Partial review of *Putnam County Spelling Bee*

at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater through June 26

(basically, the middle third of the review that will appear in The Pacific Northwest Inlander on Thursday, June 17)

... With the exception of the title song, composer/lyricist William Finn’s melodies aren’t particularly memorable. And this isn’t a glitz- or dance-heavy show. (It’s kids standing at microphones — not exactly a spectacle — though director Roger Welch maintains the flow with hyper-speed and slo-mo spelling sequences.) But in her book of the musical, Rachel Sheinkin is good at creating a sense of community, then building the tension before each speller performs.
The little mock-introductions that each speller receives — and the definitions they request when they’re up at the mic — are among Spelling Bee’s funniest lines. But there’s plenty of fun in the scripted parts of the show, too, as we follow the tribulations of our six contestants: the nerd, the Boy Scout, the unloved child, the multi-talented genius, the prodigy, the mystic hippie.
Playing the pressured-by-her-parents overachiever in “I Speak Six Languages,” for example, Yvonne Same demonstrates an impressive range of talents. She demonstrates a lot more than just fluency — martial arts, musicianship and other feats of physical prowess all made rapid-fire appearances.
The nose-picking nerd with his shirttail hanging out (Andrew Hartley, disgusting but vulnerable too) performs his “magic foot” spelling routine: He’s an oddball, but he’s going to stick to his oddball guns.
With nine actors playing twice that many characters, there’s a danger of repetition. But the show avoids predictable, one-after-another character revelations, and there are unexpected second-act sequences involving Jesus and the Taj Majal that propel the narrative unexpectedly toward satire and even compassion. With all the tonal shifts, cast members could afford to improve their diction: The CdA sound system can be harsh and blarey, and some of the rapid-fire details of characterization got muddled.
For all its displays of nerditude, Spelling Bee is a show with a heart. It’s effective whether or not you know or care about spelling bees, and it brings back all the fears and joys of youth.

[ photos by Young Kwak for The Inlander ]

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee continues at NIC’s Boswell Hall, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene, on Thursdays-Saturdays, June 17-19 and June 24-26, at 7:30 pm, along with a matinee on Sunday, June 20, at 2 pm. Tickets: $41; $37, seniors; $27, children. Visit cdasummertheatre.com or call (208) 769-7780.

The same production transfers to the Idaho Rep at UI's Hartung Theater, Sixth St. and Stadium Way, Moscow, Idaho, on Monday-Friday, June 29-July 2, at 7:30 pm. Visit uidaho.edu/class/irt 

*Spelling Bee* photos

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Music and lyrics by William Finn
Book by Rachel Sheinkin
ran for 1,100 performances on Broadway from April 2005 to Jan. 2008
nominated for six Tonys in 2006, winning for Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actor (Dan Fogler as William Barfee)

June 12-26 at Shuler Performing Arts Center, inside NIC's Boswell Hall, in Coeur d'Alene
Visit cdasummertheatre.com or call ((208) 769-7780

Continues June 28-July 2 at UI's Hartung Theater, Stadium Dr. and Sixth St., Moscow, Idaho
Visit idahorep.org or call (208) 885-7212

Three adults (each with their personal problems and anxieties) conduct a middle-school spelling bee with six contestants (the overachiever, the hippie, the Boy Scout, the nerd, the neglected child, the one's who's politically intense) and everyone, in the midst of singing all those songs and spelling all those words like "hemidemisemiquaver," turns out to be very, very neurotic.



Directed and choreographed by Roger Welch
Musical direction by Chris Thompson
Sets by Michael McGiveney
Lights by Dean Panttaja
Costumes by Tessa DeMoy
PSM: Kim Crawley


with (most actors double in other roles as well)
Andrew Hartley as William Barfee
Laura Sable as Rona Lisa Peretti
Jay Paranada as Chip Tolentino
Mallory Cooney King as Olive Ostrovsky
Matthew Wade as Leaf Coneybear
Reed McColm as Douglas Panch
J. Reese as Mitch Mahoney
Kara Jones as Logainne Schartzandgrubenierre

review of *Art* at Interplayers

through March 27

“Art” isn’t about art at all. It’s about friendship: How we try to domineer our friends and mold them according to our own values.
It’s a thoughtful play, but “Art” is also a comedy — because the relationship decisions that playwright Yasmina Reza’s three characters make are all so laughably bad.
Suppose, for example, that your best friend did something that you considered wrong-minded, wasteful, pretentious and embarrassing. Would you tell him?
Would you tell him kindly, and with an eye to preserving your friendship? Or would you tell him unkindly, getting all principled and cold with him?

In director Reed McColm’s production of Yasmina Reza’s play (through March 27), Interplayers has bounced back with one of the current season’s best productions.

As Marc — who scoffs at the purchase by his friend Serge (Roger Welch) of an all-white painting — Jack Bannon offers the evening’s most subtle performance. When mocking the idea that a non-painting can have emotional “resonance,” Bannon clutches two hands to his chest and looks skyward, ever the martyr. When Serge praises an ancient writer for being “incredibly modern,” Bannon repeats the phrase with withering sarcasm. When Serge rebels against Marc’s disdain, Bannon responds with a resigned look, his hands folded, condescendingly calm.

Bannon's Marc seems to assume that his friends will share his taste in art — if they’re his friends, and if it’s really art.

