Arthur Miller Revivals

In addition to the much lauded local production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, recently produced by Ferndale Rep and Arcata Playhouse, directed by Jane Hill, there is currently a Broadway revival of Miller's play The Price.  President Obama attended a performance with his daughter Malia.  The last time The Price was in New York was in 1992, when the playwright was alive.  It was the occasion for this interview with Charlie Rose.  Much of what he says about American theatre still pertains (though perhaps the quality of older actors in regional theatre is better), and what he says about playwriting and the role of theatre in society is perennially relevant.

It seems also that Miller's stature as an American playwright continues to grow. Both The Crucible and Death of a Salesman are produced frequently around the world by professional theatres as well as others.  In an American Theatre interview, contemporary playwright Theresa Rebeck said, "I have a theory that anyone who ends up with a career in the theatre was in either Our Town or The Crucible in high school or college."

Now other of his better known plays like The Price, All My Sons and A View From the Bridge are being done more often as well.  But Miller wrote other fine plays, including some shorter works with small casts late in his career.  These are at least as stageworthy as many such contemporary plays, and deserve to be seen.

Los Pajaros and More on This North Coast Weekend

Update: It's the final weekend (Feb. 12-14) for Los Pajaros.  With Mother Teresa as Harpo, Dick Nixon as Groucho, it's the Marx Brothers meet Firesign Theatre, with a Latino edge.  The cast of 11 seems even bigger at times, so it's fascinating to recall that before this HSU production, the only performances were by the three members of Culture Clash. 

HSU Theatre is opening its major production for this school year on Thursday (Feb. 5) and it's something different for the North Coast.  It's Los Pajaros, a contemporary musical satire adapted by the Chicano American performance troupe Culture Clash from the play The Birds by Aristophanes, directed by Del Arte's Michael Fields, and featuring a Tim Randles band playing salsa, blues, gospel and rock & roll.

What's different is the Latino voice and perspective, in the Culture Clash script and as carried out by a largely bilingual HSU student cast.  The production recognizes the growing Latino population in Humboldt County and within the HSU student body, while adopting and adapting a comedic approach that's as old as theatre in western civilization.  That's pretty exciting.

So even if local media is waiting a week to review this play, it's worth saying that it opens this weekend and runs for only one more: Thursdays through Saturdays, February 5-7 and 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday February 14 in the Van Duzer Theatre.

  There's a lot more information at HSU Stage & Screen.  I usually have my complete say there, as production publicist.  But once in awhile I need to add a little emphasis when it may not be getting through otherwise.  (If you read the Journal you won't even get that link to information.  In what looks very much like deliberate pettiness, they've excised every mention of a web page link to this weekend's HSU theatre and music productions.)

Not that this is going to be a regular thing here anymore, but here's a couple of other events this weekend:

Arcata Playhouse hosts The Uncomfortables Tour, a spoken word event featuring Billy Tuggle (aka Karma Threesixty, from Chicago) and Wil Gibson from Maine, plus special guests. It's happening Thursday (Feb. 5) at 7 p.m.  There's a free workshop earlier that afternoon at 4 p.m. 707-822-1575.

First years at the Dell'Arte School present their annual Commedia dell'Arte Show  Thursday, Friday and Saturday Feb. 5-7 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.

Arcata Playhouse: Start to Now

The origins of the Arcata Playhouse are described in the 2007 column I also reproduce at the end of this one.  Since then there have indeed been many physical improvements in the theatre, and the Playhouse has been the energetic center of the ongoing revival in the old Creamery district of Arcata.

For awhile, I was going to the Arcata Playhouse regularly to review shows (and indulge in the homemade, still-warm chocolate chip cookies.)  Several notable shows premiered there: the two versions of Crawdaddy, and Tyler Olson's Quake: A Love Story stand out in memory.  Redwood Curtain produced shows there during its exile, and Dan Stone's Signature Stage brought Kopit's Sing To Me Through Open Windows. Jane Hill returned with Getting There.  Shake the Bard company produced a memorable Othello there, which was the basis for a later North Coast Rep production.  While the NCRT production was more polished, I found the production at the Arcata Playhouse to be more exciting as live theatre, possibly because the audience was in the thick of it.

There were also a number of visiting shows: Elizabeth Fuller and Independent Eye,  Cal Pritner's Mark Twain, Ghost Road's Elektra,  Donald Lacy's still relevant Color Struck for example.

Mostly through Four on the Floor Productions, the impressarios of the Arcata Playhouse provided original material: Jackie Dandeneau was a major creative force behind the epic Women of the Northwest, and David Ferney co-wrote and performed a solo show, The Misunderstood Badger. Ferney's brand of humor, in this show and in his part of the first Crawdaddy show, is unique.  There should be more.

 And there are the annual holiday shows, the latest of which played this past weekend.

In the last several years, the Playhouse has concentrated on music acts and family or children's theatre.  This perhaps reflects a dearth of funding for traveling troupes, and the demise of groups like Sanctuary Stage and Shake the Bard, with none replacing them in the theatrical ecology. But it seems to be also a preference for physical theatre (clown, mask, acro.)

It's interesting to note at the end of the article below that at first David and Jackie were hearing from people interested in reviving the kind of productions that Pacific Arts Center Theatre did.  That is not happening.  There was, David said, the opportunity for someone to mount, in his example, Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.  No one has taken that opportunity, or anything like it.  The PACT dream has apparently faded from the scene.

In any case, the direction that the Playhouse has gone in the past few years limited my attendance (I don't really know how to review clowns and acrobats.)  So I missed the kind of shows I used to see at the Arcata Playhouse, and I really miss the chocolate chip cookies.

Before I wrote the column below in 2007, I'd written about the first phase of reclaiming this Creamery space for stage: the Star Garden Theatre and its first non-children's theatre production of a play by veteran North Coast news broadcaster Dave Silverbrand.  Here are a couple of relevant passages from my draft of that March 2006 article:

Pacific Arts Center Theatre created challenging theatre on the North Coast for a generation, first in Arcata in the 1970s and then in the early 90s in Manila [This is where I saw its exciting production of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women.] Along the way, it spawned the children’s theatre group, Vagabond Players. After leaving Manila, both groups moved for about a year to the Eagle House, then to a Eureka warehouse space. Then PACT stopped producing completely, and Vagabond reconstituted itself as a program of the Ink People... 

Coming in from the March mist and cold, the space inside the Creamery building now known as the Star Garden Theatre feels immediately welcoming. The very high ceilings add to a sense of spaciousness and possibility, and there’s a warmth in the combination of modest fixtures and the theatre’s elegant wood floor. The homey reception area has a refreshment bar, topped with the large masks from Where the Wild Things Are[Star Garden's first production], and a revolutionary new concept in local community theatre---two (count’em, two!) restrooms, one next to the other.  

