Smith and board resign at Actors Rep

Grant Smith — managing director and co-founder of the Actors Repertory Theatre of the Inland Northwest — has resigned his position, effective Aug. 24. Earlier this month, the entire five-person board of directors also resigned, citing differences with artistic director Michael Weaver.
Look for more details in Thursday's *Pacific Northwest Inlander.*

auditions for *The Will of Fortune* at CenterStage, Sept. 10-11

Open auditions for a new audience-participation murder-mystery comedy by Jean Kavanagh (*The Plumb-Nutts Family Reunion*) on Monday-Tuesday, Sept. 10-11, at 7 pm at CenterStage, 1017 W. First Ave.
Nine roles for men and women (ages 20-60) are available.
Prepare a two-minute monologue.
Performances: Oct. 18-Nov. 3. Earn $35 per performance.
Call 74-STAGE x107.

Opening-night review of *All the Great Books (abridged)*

at Actors Repertory Theatre through Sept. 9

At opening night of *All the Great Books (abridged)* (at Actors Rep through Sept. 9), the crowd was buzzing with intellectual insecurity: *Have you read many of these books? No, I haven’t read them, either.*
You don’t need to have read the books, people. Relax. Because this is the kind of show that when Poseidon, god of the sea, shows up during the *Odyssey* portion of this madcap dash through 86 books you were assigned and never actually finished, he shows up in a scuba diver’s mask and wearing the cutest little rubber-ducky life preserver.
This show is all quick changes, fright wigs, bad puns, men in drag and sight gags. It’s as if the Three Stooges inserted a lot of literary allusions for the ladies while keeping all the whoopee cushions and eye-poking.
As the nerdy Professor, Patrick Treadway delivers one of the evening’s comedic gems early on. After inadvertently tearing into bits the literary poem he was about to recite, Treadway has to improvise a mashup of whatever lines from whichever poems pop into his beleaguered little head. After starting, out of desperation, with a reference to a certain man from Nantucket, Treadway jumps from Walt Whitman to Dylan Thomas, from Maya Angelou to the Brothers Gibb (“Stayin’ Alive” is all he’s trying to do up there). As an example of how to act flummoxed, desperate, and out of sorts without really being so, Treadway’s fluttery hands and flop sweat are miniature lessons in themselves.
Another sequence has grouchy P.E. coach Reed McColm impersonating Sancho Panza as a sidekick who’s utterly bored with Treadway’s Don Quixote while Carter J. Davis (as the addle-brain Student Teacher) “interprets” their pseudo-Spanish. It’s a travesty (in the laudable literary sense).
After Homer the ancient Greek poet gets confused with Homer Simpson — and his two masterpieces, *The Iliad* and *The Odyssey* are merged into *The Idiotity* — Achilles’ lover Patroclus somehow gets transformed into Patro Claus. McColm plays Santa as a grasping pervert in a little nugget of comedy gold.
Whether he’s projecting a leering grin while flirting with audience members or getting saucer-eyes when it’s clear that his Student Teacher doesn’t know the first thing about literary masterworks, Davis boosts the show’s energy level. His rapid-fire one-liner summaries of one book after another brings on a kind of Cliff’s Notes crescendo in the show’s climax. The result is a production that’s just about as much _fun_ as any I’ve witnessed at ARt.

Director Wes Deitrick mostly just directs traffic and gets out of the way of three actors who are, after all, adept enough at comedy and quite capable of gauging just how far their improv can go. But a little more discipline might have been welcome. McColm in particular seemed unsure of his lines; a few cues seemed to lay around on the floor before anyone would pick them up; and some sections dragged (the “inner monologues” in James Joyce’s *Ulysses,* though clever at first; the too-close-for-comfort sermonizing about whether certain ethnic slurs would or would not be used; and the constant popping out of doors for the long, drawn-out *War and Peace*). There were several moments that felt under-rehearsed; on the other hand, the repetition of a three-weekend run will grease the machinery hoping to crank out one fast-paced zinger after another.
*Great Books* doesn’t present just liberals’ humor, by the way: An opening joke suggests that Karl Marx was deluded, and there’s that entire segment scoffing at our hyper-sensitivity to offending ethnic minorities.
Still, there’s a bit of self-congratulation in shows like this. (*That was an allusion to Proust and I caught it. Did you?*) But there’s also a bit of induced humility: The great writers were just regular guys and gals, and for all the soul-transporting moments in their works, their lives clearly must have trudged through the same mundane concerns that we all do.
It’s fine to feel transported by a frisson of literary splendor, but it’s also fine just to wait for the fart jokes. We’re spiritual, sure — but we have our bodily needs too. I don’t know about you, but I sure hope I picked up enough to do OK on the pop quiz they hand out (literally) at intermission during *All the Great Books.* I really, really, don’t want to have to go through all of *War and Peace* again.

*Tour de Farce* with Troy and Kathie, Sept. 13-Oct. 12 at CenterStage

*Tour de Farce* by Philip La Zebnik and Kingsley Day
Directed by Thomas Heppler and starring Troy Nickerson and Kathie Doyle-Lipe (each playing multiple roles)
Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 13-15; Thursday-Friday, Sept. 20-21; Thursday, Sept. 27; Saturday, Sept. 29; Thursday-Friday, Oct. 4-5; Sunday, Oct. 7 (matinee); and Thursday-Friday, Oct. 11-12, with dinner at 6:45 pm and show at 8 pm (except for matinee)
CenterStage, 1017 W. First Ave.
$43; $22, show only
Call 74-STAGE or 325-SEAT

Herb and Rebecca Gladney are in a hotel room on the book tour for his self-help guide, "Marriage Is Forever." But eight other folks (a bellhop, a maid, a TV host, a U.S. Senator and his wife, a nun, the senator's floozy girlfriend, and a Swedish cameraman)show up to disrupt what is already the Gladneys' comic bicker-fest of a marriage. (Imagine a farce like *Noises Off* or *Black Comedy* or *Lend Me a Tenor* done with only two actors performing all the quick changes.)

Themed buffet dinner to include: Homewrecker’s Mixed Greens; Sister Barbara’s pesto stuffed Roman Catholic Tomatoes a la Parmesan; Horseradish Smashed Potatoes in the Senator’s Bourbon Gravy; Tilapia with Delilah’s Spicy Mango Salsa; Gunnar’s Strip Steak Roulade; and an Apple Pancake with Nina’s Indeterminate European Cinnamon Sauce.

20 Questions With Patrick McHenry-Kroetch

Patrick (his "maiden" name was simply Kroetch, back 15 years ago before he married Heather and hyphenated his name) recently won Best Actor awards, of course, at the state, regional and national levels for his portrayal of John Wilkes Booth in the Civic's *Assassins.*
He's 38 and a native of the 'Kan, went to North Central High, caught the acting bug largely because of Tom Armitage there, and names the following shows as his favorites among the ones he's performed in here: Assassins, Peter Pan, Falsettoes, Noises Off and Nunsense Amen.

Bobo: What's in your CD player?
PMK: Stuff that my kids listen to [Madison and Logan are 13 and 9, respectively] — whatever's on the Zoo. I don't even know what most of that stuff is, but I like it.

What was your first theatrical experience?
Well, the first show I was in that was any good was *Jesus Christ Superstar,* back in '93. That was my first role. I had no training in singing at all. Then my second role at the Civic was as Tony in *West Side Story* in '94, with Troy [Nickerson] directing. They had not one but two singing coaches for me — put me in a room and worked hard with me.

Your first theatrical memory?
When I was 5, I saw *Annie, Get Your Gun* at the Civic, and I was just taken by the big spectacle of it all. But the main reason I got back into [acting] was Tom Armitage, in high school — I played Norman in *Star-Spangled Girl.* It was a big role, and I had never acted before. And then I did *Doll Shop* there, of course — that must've been in '87.

What books are you reading?
*The Kite Runner.* It's a book about this guy who's returning to Afghanistan ...
I just saw the trailer ...
They're making a movie of it? That's great. And I'm about 20 pages into a biography of Booth ...
I thought you'd be sick of him by now.
No, I love history.
Is it *Manhunt*?
Yeah, that's the one.

What's the best bit of acting advice you ever got?
"Be bigger."
You mean, in stage gestures?
No, emotionally. With movements as an actor, if you give me X, then usually you're told to rein it in. But I was told that by Troy. I like to stay in my comfort zone — if I think I'm being big, I'm usually not. But I don't mean the really big, wild hand motions. It's just that I do better if I go into places where I'm really uncomfortable. It's more at the beginning of rehearsals — [Troy] will tell me to keep on going ...

What's the most important thing you've changed your mind about?
(pauses) I'm sure there's something. I've always been very liberal. I was raised by semi-hippies who worked, still do, in the restaurant business. They still own Percy's Cafe Americana in the Valley and a place called the Bread Basket in the Shadle Center.

How do you balance marriage, kids, job [he works in advertising] and community theater?
I talk to my kids before every show. And my wife, to encourage me. I talk to them, and we make a decision as a group. I'll say, "This is going to take about three months, and I'm going to be really busy." I don't [the kids] make the decision, but I get them onboard with it. My kids need to become part of the experience. I want them to see that theater is good, that adults can still be artistic and be happy. I don't want them to think, "My dad did a lot of theater, and he was gone all the time." No, they read lines with me, they know my scripts — sometimes better than I do [laughs]."

What do non-theatergoers not understand about theater?
That there is truly something for everybody. Whether you go or not — you may not like musicals — I mean, I don't love _watching_ musicals ... I like straight plays or comedies. But friends of mine, people from my work, they'd come to, like, *Noises Off,* and they thought it was hysterical. They'd say, "I had no idea I could laugh that much."

In your opinion, what are the most underrated or least performed musicals and plays?
[laughs] *Assassins.* I mean, 11 years ago, Troy gave me a tape and said, "This is so cool. I'm thinking about doing it." And that went on for years.

You're at a dinner with a choreographer, set designer, costume designer and lighting designer whom you've never met before. What do you ask them?
Oh, I'm fascinated by lighting and sound. I could sit for hours and ask them, "How'd you come up with this?" Just fascinated. You're onstage and in rehearsal — but once you add lights, it's _theatrical_.
Brian Ritter, who designed the lights for *I Never Saw Another Butterfly* [the Holocaust drama at the Met and beyond] — once he added the lights, it was like another whole player in the show.

What are the scenes that always make you cry?
I cry a lot. [pause] Willie Loman. Definitely, if it's played well.

What's the audience behavior that drives you nuts?
I have no problem with the crazy laughing. I have no problem with coughing. But it's the talking — the little whispering. You think you're getting away with it, but you don't get away with it. We can hear everything ...

Puppies or kittens?
Kittens.

Who used to be your hero but isn't anymore?
You mean, I've soured on them? I don't know. I'll have to think about that.

Hobbies?
I play with my kids. I like working out at the Spokane Club — I run and do the treadmill. And playing on the wee.
The _what_?
The Wii.
Oh. Like sports and stuff?
Yeah. Tennis, golf, bowling, throwing darts. And we box each other. And I jog and roller-blade. Technically, I golf and ski, but I only get out once or twice a year [to do them].

What do you notice about plays in performance that you wouldn't if you weren't an actor?
I admire and adore and respect my group of friends and my family.
Any favorite actors?
Jack Nicholson. Totally. Because of his acting ability and his fuck-you posturing.

What's a bad habit that you're trying to break?
None that I want to break. I smoke and drink and I don't have any problem with it.

What woman's role would you most like to play?
The mom in *Ruthless.* Either that or the Witch in *Into the Woods.*

It's not theater unless ...
[pauses, laughs] Unless there's an audience. For me personally, [it's not theater] unless you're with friends and having a good time. Before doing *Jesus Christ Superstar,* we were bored out of our minds. That's when Tom told us about Troy — he said, "There's this great new director in town." And Troy was a big deal because he was young, and not college-educated, not like the typical hot-shot directors. And so then we auditioned for Troy, who directed *JC Superstar.*

Which of your virtues are you proudest of?
My insistence that I'm always happy. I want happiness and friends. I'll leave a job, even if I'm making a good amount of money, if I'm not happy.

*All the Great Books (abridged)* photos

opens Friday, Aug. 24, at SFCC's Spartan Theatre

Visit:
www.flickr.com/photos/12036482@N06

for photos of Patrick Treadway, Carter J. Davis and Reed McColm acting silly
directed by Wes Deitrick
Actors Repertory Theater of the Inland Northwest

You can visit Bobo's past photos at his other, Sir Andrew Aguecheek account, by pointing your browser to
www.flickr.com/photos/45455900@N00

or else visit flickr.com and search the tags for theater Spokane

*Eastern Standard* auditions at NIC, Sept. 5-6

Richard Greenberg's 1988 drama about New York yuppies touches on such topics as AIDS, homelessness, urban malaise, trendy restaurants, the stock market, fancy homes in the Hamptons and self-evaluation.
directed by Joe Jacoby and Jenny Ruch
Auditions: Wed.-Thurs., Sept. 5-6, from 7-9 pm, in Schuler Auditorium inside Boswell Hall
Cold readings; open to the public
Call 208.769.3220
Rehearsals: Mondays-Fridays, 7-9:30 pm
Performances: Oct. 25-Nov. 3
Cast: 3M and 2W, late 20s; one woman, 50s-60s

*Into the Woods* cast list — Oct. 21 at Civic

*Into the Woods* in Concert
Book by James Lapine
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Spokane Civic Theatre, Main Stage, 1020 N. Howard St.
Directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson
Musical Direction by Carolyn Jess
Conducted by Randy Wagner
One night only — Sunday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 pm — with a great cast:

Narrator Thomas Heppler
Cinderella Lisa Prewitt
Jack .Robby French
Jack’s Mother Darnelle Preston
Baker Andrew Ware Lewis
Baker’s Wife Abbey Crawford
Cinderella’s Stepmother Norilee Kimball
Florinda Tammy Seaton
Lucinda Hannah Kimball
Cinderella’s Father David Williams
Little Red Ridinghood Katie-Sarah Phillips
Witch Leslie Rhodes
Cinderella’s Mother Melody Deatherage
Mysterious Man Gary Pierce
Wolf Kent Kimball
Granny Charles Gift
Rapunzel Andrea Dawson
Rapunzel’s Prince Max Mendez
Cinderella’s Prince Russell Seaton
Steward David Hardie
Giant’s Wife Juli White
Snow White Cynthia Bauder
Sleeping Beauty Tami Knoell

*The Guys* on 9/11 at G.U.

Anne Nelson's two-hander about a fire chief who turns to a writer for help in composing the eulogies he must deliver for the eight men in his company who died on 9/11. Written in Sept.-Oct. 2001, the original production of *The Guys* starred Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver; Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia starred in the film version.
Native New York actors Anne Selcoe (SFCC) and Brian C. Russo (Gonzaga University) will perform *The Guys* on Tuesday, Sept. 11, at 7 pm and 9 pm in Gonzaga's Wolff Auditorium, inside the Jepson Center. Donations requested. First responders and their families, space permitting, get in for free. Write russob@gonzaga.edu or call 323-6551.

one-acts at City Life, Sept. 6-8

"Moth" by Olivia Brownlee and "Light Movement" by Megan Becker (two half-hour plays) will be performed on Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 6-8, at 8 pm at the City Life Center on the corner of Ash St. and Sharp Ave. (near the Maple Street Bridge).
Tickets: $10; $7.50, students and teachers. Call 327-1113.

Presented by a group calling itself the Quickenings: Brownlee (of the Rockin' B Ranch Cowboy Supper Show and CenterStage's *Honky-Tonk Laundry*), Nick Preuninger (Whitworth theater grad, now getting an M.Div. at Princeton) and Becker (a graduate of New York's Actor's Studio).

"Moth" is a musical play with a cast of seven Shakespearean characters. It's about identity — how underdogs like Moth (who has lines in *A Midsummer Night's Dream* like "And I!" and "Hail!" and not much else — get their identities determined by the overdogs of the world.
In "Light Movement," a young woman defines her ideal man and sets out to find him with predictably disillusioning results.

*This Is Our Youth*

Brian Russo directs Kenneth Lonergan's drama about disaffected rich kids in New York in the '80s in free performances at Gonzaga's Russell Theater (east end of Admin. Bldg., 502 W. Boone Ave.) on
Friday-Saturday, Aug. 31-Sept. 1 at 9 pm
and on Sunday, Sept. 2, at 4 pm,
with additional ($7) performances at Empyrean in November.
Four student actors and a stage manager have gotten paid internships to work seven-hour rehearsal days.

casting at Actors Rep

Contrary to what one portion of Actors Rep's recent mail-out brochure says, David Ogden Stiers (*MASH,*, the voice of Jumba in *Lilo and Stitch*) will not be appearing in *Long Day's Journey Into Night* — he got a movie, and, unless we're grossly misinformed about Equity scale and what ARt pays its actors, we're pretty sure that Hollywood cuts bigger paychecks.

*All the Great Books (abridged)" will open Aug. 24 with, as previously announced here, a cast of Patrick Treadway, Reed McColm and Carter J. Davis (*Humble Boy* at ARt). Wes Deitrick will direct. It'll be the first-ever ARt production in which Michael Weaver is not involved either as director or actor.

For *LDJiN* (Sept. 21-Oct. 6), Davis (in his third consecutive ARt production, which is a new world record) and Damon Mentzer will play the two Tyrone sons. Weaver went to Seattle recently to audition actresses for the part of Mary Tyrone; Wes Deitrick will play patriarch James Tyrone.

The Thanksgiving play, Stephen Temperley's *Souvenir* (Nov. 23-Dec. 8) — about Florence Foster Jenkins, the wealthy matron who rented out opera auditoriums in the 1930s and '40s because she was convinced, incorrectly, that she could sing beautifully — will feature Karen Nelsen, who played the title role in *Mrs. Warren's Profession* at ARt two years ago.

Four of the five roles in *Rabbit Hole* (next January) have been cast: Weaver and Page Byers (*How the Other Half Loves,* "Blithe Spirit* at ARt) as the grieving husband and wife; Caryn Hoaglund as Izzy, the wacky sister; Jimmy James Pendleton as the high school kid who caused the family's tragedy; and the Tyne Daly role of the mother/mother-in-law/grandmother has yet to be cast. Tralen Doler (who directed *Moonlight and Magnolias* last season at ARt and appeared in *Dirty Blonde* and in *The Dazzle* in previous seasons) will direct.

The April play will spoof Steve and Edie Gorme: It's called *Pete 'n' Keely" ... check out www.curtolds.com

*Divine Stella Devine* at Green Bluff, Sept. 14-30

A sweet young thing from Georgia attends a Civil War play just to see her idol, the great actress Stella Devine, up close and personal -- and also to steal Stella's role! A bunch of wacky actors make for a comic play-within-a-play.
Old Orchard Theater, Green Bluff Grange, Green Bluff, Wash.
Fridays-Saturdays at 7 pm, Sundays at 2 pm on Sept. 14-16, 21-23 and 28-30
Tickets: $5
Contact Suzanne Ostersmith
238-6989
ostersmith@yahoo.com

review of *Kiss Me, Kate*

at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre through Aug. 19

In *The Taming of the Shrew,* Katherine needs to learn that she doesn’t have to spend her life fending off men by acting like a shrew. She can get the pretty, shiny toys in life — nice hats and gowns, fine food — if she learns a little cooperation and sympathy. Similarly, Petruchio needs to learn that women like Kate are more than mere chattel and that marriage isn’t simply a financial transaction.
Director Nike Imoru’s production of Cole Porter’s *Kiss Me, Kate* at Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre (through Aug. 19) succeeds more with the showier aspects (big production numbers, sets and costumes, the soaring love duets) than with substantive matters (character relationships and dramatic confrontations). Like Kate herself, however, this show has lots of spirit, plenty of potential, and a great deal to admire.
A list of highlights isn’t difficult to assemble. For the opening scene in each act, Imoru masterfully guides a high-energy ensemble through the gradually intensifying dance designs of choreographer Michael Wasileski. Right from the top, “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” promises a high-energy display. Starting quietly, with just a janitor sweeping up in an empty, ghost-lit theater, “Another Op’nin’” builds and pauses, slows and intensifies until a remarkable, kinetic scene has been created: stagehands roll flats into view, the principal actors are all introduced, the play within a play’s final bows are practiced, and the tension between director and star spills over into the orchestra pit, with chorus members peeking up curiously from behind the curtain. Lilli and Fred — once married, now divorced and bickering as the inset play’s co-stars — form a recognizable parallel to Shakespeare’s Kate-vs.-Petruchio slugfest.
In the second act-opening spectacular that Imoru and Wasileski have fashioned, right after intermission, Dane Stokinger leads the ensemble in “Too Darn Hot.” With the men stripped down to wife-beater shirts and the women fanning themselves in a heat wave, everyone decides that even if they’re sweltering, it’s nothing that some sustained frenetic dancing won’t fix. As Stokinger prowls up ladders and sings about how he’s “gonna break every rule with my baby tonight,” we’re treated to a high-energy, well-choreographed display that builds and subsides and builds again: swaying hipsters, a strip tease, swing-dance couples, scissor kicks, hand stands and a crescendo that plasters everyone to the floor, flat on their backs, chests heaving, sweat flowing.
Too darn hot indeed, though it’s too darn bad that the rest of Act Two doesn’t have the same intensity. In an over-long, three-hour show, there’s too much downtime in too many scenes, too many plot threads left dangling. The secondary couple, for example, does their best to sing and dance in scenes that don’t connect much with the plot. As Bianca (Kate’s younger, more marriageable sister) and Lois Lane (no, really) in the play within a play, Darcy Wright sings her half of “Why Can’t You Behave?” as a lament, then later switches gears to belt “Always True to You in My Fashion” as her own kind of free-wheeling, self-assertive anthem. (She was wheeled off, riding a clothes rack, to big applause.) As Bianca’s fiancé, Lucentio (and as indebted gambler Bill Calhoun in the frame story), Brad Willcuts shines in his athletic dance-tribute, “Bianca,” by doing back flips and handstands before twirling around a railing and sliding right toward Lois’ feet.
The book of this musical just goes through the motions in slenderly connecting Bill’s gambling problem to the inset musical, though it does prompt the appearance of a couple of enforcers looking to collect some dough. Bill Rhodes, the better of these two gangsters, is a big goombah who, despite himself, picks up a little culture when realizing the need to “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
In the dual role of Lilli Vanessi and Kate the shrew, Jennifer Dudley can be both fiery and resentful, romantic and vulnerable. From her first entrance as the haughty movie star in sunglasses and broad-brimmed hat, she’s clearly a broad to be reckoned with. One of the show’s unexpected delights was her love duet with Chris Thompson as Fred Graham, the director and star of the inset production. In “Wunderbar,” while improbably waltzing in the cramped confines of Lilli’s dressing room, Dudley and Thompson look back in a romantic mist at their characters’ idealized past together. For a moment, Fred and Lilli started to resemble Fred and Ginger: elegant, synchronized, yearning for love.
During the love-spats, however, Dudley’s not a physically imposing shrew: The stage-slaps she aimed at Petruchio’s jaw were more like delicate little love-taps. And why is Dudley sauntering and skipping between the verses of “I Hate Men”? The contrast between angry lyrics and Little Bo Peep mannerisms seemed jarring.
Thompson presents us with a Petruchio who’s too effete to be convincing as a whip-wielding macho man. (The ascot-and-smoking-jacket look for Fred’s backstage appearances doesn’t help any.) Even with the contrasting example of Kent Kimball’s comic bit as a bossy Douglas MacArthur-style love interest for Lilli, Thompson needs to be a more demanding stage director as Fred Graham and a more forceful lover as Petruchio. But, oh, that voice: When Thompson sings the reprise of “So in Love” — alone, with Lilli evidently lost to another man and love just a memory — Thompson projects his rich baritone (it’s like buttah, folks) far into the house.
In general — and because Dudley and Thompson sing so powerfully — the musical numbers in CdA’s *Kate* are more convincing than the Shakespearean scenes, which seemed hammy by comparison. Set designer Michael McGiveney has made the *Shrew* sequences look great, though, by creating a little Italian Renaissance village with archways and rooflines stretching dreamily off into the distance. Pale yellows and sea foam green dominate the gowns and doublets that his wife Judith has fashioned for the Act One wedding scene, when the 15-piece orchestra led by Max Mendez contributes what sounds like mandolins and bass. The fashions and the music evoke an Italian-piazza-in-the-afternoon-heat feeling for a formal Renaissance dance.
There are many parts of CdA’s *Kiss Me, Kate,* then, to admire. Almost like Kate before she matures, however, this production seems dazzled by the glitz of its biggest numbers. It hasn’t yet nailed down the give-and-take lesson-learning of the Lilli/Fred and Kate/Petruchio relationships. N

Cockeyed Optimists

... at least, that's how everybody feels when you've got "Another Openin', Another Show" (with apologies to *Kate*) coming up.

Actors in the lead roles for *South Pacific* at the Civic, Sept. 29-Oct. 28 will be:
Brie Green as Nellie Forbush
Michael Muzatko as Emile LeBecque
Marianne McLaughlin as Bloody Mary
Jaylen Renz as Joe Cable
Jerry Sciarrio as Luther Billis

directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson
musical direction by Carolyn Jess

Trivia: *South Pacific* is one of only six musicals to win the Pulitzer for drama.
And it's the only filmed version of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to leave all of the stage show's songs intact.

half of CdA 2008 season announced

Last night — on opening night of *Kiss Me, Kate* — Coeur d'Alene artistic director Roger Welch announced two of next summer's four shows:
-- the show in which former CdA standout Cheyenne Jackson starred on Broadway (and, it is claimed, in its first-anywhere appearance after the Broadway run), the Elvis musical we've all been waiting for, *All Shook Up*
and
-- according to Welch, the most-requested show in recent years' CdA audience surveys, *La Cage aux Folles.*
That's a couple of shows worth anticipating and waiting for.