Unfortunately, Bannon’s energy level seemed low at a preview-night performance; his voice, occasionally feeble. All three cast members were guilty of line-wobbles, noticeable lapses, places where the 90-minute, intermissionless pace needed to quicken. Over the course of the run, however, they’ll probably resolve such problems.

As Serge — purchaser of the all-white canvas — Roger Welch sweeps his arm across his prized possession. “It’s plain,” he says, investing the painting with more dignity than it deserves. It has only a few swipes of indiscernible color — enough to test whether we’ll restrain our ego (that’s a nice painting, Serge) or exert it (you’re an idiot, Serge).
Welch is perhaps at his best during the sequences when Serge and Marc gang up on their mutual friend Yvan (Patrick Treadway), who’s caught in the middle. Lounging on a sofa, with drink in hand, Welch tosses off insults with a sour expression, walking the fine line between blunt honesty and supercilious disdain.

Treadway’s finest moment comes in a mid-play rant, a miniature soap opera of a monologue in which Yvan whines about preparations for his upcoming wedding. Watch how Treadway avoids most look-how-frantic-I-am choices, instead choosing to stay seated on the couch, bouncing up only on occasion.

Poor spineless Yvan: caught between two massive egos, his pleas for the civility and consideration of genuine friendship go unheard. McColm emphasizes the dissolving friendships by disengaging his three actors in separate pools of light; for the various two-on-one face-offs, he aligns twosomes shoulder to shoulder while isolating the third actor.

Damon Abdallah's set successfully creates elegant ambience in the Upscale Spartan style.

Bannon invests the play’s final speech with a sobering reflection: We fill our lives with egotism. And then our lives disappear.
Will our legacies involve how many people loved us, or how well we upheld our principles? “Art” is the kind of play that inspires post-performance discussion — because you and your companions might have differing views about it.
At which point you may be compelled to choose: my friendships or my opinions?

“Art” sticks an all-white painting in our faces through March 27 on Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays at 8 pm, and Saturdays at 2 pm and 8 pm at Interplayers, 174 S. Howard St. Tickets: $15-$21; $12-$19, seniors; $10, student rush. Visit interplayers.com or call 455-PLAY.

photos: *Art* at Interplayers

March 11-27 at Interplayers
by Yasmina Reza
directed by Reed McColm
starring Jack Bannon as Marc, Patrick Treadway as Yvan and Roger Welch as Serge

premiered in Paris in 1994, in London in 1996, and in New York in 1998
Won the Tony for Best Play in '98
has been translated into 30 languages
last produced at Interplayers nine years ago this month, in March 2001 -- directed by Joan Welch and with a set by Jason Laws; starring Michael Weaver as Serge, Peter Murray as Marc, and Steven L. Barron as Yvan

Serge buys a white painting (with a few white lines on it) for 200,000 francs. He's quite proud of it.
His best friend Marc, nonplussed, can't quite believe that his friend has done such a stupid thing.
Their insecure friend Yvan, who has family and upcoming-wedding problems of his own, gets caught in the crossfire.
What's more important — friendship, or principles of aesthetics?
Would a real friend insist that you should like (and dislike) everything he likes (and dislikes)?

from a 3/8/01 review of the Interplayers production by some guy named Bowen:
Playwright Yasmina Reza welcomes you to a dramatic world where men spout beliefs they don't really feel in order to achieve a supremacy they don't really want.
After all, when a man loathes what his friend loves -- that all-white painting again -- what is he to do? Ultimately, "Art" suggests that sometimes we should just accept our friends' opinions, even if -- especially if -- those beliefs violate our own private criteria for good taste.
.... Like Serge and Marc in the play, we project onto our friends the traits we insist they should have. These are the traits, we like to think, that we ourselves have placed there.
[ a mostly positive review, with some criticisms of each of the actors and of the directing ]

*Nuncrackers* photos

Dec. 18-19 at 7:30 pm and Dec. 20 at 2 pm

at NIC's Boswell Hall in CdA

by Dan Goggin

directed and choreographed by Roger Welch

CdA Summer Theater's second-ever midwinter production (after last year's White Christmas)

with Kathie Doyle-Lipe as Sister Mary Regina, the Reverend Mother
Julie Powell as Sister Mary Hubert
Krista Kubicek as Sister Robert Anne
Tamara Schupman as Sister Mary Paul
Andrew Ware Lewis as Father Virgil
Jack Bannon as the Narrator
and four roles for kids, played by Bridget Erb, Aaron Baldwin, Evan Schultz and Kelly Condon

[photos for The Inlander by Young Kwak]

review of *Doubt*

at Interplayers Professional Theater
seen Oct. 28

Doubt — isn’t that the one about the nun and the priest, and she’s convinced that he’s a creepy child molester? I saw the movie — why bother seeing it again?
Because seeing it onstage, reduced to just four characters, is a more intense and psychological experience. Because Interplayers’ four cast members are uniformly fine in their roles. And because this is the best drama Interplayers has produced in the past three years (and probably in the past five).

Start with Aaron Murphy’s Father Flynn — East Coast Irish accent, all-American looks, the bemused look of a man who has something to teach you and knows he has a clever way to do it. We see him solo, alone, then suckered into a meeting with two nuns that’s not at all about what he thinks it is — the priest, marginalized in his own parish.
Murphy was so convincing, he put this former Catholic schoolboy right back in the confessional. When he ended his second sermon by making the Sign of the Cross, I came this close to joining him. (We laugh at these 1964 people and their exaggerated respect for the Church’s hierarchy -- but you know, once in 1962, when I was in first grade at St. