatrical throughout without being cloying, and makes worthy work of the show's best-known song, "Over the Rainbow." Her singing and dancing also help breathe life into the "Jitterbug" production number (don't look for that one in the movie) that I've always thought was a pain, but quite enjoyed in the forest.
Caridi scores points not only for thorough and fun choreography, but for his rubber-limbed performance as the Scarecrow. Along with Harrick's Dorothy, I think I liked him most of all.
What made the biggest impression on me was that the Mountaineers' "Wizard of Oz," with all its challenges, limitations and distractions (if you've been before, you know the family-friendly amphitheater is often part gallery, part nursery), held the attention of the large, sun-kissed crowd about as well as any show I've seen there.
As measures of success go, especially for a show as big as "The Wizard of Oz" and a venue as challenging as the Forest Theater, that's an important one.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/story/entertainment/2017/05/29/wizard-oz-delivers-when-can/352693001/
Jasmine Harrick has been performing since she was 5, and has been lucky enough to work in productions at The 5th Avenue and Village Theatre, but Kitsap holds a special place in her heart. “It’s more than a theater,” she says, “it’s a community. Because you spend so much time with the rest of the cast – camping, hiking, eating together – you get to know everyone more than at other theaters.”
Jasmine’s experience with KFT began at age 4, when she came with her parents to performances, who were hoping the outdoor environment would be a good counter to toddler fidgetiness. She thrilled at the opportunity to meet the actors onstage and was already a veteran audience member when at age 8 she auditioned with her sister, Eliana, and her parents for Fiddler on the Roof. This began a treasured family tradition of performing together. It didn’t take long for the unique theater to work its magic on all of them. Weekends after rehearsals, Jasmine would head out into the wooded areas beyond the cabin to find secluded glens where she and her new friends from the cast would create fairy houses, explore the trail to Big Tree and Wildcat Creek, or build impromptu carnival rides around the cabin. She went on to portray Lucy in Narnia, Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, Annie in Annie, and Neleus in Mary Poppins.
That sense of specialness of place and community is one thing that drew Jasmine back to the theater this 
year, after missing last year due to Village Theatre’s Billy Elliott. “I missed it so much,” she says, “I was just hoping to get a chance to be in a show here again,” so she couldn’t be more thrilled to also get the opportunity to play Dorothy.
Jasmine’s says about playing Dorothy: “I don’t care that she’s a girl really,” she says, “What interests me most are characters who are nice people, who know what they want, and who try hard to do the right thing. It doesn’t matter whether they are girls or not. Before I started working on the character, I thought Dorothy was kind of dull, that everything just happens to her, and she’s like, ‘oh no, help me please.’ That’s not an interesting character to me. My favorite part was always the Munchkins.”
She soon found the role presented challenges, physical and emotional. “She’s on the entire show, so you have to have a lot of energy. And emotionally, she goes through a lot of changes during the show. At the beginning of the show, Dorothy convinces herself that nobody understands or really loves her, and that she despises her Aunt and never wants to see her again. When she’s away from her Aunt and thinks she may be sick, she immediately wants to get back to her, even though she’s in this incredible, remarkable place – and that goal drives her for the rest of the show. Dorothy realizes that she already has what she thought she wanted.”
Jasmine is excited by the novel take that Craig Scheiber and costumer Barbara Klingberg brought to the show. “This is a very iconic show, and I think it’s really cool that they are doing something to mix it up a little bit, but still keep the elements that made it a classic.”
Kitsap Sun Preview, May 24, 2016; By Michael C. Moore, mmoore@kitsapsun.com
Craig Schieber's last experience with "The Music Man" at the Kitsap Forest Theater was 15 years ago. He said the version he's directing there now won't bear much of a resemblance.
"Sixteen years ago, I don't think I had an appreciation for this show," said Schieber, who's directed at least one of the Mountaineers Players' two annual productions at the Forest Theatre since 2000. "When we did it then, we had most of the stage covered in boardwalk, big buildings, and the big house up on the mound."
But Schieber has learned a lot in his years putting on shows in the idyllic amphitheater, carved out of old-growth forest in the early 1920s and active as a performance venue ever since. For this year's "Music Man," he's gone two-dimensional.
"We really had fun with this one," he said. "We've got some furniture, some chairs, and we've got a piano. Pretty much everything else is two-dimensional flats.
"This is a real change" from the 2001 production, he said.
Schieber said he and set designer Chris Stanley originally had talked about doing pretty much the same set up as they had done in 2001. In recent years, though, Schieber has had good success with a more fluid style of storytelling, eschewing stationary pieces for flats carried by ensemble cast members, still getting the job done visually but giving him the option of moving the entire "set" on and off in a few seconds.
"We were walking around the stage area, and we both just decided, 'Nah, we don't want to do what we did before. We're older and wiser."
"The Music Man," Meredith Willson's classic tale (and his only significant hit) about a flimflam man who transforms and is transformed by a backwater Iowa town and its naive inhabitants, actually lends itself pretty well to the Forest Theater's al fresco aesthetic. Most of the production numbers already take place in the out-of-doors, and those that don't are easily representable with Schieber's portable-set strategy.
"We're using some two-sided flats that'll take you right inside a building," Schieber said. "For the library, we have one side that's the outside, and then we just flip them around and it's the inside."
The library, for those not already in the know about what transpires in "The Music Man," is ground zero, where the mysterious Harold Hill, in town to sell the idea of a boys' band, and the staid librarian Marian Paroo each meet their match.
"The Music Man" debuted on Broadway in 1957, but it has endured on the strength of its tremendous story and even better songs: "Goodnight, My Someone," "Seventy-Six Trombones," "My White Knight," "The Wells Fargo Wagon, "Till There Was You," and several et ceteras. It didn't win five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, for not being any good. But its music, and its outlook, are as refreshing now as it was nearly six decades ago.
"I'm playing a little bit with that whole veneer that we all have in society, and that is so much a part of this show," Schieber said. "What's interesting is what the characters are dealing with right underneath that veneer, the layers each of us has, that kind of yin-and-yang of life."
Jason Gingold, who went green to play the title character in last summer's "Shrek," will be the Mountaineers' Harold Hill, with Beavan Walters — a Mountaineers regular who starred as Maria in 2010's "The Sound of Music" and worked alongside Gingold in 2014's "Honk!" — cast as Marian. Both also have children joining them in the mammoth (more than 50) cast, an example of what Schieber said was his favorite thing about the 2016 version of "The Music Man."
"The whole idea of 'The Music Man' is community," he said, "and I think it's really great the number of families we have in our cast. I can't think of a year when we've had more, and cast members as young as a 5-year-old and a grandma.
"Kitsap Sun article here.