New Life for An Arcata Landmark?  February 2007

In big cities and small across the country, new artistic energies have often found focus in abandoned industrial districts, where superior buildings with lots of space offer opportunities for lofts, studios and performance venues, plus the people-oriented businesses that come to surround them.

Now and again the old Creamery in Arcata, in the largely depopulated and marginal area west of K Street, has suggested this potential. It hosts the Arcata Ballet, DanceCenter and New World Youth Ballet, with spaces for rehearsal, classes and performances. Years ago, the legendary Pacific Arts Center Theatre began here.

 Still, it hasn’t reached the critical mass to transform the area into a familiar audience destination. But there are signs that may be changing—specifically, a new sign in front saying “Arcata Playhouse,” and new paint being applied to the foyer last week from a tall ladder to which is affixed a small red teddy bear.

 Though the fresh paint outside and inside is only the first step in the planned transformation, this venue’s potential is being suggested and perhaps tested with a gala opening event this Saturday, featuring local luminaries such as Rudi Galindo, Jeff De Mark, Joyce Hough and Fred Neighbor, and hosted by the couple that comprises one-third of the partnership attempting to create a viable and affordable playhouse for theatre, music and other forms of performance, with a family emphasis and a community reach.

 They are Jackie Dandeneau and David Ferney, whose Four on the Floor Productions is partnering with Shoebox Puppet Company (Corey Stevens, owner of the Muddy Cup) and Vagabond Players, which most recently operated the space as the Stargarden Theatre.

 Pacific Arts Center Theatre had spawned Vagabond, which struggled on after PACT faded away, but, true to its name, it was homeless in 2005 when Carole Wolfe, its volunteer artistic director, called the Creamery looking for storage space. Instead she found Vagabond’s new home, in the same place where PACT had begun some thirty years before.

 Other groups also used the space (including Four on the Floor) but this summer Vagabond had fallen several months behind in the rent. That’s when Dandeneau and Ferney put together the partnership and became the venue’s managers. Now all three enterprises—Four on the Floor, Shoebox Puppets and Vagabond—have a home, and the rent is split three ways.

 Ferney and Dandeneau are Dell’ Arte people. Ferney graduated from its school about 20 years ago, and became a member of the locally famous family comic acrobatic troupe, Los Payasos Mendigos. The troupe also traveled far and wide, which is how he met Dandeneau at the Edmonton Fringe Festival, where she was with a traveling feminist sketch comedy group called Full Figure Theatre.

 “We would hook up in New Zealand, and hang out together in England,” Ferney recalled. “Meanwhile I was living in San Francisco, and she was in Vancouver. Finally we realized we would either have to shack up or call it quits.”

 They chose the former, moved to an island between Vancouver and Victoria, started a small theatre company, and a family. Then Dell’Arte called, and hired them both.

 They recently began branching out to produce shows through Four on the Floor, which brought them to the Stargarden Theatre, and to the managing partnership of the Arcata Playhouse. Noting the couple’s professional experience, Ferney said, “I’m interested in exploring a hybrid of professional and community theatre.”

 Upgrading the space is a major goal. ”Getting a decent lighting and sound system, some decent drapes, figuring out the best seating arrangement,” Ferney said. “Corrie is a great partner because he just took over that café, and he’s really interested in getting concessions together, and taking care of all that. So we want to elevate the venue and make it a happening place in Arcata.”

 “I’m excited,” Carole Wolfe professed in the Playhouse lobby, paint roller in hand. “There’s all this new energy—it’s fun again!”

The Playhouse is going forward with a performance later this month by Mookie Cornish (Cirque de Solei clown and Dell’Arte grad) and the Faust Mask Works from Toronto in May. Synapses, which lost its Eureka home, is one of what they hope will be many local groups to perform here.

David and Jackie talked enthusiastically about the possibilities, especially for family-oriented shows and filling community needs, such as a place for young people and seniors to hold performance events.

 But they’re also thinking of adult theatre—the kind the Pacific Arts Center Theatre used to do. “I’ve met a lot of people who are really excited about the rejuvenation of the old PACT space,” Jackie said. “I’d like to do a PACT-style show, with some of the actors who were involved in it.” “You know, pretty much anything is possible, once you’ve got the space,” David observed. “You might be thinking, ‘oh, I’ve always wanted to do Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, so why not?”

Freak and Greeks

In my retrospective plan, I'd hoped my best reviews would be about the plays I remember best, but that's not necessarily the case.  (I should say this retrospective actually began with reproducing my review of Salmon Is Everything from 2006, which was an example of a review I still like about a play I still remember as one of the best I got to write about--although it was some time later.)

At the moment I'm thinking more about the plays than the reviews, and this one--Crawdaddy: A Freak Tragedy, from April 2008 has remained in my memory as a singularly exciting and weird theatrical experience.  There was a quality of surreal danger about it.  At that point it was a strange amalgamation of monologue, music, dark comedy and bizarre family drama.

Almost a year later, a revised version of the show with a different director returned to the Arcata Playhouse. I was disappointed by the changes--it was lighter, drained of danger and life.   (I wrote about it elsewhere on this blog, here. The illustration here is from that production.  I couldn't access my April 2008 review on the NCJ Journal site--that year has mysteriously disappeared.)  But its return allowed me to reap some benefits of reflection.  So what follows is all about this first version, but combining my review at the time with this later description.

The bit that I mention specifically--the puppet's story about his father's job testing the wringers on wring washing machines by literally being wrung through them--has stayed with me ever since.  I mentioned it just a few months ago to David Ferney, who wrote and performed that particular piece.

 Freaks Are Really Greeks? A Promising Work in Progress at the Arcata Playhouse (April 2008)

 Theatre can be most alive when it is rough and unfinished. Some of the most exciting performances I’ve witnessed have been staged readings, script-in-hand or living room cold readings. But what I saw and heard last week at the Arcata Playhouse is more than the raw and even intuitive attempt to explore dramatic material—it’s the living process of creating a play through collaboration, which can include the audience.

 The piece under construction is Crawdaddy: A Freak Tragedy, produced by Dell’Arte, together with Arcata’s Four on the Floor Productions and a troupe from Canada that specializes in mask work and puppetry, the Calgary Animated Objects Society, or CAOS.

