Civic's *Spelling Bee* advances to national finals

The Civic's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

has won the Washington state community theater championship and is

going to the national finals in Rochester, N.Y., in late June.

Spelling Bee dominated at this weekend's Kaleidoscope theater

festival, winning seven of 12 awards in all and, most importantly, the

overall production award. Even better (from the Civic's point of

view), none of the other three states in Region IX of the American

Association of Community Theatre sent representatives -- which means

that, in effect, Spelling Bee gets to skip right past regionals and go

directly to the national competition.

ACT Richland (an auditioned group of high school students from the Tri

Cities) won the Excellence in Company Creativity award for its

production of Don Zolidis' !Artistic Inspiration, about two hack

writers trying to create a produceable and therefore awful play.

Bremerton Community Theatre won best set design and the Treasure Award

for Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

For its production of Doug Wright's creepy two-hander about a real

estate agent showing a wealthy but sinister man around a huge mansion

where recently some horrible things have happened, Wildwood Park, the

Richland Players won for best sound, best lighting and best direction.

Wildwood Park was also named the alternate production for advancing on

to Rochester.

Spokane Civic Theatre made the most of its home court advantage,

winning for best costumes (Jan Wanless), best choreography (Kathie

Doyle-Lipe), best design and production team, best ensemble, "Magic

Moment" (an adjudicator-selected award for most compelling episode

within a play, given to Lacey Bohnet for her lead singing in "The I

Love You Song") and Outstanding Performance (Mark Pleasant as Leaf

Coneybear, the hippie speller who goes into trances) -- along with the

all-important "Company Advancing to the National Festival" award.

Doyle-Lipe, who directed the show, reports that in the three months before the national competition, the Civic will probably schedule "a couple" of Spelling Bee performances -- both to keep the performers sharp and to serve as fundraisers. After all, it will probably cost in excess of $30,000 to  send two dozen people (cast, crew and band) to Rochester for a week.

Visit the Washington State Community Theatre Association blog for more

information. Visit "Stage Thrust" at Bloglander, too.

AACT Region IX a success in CdA

The Driftwood Players of Edmonds, Wash., will be sending their production of *Minnesota Moon* on to nationals in Tacoma in June, having won last weekend's American Association of Community Theater Region IX competition at Coeur d'Alene High School.
The runner-up was The Coaster Theater of Cannon Beach, Oregon's production of *The Cemetery Club.*

Minnesota Moon also won Best Actor and Best Director
The Cemetery Club also won Best Ensemble and two Best Actress awards
Best Supporting Actor went to Crazy Eights from Columbia Arts Stage Troupe (CAST) of Hood River, Oregon
Theaters from Bremerton, Wash., and Lewiston, Idaho, also competed.

Judges included adjudicators from Portland, Wyoming, and Spokane’s own Susan Hardie

Brian Doig, artistic director of Lake City Playhouse, which hosted this regional festival, comments that "Everything went smoothly. There were no issues on load-ins or load-outs. Everything went on time or was early."

CdA won't be hosting another regional festival for another four years at the very soonest, but Doig felt that the facilities at CdA High School were "just the right size for this festival" -- even if they had to disable the school bells and intercom announcements so as not to be distractions.

Surprisingly, the winning show had a $100 budget -- and only spent $36 of it. The Driftwood Players, Doig explains, have a five-show season plus a series of Monday-Tuesday shows that are offbeat and low-budget.
*Minnesota Moon* is about two guys who have graduated from high school -- one an intellectual, one a redneck -- and how they deal with their memories of mutual friends who went off to join the Army and who got killed in a motorcycle accident. Doig says "It's about how you let go, how you say goodbye, about how men use bravado to avoid being emotional. It was funny and touching," and, in his opinion, the most polished of the five shows in Region IX.

Doig regrets that "we didn't get to represent Lake City Playhouse artistically, but we did represent it well administratively. Everyone had a good time, everyone got a fair shake." [Lake City's production of *K2* deferred to Lewiston when there was a misunderstanding about how two Idaho shows could not advance to regionals unless there was an Idaho state festival first, but Lewiston couldn't come up for four days straight for a state festival and THEN a regional, so Lake City graciously bowed out and allowed the Lewiston production of *Cat on a Hot Tin Roof* to be Idaho's representative at the regional competition.]

The 2011 AACT nationals have been announced for Rochester, New York.

Doig says that Idaho is hopeful of sending 7-9 productions to their state competiton next time, “though I’ll believe it when I see it.” Alaska's representatives have said that they should have three or four productions at the state level next time (two years from now).
[photo from seattleperforms.com: Driftwood Players' *Minnesota Moon* ]

Five AACT performances, April 17-18 in CdA

Lake City Playhouse hosts the American Association of Community Theatre (AACT) Region IX Festival
at
Coeur d'Alene High School, 5530 N. Fourth St., Coeur d'Alene

Friday, April 17
11 am Bremerton Community Theatre, Bremerton, Wash., "Overtones'
12:15 pm CAST (Columbia Arts Stage Troupe), Hood River, Oregon, "Crazy Eights"
7:30 pm Driftwood Players, Edmonds, Wash., "Minnesota Moon"
9 pm The Coaster Theatre, Cannon Beach, Oregon, "The Cemetery Club"

Saturday April 18
1 pm Lewiston Civic Theatre, Lewiston, Idaho, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

$5, at the door

Call: (208) 667-1323