 As is often the case here, all these roads lead back to the Dell’Arte company and school, which many of the participants have in common. Script and song lyrics are by Toby Mulford, music by Tim Gray; the director is Stephen Buescher, and head designer is Xstine Cook, the founder of CAOS.

 Only an insider could accurately describe the nature of the ongoing collaboration, but, as most group efforts do, it results in iterations—successive versions that reflect new creative insights, responses to observations of performances by insiders and audiences, as well as technical improvements. So each performance at this stage is likely to be different.

As might be expected with these particular companies, this production is developing puppetry, costumes, props, sound and lighting effects right along with the script, so there is plenty to see and hear (including singing and instrumental performances.) Beginning last Saturday and continuing this Thursday, Friday and Saturday (April 10-12), audiences are formally brought into the process with question-and-answer sessions after the show.

 “Crawdaddy” is about a troupe of sideshow “freaks,” that is also a family, with San Francisco Mime Troupe veteran James Griffiths as Crawdaddy ( he’s got crab claws for hands, and he becomes the patriarch of the clan); Jacqueline Dandeneau in an immense fat suit as his Fat Lady wife; Zuzka Sabata and Esther Haddad as their Siamese Twin-daughters; Tyler Olsen as the son-in-law Val, and David Ferney speaking through a sinister puppet as the Barker. Jerry Lee Wallace is the Outside Talker (who was literally outside talking up the performance before it started, promising “David Spade live,” which is certainly my idea of a freak show.)

 I caught a dress rehearsal and the opening night performance, and there were changes even in the day between. At least one wasn’t planned. Jackie Dandenau, who had been so expressive and animated in rehearsal, had become so physically disoriented by the fat suit that she almost didn’t go on for opening night, and her performance was more subdued, especially at first.

Violet and Daisy Hilton, Siamese twins in the 1932 film Freaks

The knowledge I brought with me to that rehearsal concerning “freaks”—people with real, exaggerated and fake deformities who made their living as exhibits or performers—was pretty limited. There were still some freak shows attached to traveling carnivals when I was a child, though I never entered one, and in the 70s I did see the 1932 Todd Browning film (“Freaks”) with actual freak show performers as the actors. In that movie, the “freaks” were the honorable ones, while a couple of “normal” people in the circus were the villains.

 Things are not so simple in “Crawdaddy.” For one thing, there are no “normal” people in it—their presence is felt only as showers of coins and greenbacks. Crawdaddy describes his show in lofty terms, as “extraordinary people doing extraordinary things” and promising “magic and mystery.” But also “the transcendent and the twisted.” Early on, Veronica has dreams of creating an excellent troupe, but that creation turns out to involve murders and perhaps other violent acts (the degree to which these are specified appears to be an ongoing experiment), as well as the grotesque exhibits of stillborns, who can still be “useful.”

In the performances I saw of that show, Crawdaddy (played by James Griffiths of the San Francisco Mime Troupe) was a dominant and sometimes threatening personality, despite being barely ambulatory due to his grotesque crab tail and feet. His marriage with Veronica, the Fat Lady was interdependent with their attempts to take and then keep control of their freak show, which often involved murdering other freaks, including Crawdaddy’s father.
 
But there was surprising tenderness in their relationship, and in Veronica’s struggle to have children (stillborns that she justified keeping in jars as part of the show), and then in their family feeling when Veronica gave birth to Siamese twins, Lily (Esther Haddad) and Heather (Zuzka Sabata.) The two girls, writhing in each other’s permanent embrace, were lively and real, and of course part of the freak show, playing odd and haunting melodies on saxophone and violin.

 Through dialogue and Crawdaddy’s monologues, and particularly the stories told by the vaguely sinister puppet, GW Willikers (the voice of David Ferney), more of the family drama was revealed, always returning to the particular culture of freaks in freak shows, as well as the permeable definitions yet ironclad realities of freakishness and normality. So when one of the girls fell in love with the dim but otherwise “normal” janitor, Val (Tyler Olsen), the mood alternated quickly between acceptance and menace.

 The mood was captured by a story the puppet told with pride and nostalgia about his father’s job testing out the wringers of washing machines by getting wrung through them, and popping back to normal size afterwards. The assembly line as freak show suggested another riff on economic dependence at the edge of existence.

 The essence of a freak show—of the need to satisfy the entertainment desires of normal folk with freakishness and freakish behavior—was a unifying theme, and just how this affected the family was often demonstrated in how many coins and bills showered the stage from the darkness around it. When survival was again threatened, Crawdaddy devised a one-time-only showstopper, the chainsaw separation of his daughters, which ended predictably in their deaths.

In his last soliloquy, Crawdaddy refused to be judged, judging instead his audience and the darkness within human nature which he shared and reflected. Together with the music and bizarre comedy, this was an edgy evening, and with themes shared with Shakespeare and especially Greek drama, it certainly was in the neighborhood of the tragedy in its title.

 The most unexpected element of this show, and the one that most impressed me at the rehearsal, was the central story of a family. The play begins with Crawdaddy telling about a hard lesson his father taught him as a child. Then the relationship between Crawdaddy and Veronica develops, and leads (after several stillborns) to the twins, who appear to be literally joined at the hip. I was taken with Veronica’s innocence and her powerful maternal feelings, and especially the performances of Sabata and Haddad as the twins, literally quivering with life and energy, two girls becoming young women.

 The courtship of one of the twins by Val, the somewhat dimwitted young man who sweeps up after the show, provides humor, vitality and then a sexual tension running between innocence and perversity. Perhaps it was additional makeup and Dandenau’s necessary restraint, or maybe just because I was sitting farther from the stage, but on opening night even these scenes seemed darker, less “human,” whatever that may mean in this context. And the play certainly gets very dark later.

Without giving more of the story away, this darkness brings to a climax another central theme: the identity and morality of the characters and their world, in relation to the audience. How does the audience define them, even to themselves? In starkly reciting Shakespeare’s sonnet # 121, Crawdaddy echoes the God of the Old Testament, as well as St. Paul, the poet Wyatt and of course the poet Popeye, in asserting, “I am who I am.” Yet he justifies his evil in the eyes of observers: “All men are bad and in their badness reign.”

But is that reality, or denial and evil itself? In the end I was struck by how much these “freaks” resemble the freakish gods of the Greeks, especially in their grotesque family relationships. I’ve just started reading Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, and I was intrigued by her suggestion that the Greek myths of gods who murder, rape and torture each other, present a family model that was more perverse and tragic than any in nearby civilizations, and this may have been a product of the preceding “dark age”-- four centuries of chaos and privation.

 This in turn focuses something I noted about “Crawdaddy.” Though the Dell’Arte press release said it takes place in the 1930s, I detected no indication of time or circumstance or any outside world in the production itself. I wonder if that is an avenue yet to be explored. In any case, this piece has extraordinary potential, and it may do extraordinary things.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell'Arte (along with KHUM, KSLUG and Lost Coast Outpost) hosts the second annual Blue Lake Harvest Days on Friday and Saturday Oct. 24 & 25.  The events include Elemental: An Outdoor Community Spectacle presented by Arcata Playhouse's Four on the Floor Theatre, beginning at 7 p.m. on Oct. 24.  "Performed by the banks of the Mad River and throughout the Blue Lake Business Park, Elemental lights up the night in a traveling pageant featuring stilt walkers, giant puppets, paper lanterns, live music and a giant shadow puppet play."

Afterwards on Friday evening Charlie Chaplin shorts will be shown in Dell Arte's Carlo Theatre (some with Charlie wearing them), and on Saturday night there's the big barn dance, also in the Carlo.  These two events and some others were previously scheduled to be in the Big Tent, but it looks like rain this weekend so all Big Tent events have been moved to the Carlo.  For a full schedule (and weather updates) check www.Dellarte.com. Blue Lake Harvest Days are supported by an award grant by Artplace America.

On Friday (noon to 6 p.m.) and Saturday (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) on the HSU Art Quad in front of the Van Duzer, HSU Theatre, Ferndale Rep and Humboldt Light Opera will host a gigantic costume sale. "Just in time for Halloween, shoppers will find costumes of all types and sizes at bargain prices.  Shoppers are encouraged to bring a bag."  More info at Ferndale Rep: 707-786-5483, info@ferndalerep.org

As for actual plays on actual stages, HSU's Coraline continues at HSU Thursday-Sunday, and The Addams Family Musical at Ferndale Rep, Friday-Sunday.

This North Coast Weekend

Opening Thursday (October 16) at Van Duzer Theatre, HSU presents Coraline, an unconventional musical, from the famous children’s book by Neil Gaiman, with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt, script by David Greenspan. Directed by Rae Robison, produced by HSU Theatre, Film & Dance.  The run continues Oct. 16-18, 23-25 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 26 at 2 p.m.

Erin Harris plays Coraline, with Anna Duchi as her evil Other Mother and Patrice Elise-Byrd as Cat. Other cast members include Erin Henry, Mickey Thompson, Jesse Chavez, Hanna Jo Clark, Kyle Rispoli, Bryce Luna, Justine Bivans and Valerie Castillo. Dakota Dieter, Mary May and Hanah Toyoda handle the puppets, while Brian Post and Charles Thompson accompany the singing cast.

Tina Toomata is the Music Director. Scenic design is by Jared Sorenson, costumes by Marissa Menezes, makeup and mask design by Hanah Toyoda, lighting by Santiago Menjivar and sound by Charles Thompson.

Director Robison cautions that parts of the musical may be too scary for children under age 9. But children who do attend the 80- minute show (no intermission) can meet the characters in the JVD lobby afterwards.  Ticket: 826-3928 or at the door.  More information: HSU Stage and Screen.

At the Arcata Playhouse, Playhouse Arts in association with Humboldt Breast and Gyn Health Project presents Jonna's Body, Please Hold starring Jonna Tamases, directed by Randy Schulman, on Friday October 17 at 8 p.m.  This one-woman comedy about real-life bouts with cancer has been praised by Daily Variety and the Los Angeles Times.  Showmag. com: "Jonna stole my heart..Heartfelt, funny and poignant." Tickets: Wildberries Marketplace, online at brownpapertickets.com or by calling 822-1575.

North Coast Rep and Blue Ox Millworks present The Haunted Mill Tour 2014, on Oct. 17, 18, 24, 25, 30, 31 and November 1, 7 p.m. to midnight.  This event is a fundraiser benefiting NCRT and Blue Ox Youth and Community Radio, a program of the Ink People Center for the Arts. Tickets and information: HauntedMillTour.com.


The Addams Family Musical continues at Ferndale Rep.

And speaking of coming attractions, there will be more soon on this blog concerning the recent unpleasantness with the North Coast Journal.  Stay tuned.

This North Coast Weekend

The musical Les Miserables opens Thursday (May 22) at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Directed by Calder Johnson, with musical direction by Elisabeth Harrington and Nanette Voss-Herlihy, it features Dan Stockwell, Craig Benson, Jo Kuzelka, Greta Stockwell and Voss-Herlihy. 442-6278, www.ncrt.net.

 Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay is performed by 12 Northcoast Preparatory Academy students directed by Jean Bazemore at the Arcata Playhouse on Monday May 26 at 8 p.m. It is a benefit for developing a theatre exchange program with a school in Japan where these students recently performed this play, on a trip to study Japanese theater in Kyoto and Tokyo. A $10 donation is suggested but not required.

The 2014 Dell'Arte International School Thesis Festival continues for its final week, Thursday through Saturday (May 22-24) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake.  My review is in this week's NC Journal.  Appropriate for ages seven and up. 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

This North Coast Weekend

Ophelia, Lady Macbeth and all female characters in Shakespeare and English drama were played by males before King Charles II decreed in 1660 that henceforth they must be portrayed by actual women. Playhouse Creatures by contemporary British playwright April DeAngelis is about those first actresses, backstage as well as on stage.  Its Old Vic production was billed as a “tragic-comic burlesque.”

 An HSU production opens on Thursday (April 24) for a two-weekend run. Directed by Mark Swetz, it features Queena DeLany, Anna Duchi, Michelle Purnell, Ambar Cuevas, Vanessa Fragoso, Adrienne Ralsten, Giovanni Alva and Kyle Rispoli. Scenic and prop design are by Derek Lane, costumes by Kaden O’Keefe and lighting by James McHugh. Shows start at 7:30 p.m. in Gist Hall Theatre Thursdays through Saturdays, with a matinee on Sunday May 4 at 2 p.m. 826-3928, HSUStage.blogspot.com.

 The Dell’Arte School MFA Class of 2015 presents I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust, their self-created exploration of tragedy, Thursday through Sunday (Apr. 24-27) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. Creator-performers are Hannah Gaff, Alyssa Hughlett, Christopher Kehoe, Sarah McKinney, Moses Norton, Kaitlen Osburn, Drew Pannebecker and Cooper Lee Smith. 707-668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

At the Arcata Playhouse on Saturday (Apr 26) Cirque du Shwazee presents a family-friendly comedy cabaret, in a benefit for the Arcata Playhouse Summer Youth Programs.  It all begins at 6:30 p.m. with local band Bandamonium and a circus midway for kids that includes face painting and a puppet show.  The main performance begins at 7:30, with aerialists, clowns and circus theatre acts, featuring Amy Tetzlaff as the giant rabbit, Guapo the Handsome One, and Cirque du Soleil clown Mooky Cornish.  822-1575, www.arcataplayhouse.org.

While strictly speaking not a stage event, Ferndale Rep opens its two weekend event Music From the Hart on Thursday.  The night-by-night lineup is here at Brown Paper Tickets.  If you asked me I would guess that, despite the success of Spamalot, this is the direction the Rep Board is taking, if indeed there is a direction.

I Love You Because, the HLOC musical at Redwood Curtain, continues Thursday through Saturday (until May 17).  See review directly below.

This North Coast Weekend

Closing out its Family Fun series, Arcata Playhouse hosts Santa Barbara's Boxtale Theatre Company with its production of The Odyssey Friday and Saturday  (April 12-13) at 7 p.m. plus a 2 p.m. show on Saturday.  Using physical theatre, masks, stilts, shadow puppets and live music, the show dramatizes the homeward voyage of Odysseus and his encounters with Poseidon, Athena, Zeus, the Cyclops, the Sirens, etc.  This is of course a family-friendly event (school classes will see it in addition to these public performances.)  (707) 822-1575, arcataplayhouse.org.

Dell’Arte presents a work-in-progress, Elisabeth’s Book, Friday and Saturday (April 12-13) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre.  (There will be no Thursday show for the public, as previously announced.)  This original piece uses movement, music and images to tell the story of three women who survive concentration camps and further trials after World War II. Based on a true story and conceived by Joan Schirle, it is a collaboration among performers Schirle, Laura Munoz and Ruxy Cantir, and director Alain Schons (a French designer/director and former director of the Dell’Arte School.) Audiences for this in-progress version will help shape Elisabeth’s Book for its official premiere at Dell’Arte in July. Tickets are pay-what-you-can. It is deemed not suitable for young children. (707) 668-5663 ext. 20. www.dellarte.com.

After the weekend, Dell'Arte also presents a one night reprise of Three Trees, the anti-militarist clown show created and performed by Lauren Wilson, Stephanie Thompson and Joe Krienke, on Tuesday April 15 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.  It's a warm-up for a subsequent tour.  The Dell'Arte publicity quotes the North Coast Journal as describing it as "Alice in Wonderland meets Mother Courage."  I guess that was me.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] continues at North Coast Rep Friday and Saturday at 8 . Then on Sunday at 7 p.m., another film in "NCRT's Night at the Movies" series is screened: the classic 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac, with Jose Ferrer, directed by Michael Gordon.  It's free to season ticket holders and five bucks for everybody else.

Physical Reality, the HSU Dance Concert, completes its run Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 in the Van Duzer, with a matinee on Sunday at 2 p.m. Maia Cheli-Colando reviews it in this week's NCJ.  HSU Stage & Screen.  Tickets: 826-3928.

This North Coast Weekend

The Arcata Playhouse Family Fun series gets off to an early start with Scotland’s award-winning Puppet State Theatre Company performing The Man Who Planted Trees on Friday January 31 at 7 p.m. and Saturday Feb. 1 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. The play employs comedy and puppetry to tell a tale based on Jean Gioni’s classic novel about a man and his dog who transform a barren wasteland by planting a forest. Tickets at Bubbles, Wildberries and Redwood Yogurt in Arcata and through brownpapertickets.com. (707) 822-1575, arcataplayhouse.org.

Continuing: North Coast Rep presents Oedipus the King and Women in Congress (see post below.)

 Heads Up: Dell’Arte School first years present Charivari!, a bawdy and boisterous commedia dell’arte show on Thursday Feb. 6 through Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. Redwood Curtain opens the comedy Making God Laugh on Feb. 13, and HSU Theatre opens the drama Spinning Into Butter on Feb. 20, directed by Cassandra Hesseltine.

Spring Awakening By Northcoast Prep

NCPA Cast of Spring Awakening

Northcoast Prepatory and Performing Arts Academy performed two plays last weekend: an original musical approach to Shaw's Pygmalion (directed by Gretha Omey Stenger) at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 23) through Sunday plus a Sunday matinee at 1, and Spring Awakening, a drama with music and dance for mature audiences, directed by Jean Bazemore.

 Juniors and seniors at Northcoast Prep wanted to do Spring’s Awakening, a play by Frank Wedekind that has been controversial for a century but has also been made into films, television and a musical.

 With the most graphic scenes softened or eliminated, the version they performed last weekend in Gist Hall Theatre emphasized universal adolescent experience within a repressive late 19th century German context: awakening bodies and minds, compelling feelings, parental pressures and the onrushing of adulthood amidst keenly felt golden woodland days and brilliant spring nights.

 Yet especially for today’s audience, the play may organize itself around the topic of teen suicide. Director Jean Bazemore and designer Jerry Beck developed a poetic stagecraft that imbued this evening with an efficient beauty. The play ended with unexpectedly powerful emotion.

Actors of roughly the same age as the adolescent characters provided this play with a unique immediacy, while their characterizations of adult characters was revelatory in other ways.  That these actors were also skilled and committed made this a memorable production.

 The acting company was uniformly believable: Jesse Mackinney, Lily Drabkin, Nico Krell, Ellen Thompson, Chris McIltraith, Annajane Murphy, Danny Davis, Ethan Frank and Myel Gilkerson. But an extra word must be said about Nico Krell, whose performance and stage presence were more assured and compelling than that of any young actor I can remember.

Coming Up:

 The comic duo Third Base (Nick Trotter and Jerry Lee Wallace) present their latest sequel, Son of Myths of the Plastic Age II at the Arcata Playhouse on Friday and Saturday, January 24 and 25 at 8 p.m. Their combination of word play and physical comedy also includes original music in collaboration with the New York group Bonejesters. www.arcataplayhouse.org.

 Redwood Curtain presents its seventh annual radio variety show fundraiser, The Seven Deadly Zounds! on Saturday January 25 at Blue Lake Casino’s Sapphire Palace. Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. and the show combining comedy sketches and music starts at 8. It features Pamela Lyall, James Floss, Randy Wayne, Lynne Wells, Bob Wells, Terry Desch and Christina Jioras. It’s also broadcast live on KHUM. Tickets and information for this popular event: www.redwoodcurtain.com.

 As part of Mad River Steelhead Days in Blue Lake, Dell’Arte presents Fish Tales, a family-friendly variety show, on Saturday Jan. 25 at 7 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. It features local string band Kingfoot and local storytellers Jeff DeMark, Thomas Dunklin and Kit Mann, and a song by Janessa Johnsrude and Ruxy Cantir. Tickets are pay-what-you-can or free with Steelhead Days registration, but reservations are highly recommended: (707) 668-5663 ext. 5.

This North Coast Holiday Season

 Apart from the deeper meanings, it comes down to: Christmas R toys, right? And not just for children (or do I have to give back my Enterprise com badge and Doctor Who sonic screwdriver?) And what’s better than toys that come alive?

 Among the many shows that play with this idea was Victor Herbert’s 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland. It’s been reworked many times for stage, film and TV, and even though the original script in the Library of Congress reads like one of their own shows, Dell’Arte has reworked it again for their 2013 holiday production.

 “We’re guided by the essentials of the Victor Herbert story,” said director Michael Fields. In the Dell’Arte version, the villainous Barnaby has taken over Toyland and is mass-producing terrible toys. The original Toymaster has disappeared. The various characters (including the Toymaster and a few Mother Goose figures) wind up in the Forgotten Forest, where people don’t remember who they are and have to figure it out. “It’s very funny, it has a happy ending,” Fields said, “ and there’s square-dancing.”

 As always the Dell’Arte holiday show is made to travel, from its compact playing time to the set. “We have to create a visual world that supports the show, but with sets and lights that can be loaded in and out of a truck 17 or 18 times,” Fields noted. This year’s set, which transforms from various structures into the Forgotten Forest, is designed by Lynnie Horrigan, with lighting by Michael Foster and costumes by Lydia Foreman. Tim Gray composed the music and designed sound.

 Cast members are Andrew Eldrege, Darci Fulcher, Billy Higgins, Ariel Lauryn, Allie Menzimer, Lucy Shelby, Jerome Yorke and Emily Newton. “Some years we gone a little dark with our holiday shows,” Fields said. “But this year it’s very upbeat, energetic and bright to look at, with vivid costumes and a vibrant world. It’s in the genre of family theatre, which for me is a kind of European concept of theatre that isn’t just for children but is certainly family-friendly.”

 Or as Fields summed up: “It’s fun. It’s free.” And yes, “certain toys come alive.”

 Babes in Toyland opens at Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre on Friday and Saturday, November 29 and 30 at 7:30 p.m., then tours up and down the North Coast before returning to the Carlo for the weekend of Dec. 19. All shows until final weekend are free. You can find the full schedule online at dellarte.com, where there’s also ticket information for the various venues.

 More on other versions...The script of the Victor Herbert original Babes in Toyland at the Library of Congress (and online here) satirizes consumer culture to a remarkable degree, including that new phenomenon, the department store. If this is really the 1903 script (which it may not be—it apparently changed several times), it seems  consumerism (along with advertising, etc.) was already going strong at the turn of the 20th century. The earliest indictment of the consumer economy I’ve read is H.G. Wells trenchant novel Tono-Bungay, first published in 1908.

 As an ordinary part of their creative process, the Dell’Arte troupe researched available movie and TV versions, beginning with the 1934 Laurel & Hardy film. This is the only version I recall, renamed March of the Wooden Soldiers, which I saw on TV a couple of times as a child. Although I was impatient with the singing, I was fascinated and excited by the life-size toy soldiers coming alive to defend the good guys.

 “That movie was directly influenced by the film version of The Wizard of Oz,” Michael Fields pointed out. It's not the first time. Apparently a lot was shared by the stage version of The Wizard of Oz and Herbert’s Babes in Toyland, which premiered the same year.  Which show took from the other is an open question.

 There was a 1961 Disney movie, and TV versions in 1986 and 1997, but before all of these there was a one hour version that was part of a series of dramatized fairy tales hosted by Shirley Temple. She had a series of specials in 1958-59 called Shirley Temple’s Storybook that became a weekly series in 1960, The Shirley Temple Show. It’s unclear whether this was broadcast earlier, but officially Babes in Toyland was seen on December 25, 1960, on a Sunday evening opposite Disneyland. It’s notable for being in color (a year before Disneyland.)

 Shirley Temple hosts it, surrounded by three of her own children, and talking slowly in that goody-goody voice that weirdly reflects her childhood persona. But she also acts and sings in the piece, as a heavily made-up ugly, evil witch. And she’s excellent.

 It also stars Jonathan Winters as the evil Barnaby, comedians Jerry Colonna and Joe Besser (of late Three Stooges) and the young Danny Thomas-era Angela Cartwright. Like most versions after the first, the Toymaster is no longer a villain, but it does preserve some of the baddies with names straight out of Othello, for some reason.  There's one or two jokes about advertising but greed is mostly expressed in other ways. (The DVD suggests where the TV commercial breaks were.)

 Of this version Fields said “It’s really fun and quite a good inspiration for us. You got the tail end of vaudeville with those comedians.”

 Another annual family-friendly holiday show happens at the Arcata Playhouse with a comedy at the center and different guest musicians for each performance. This year it’s Bigfoot Lodge Holiday Jamboree, directed by Jackie Dandeneau. It features Amy Tetzlaff and Ryan Musil as refugees from Wisconsin who come to the North Coast with their strange ways to take over the Bigfoot Lodge, and Bob Wells as the resident Bigfoot expert. Meredith Anne Baldwin and real Wisconsinite David Ferney also perform, with live music by Tim Randles.

 Set and lobby design is by local artists Lush Newton and Malia Penhall, with recycled holiday pieces from Scrap Humboldt. A shadow play by James Hildebrandt is also featured. This year’s guest performances include the Arcata Interfaith Gospel Choir, Art Jones, Steven Weven, Trish Riel and pooch, Damiian Lange, Julie and Curtis Thompson, Shoshanna, and Pacific Union School Choir.

 Beginning Dec. 5, Bigfoot Lodge Holiday Jamboree runs for two weekends at the Arcata Playhouse, Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday Dec. 8. Tickets are available at Wildberries Marketplace or call (707) 822-1575. You can find more information including a schedule of guest appearances at arcataplayhouse.org.

 The Music Man by Meredith Wilson (script and songs) is the Ferndale Repertory Theatre’s holiday show, though probably not because Wilson also wrote “It’s Beginning To Look A lot Like Christmas.” It’s a big, bright musical from Broadway’s Golden Age, with a love story, children, marching bands, a happy ending, and songs you sing on your way home.

 It’s about a con man, and there’s nothing more American than that. Take the tricksters of folk tales around the world, add capitalism and the con man appears. “Con” stands for “confidence,” which is what the con man has to inspire to be successful. In this story as in many others, the con man is the city slicker who fools the country bumpkins (“clowns” were originally countryfied figures of ridicule.) This theme was clearer when there was a sharper distinction between urban and rural.

 Directed by Dianne Zuleger, the cast of 30 is led by Jaison Chand as the con man Professor Harold Hill who comes to River City, and Caitlin McMurtry as his love interest, Marian the Librarian, and includes Gino Bloomberg, Greta Stockwell, Anders Carlson, Laura Rose and Tyler Egerer. Linda Maxwell is choreographer, Elisabeth Harrington and Nanette Voss are vocal directors, Karen Kenfeld Fuller is costume coordinator, Bruce Keller scenic artist, with sound by Ian Schatz and lighting by Telfer Reynolds.

 The Music Man opens at Ferndale Rep on Friday November 29, and plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2 through December 22, with Thursday night performances on Dec. 12 (benefit for cast and crew) and Dec. 19. For tickets call 707-786-5483 or on line at ferndalerep.org

The original production of The Music Man took forever to develop but once on Broadway in 1957 it ran forever. It became a national legacy with the 1962 technicolor movie. It was Robert Preston’s defining role, on stage and on screen.

 On Broadway it was one of the last of the classic Golden Age musicals. The writing was on the wall with the show that was its greatest rival for the Tony that year: West Side Story. The notoriously conservative award went to The Music Man, but that’s not the judgment of history.  It might even be said that one of the last and best of the classic musicals came up against one of the first and best modern musicals.

 While “(Ya Got) Trouble” (“right here in River City”) and “Seventy-six Trombones” are probably the songs most associated with the show, the tuneful score also includes “Till There Was You,” most famously recorded by the Beatles in the early 60s. They didn’t know it came from The Music Man, but Paul McCartney (who sang it solo) found out—and eventually bought the rights to all of Meredith Wilson’s songs. So it seems that some royalties will go from Ferndale right on over to Sir Paul. Merry Christmas to him, and to all, and good night.

This North Coast Weekend

Next to Normal continues this Friday and Saturday at NCRT.  My review is in the NC Journal and online here, where you can also read a lively debate on whether I should have revealed in the review that the teenage son (Gabe) is a delusion of his mother (Diana.)  While differences of opinion on this are reasonable, I didn't do it without forethought.  As a plot device, showing Gabe as presumably a real character, only to reveal he isn't, would seem way too familiar a contrivance, except that the revelation takes place pretty early in the play, and knowing that Gabe is an illusion--or a delusion--is important to understanding the grip of Diana's illness.

I actually thought that not realizing pretty early that Gabe (played by Gino Bloomberg, photo above) is her delusion would be to miss the point of a lot that followed. (Diana is played by Andrea Zvaleko, also pictured.) So even though it counts as a spoiler I suppose--well, play reviews do that all the time, including reviews of this play. Generally I refrain from such a revelation if the surprise seems important.  My apologies to anyone who feels their experience is lessened by knowing this.

I think the only thing I would add to the review is an explicit declaration that there is humor in some of the songs and action, particularly involving the (real) teen characters, Natalie (Brandy Rose) and Henry (Luke Sikora), but also some moments between Diana and her doctor(s) played by Alex Moore.

Elsewhere, the youth troupe Spare Change performs at the Arcata Playhouse on Saturday at 8 p.m.  Their self-created skits deal with issues of special concern to teens.  www.srpp.org.

On Sunday, the Super Mario Musical by Eureka High student Madeira Seaman is performed at Eureka High School twice, at 1 and 5 p.m.  www.northstarquest.org. 

Skin Deep (and May Shows)

How could I write a play for my fellow third graders to perform when it would be nearly a decade before I actually saw a play, live onstage? The short answer is television, specifically situation comedies. It is even now the format that any American audience is most likely to know, including audiences for the comedy Skin Deep, now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka.

 Those audiences are greeted with Daniel C. Nyiri’s impressive set that nevertheless looks familiar. It’s a down-market, outer-borough New York apartment, reproduced with the detail we expect in a movie or TV show set. Some of those details—like the box of Ritz crackers, the Kix cereal on top of the fridge—suggest that despite the vaguely contemporary time in which the play takes place, this is really the sitcom 1950s, but with cell phones and collagen injections.

 It’s the apartment of Maureen Mulligan (played by Christina Jioras), a plus-size and no longer young woman, who is getting ready for a blind and possibly last chance date with Joe Spinelli (Dmitry Tokarsky), perennially unattached and also middle aged. Maureen’s sister Sheila (Susan Abbey) is helping her prepare, with encouragement and makeup. Sheila was the pretty one, though lately obsessed with cosmetic surgery. She’s married to an upscale lawyer she’s worried is straying, the handsome Squire Whiting (Brad Curtis.)

 While Brooklyn and Queens no doubt maintain some old ethnic enclaves (though I’d be surprised if there are many Irish parents who still expect one of their daughters to become a nun,) this has a very 50s sitcom feel: Irish and Italian Catholics, plus a token WASP, as seen through the comedic and highly verbal prism of predominantly Jewish writers.

All the characters in Jon Lonoff’s script for Skin Deep are witty, the story is sweet and slight, with a single psychological turn that Maureen eventually states directly, in case we missed it while laughing at the jokes. This play really is skin deep. But skin is important, too (it’s where we first feel the world, and where we get burned.) And there are worse ways to spend an evening than watching a live sitcom, especially with this ensemble of actors.

 Not only are they individually talented, able to create convincing characters and relationships that have nuances that deepen the play, but they do so by working so well and so truthfully together. Credit for that must also extend to director Cassandra Hesseltine. Christina Jioras is winning, Brad Curtis brings out elements of his character that might otherwise remain latent in the script, Dmitry Tokarsky is solid and Susan Abbey is funny without losing her character’s dignity and humanity. The New York accents are pretty good, too.

 There’s romance, misunderstanding and a touch of farce in the second act involving (as farce often does) closed doors hiding someone who shouldn’t be there, or open doors creating a wrong impression. It’s uncynical, moderately fast paced and not long.

There's some apparent playfulness with names.  "Squire Whiting" comes close to being parody for the one WASP in the play.  But I detect a pun in the heroine's name too--Maureen Mulligan--a mulligan basically being a do-over.  A second chance for romance, get it?

There’s a lot about food, so expect to crave snacks afterwards.  Food mentions could be another reason that this play is apparently done most often at dinner theatres.  In fact, despite an Off-Off New York debut, this may be basically a direct-to-dinner theatre play, and I suspect that's an entire genre now.  Still, the Redwood Curtain production is funny and enjoyable.  Even without dinner.

Costumes are by Jenneveve Hood, sound by Jon Turney, props by Laura Rhinehart.  Skin Deep continues weekends at Redwood Curtain through May 18.

Coming Up:

Speaking of dinner theatre, Murder By Dessert presents Cinquo de Mayo mysteries at two local Mexican restaurants this weekend:  at Capala Mexican Restaurant in Eureka on Friday and Luzmilla's in McKinleyville on Saturday, each starting at 9.

On Thursday and Friday (May 2, 3) at 8 p.m., the Arcata Playhouse hosts the physical theatre duo Wonderheads Mask Theater, performing an original piece, Loon. Co-artistic directors Kate Braidwood and Andrew Phoenix are graduates of the Dell’Arte International School, and their signature is larger-than-life masks and puppets, billed as “live-action Pixar.” Liz Nicholls in the Edmonton Journal described this show as “a simple, classic underdog story, the rediscovery of the sense of possibility. And it’s told with beautiful physicality.” Arcata Playhouse.org.

Also this weekend, Proof ends its run at HSU. It's the Pulitzer Prize winning drama by David Auburn. Produced by HSU Theatre and directed by Michael Thomas, it features Dakota Dieter, James Read, Kyle Handziak and Queena DeLany.  Lynnie Horrigan designed the set, Glen Nagy the sound, James McHugh the lighting, Marissa Menezes the costumes and makeup.   More information: http://HSUStage.blogspot.com. Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 p.m., with the last show on Sunday at 2, in Gist Hall Theatre. HSU Stage.

The 1960s musical Hello, Dolly! is performed at Ferndale Repertory Theatre at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Directed by Justin Takata, with musical direction by Tina Toomata (you say Takata, I say Toomata), choreography by Linda Maxwell and scenic design by Liz Uhazy, it features Rae Robison, Dave Fuller, Erik Standifird, Molly Severdia, Dante Gelormino, Sasha Shay, Lizzie Chapman and Brodie Storey heading a large cast. It closes May 12.

Antigone continues at Eureka High, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30.

This North Coast Weekend

Proof, the Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play by David Auburn, opens for two weekends at HSU  on Thursday (May 25.)  It's a play about family, genius, madness, identity, academia, sex and love, but mostly (I've concluded) it explores the polarities of proof and trust, and the practical impossibility of one of them.  Redwood Curtain did a production of this some years back.

Directed by Michael Thomas and produced by HSU Theatre, Film & Dance, Proof features Dakota Dieter, James Read, Kyle Handziak and Queena DeLany. Lynnie Horrigan is the set designer, James McHugh designed lighting, Glen Nagy designed sound, Marissa Menezes designed costumes and makeup.  Proof plays in the Gist Hall Theatre Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. this weekend and next.  Much more at HSU Stage.  Tickets: 826-3928.

Also opening this weekend is Skin Deep at Redwood Curtain, a comedy by Jon Lonoff, about a "large, lovable, lonely-heart" and an awkward man on a blind date, and the course of their relationship.  Directed by Cassandra Hesseltine, it features Christina Jioras, Dmitry Tokarsky, Susan Abbey and Brad Curtis.  Daniel C. Nyiri designed set and lighting, costumes are by Jennevieve Hood and sound by John Turney.

Previews are Thursday and Friday, with official opening on Saturday, all at 8 p.m. Performances continue Thursdays-Saturdays through May 18. www.redwoodcurtain.com.   To reserve tickets, email boxoffice@redwoodcurtain.com or call 443-7688.

This weekend at Dell'Arte the International School's students present their annual audience favorite, the clown show.  This year it's called Who Ya Callin Bozo? Clown 2013, directed by Ronlin Foreman.  It plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Carlo Theatre. Reservations are a really good idea:(707)668-5663.

The Arcata Playhouse and KHSU present The Word: A Community Story-Telling Project, with North Coast people telling stories about the North Coast, on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Arcata Playhouse, with the Saturday show broadcast live on KHSU.

A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, monologues edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle, is presented Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Native American Forum at HSU.

Eureka High School presents Antigone at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

The Sue Bigelow Memorial and Celebration of Life is on Sunday, scheduled for 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the North Coast Rep Theatre in Eureka.  Dianne Zuleger writes: "There may be a short presentation/reading from a script.  All are welcome to take the stage and share a Sue story. Please bring an hors d'eouvres of some kind and/or a beverage.  Also, if you have any photos, we'd like to put together a PowerPoint video.  Please send digital copies (or scan hardcopies) and email them to me. If you can't scan, bring them to me and I'll do it for you.  Thanks!"  Her email is didiz@sbcglobal.net.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell'Arte International second years present their Tragedy project, A Harvest of Stones, described as a "poetic story of a farmer who struggles to hold onto his land in the face of drought, debt, and ecological disaster."  It's ensemble-devised, led by faculty instructor Lauren Wilson, with choregraphy by Donlin Foreman.  It's at the Carlo Thursday, Friday and Saturday (April 18-20) at 8 p.m.  707 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Also beginning Thursday, the HSU Opera Workshop opens the contemporary comic opera Too Many Sopranos by Edwin Penhorwood, a satire with luscious music about four sopranos who must go to hell to bring back tenors and basses (i.e. men) for the soprano-heavy heavenly choir. North Coast singers Steve Nobles, Dylan Karl, Luke Sikora, Rigel Schmitt and Op Workshop director Elisabeth Harrington join up with student singers Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Studio Theatre, upstairs in the HSU Theatre Arts building.  826-3928.  HSUMusic.

On Friday, Ferndale Rep opens the musical Hello Dolly. (No photo made available.) Directed by Justin Takata with musical direction by Tina Toomatta, choreography by Linda Maxwell and scenic design by Liz Uhazy, it stars Rae Robison as Dolly, with Dave Fuller, Erik Standifird and Molly Severdia headlining the large cast.  It continues weekends through May 12.  786-5483.

The Arcata Playhouse Family Fun series continues this weekend with Lakota storyteller Robert Owens-Greygrass performing "Stories to Grow Your Heart On" on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., with a Saturday afternoon show at 2 p.m.  On Sunday at 8 p.m. Owens-Greygrass reprises an earlier show, "Walking on Turtle Island." 

North Coast high schools are mounting their spring productions.  Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m., Arcata High School performs the whodunit mystery It Was A Dark and Stormy Night (joshuarbaugh@gmail.com). Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. Eureka High offers Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, described as "30 neo-futurist plays in under one hour."  441-2508. Ehsplayers.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare's The Tempest continues at NCRT.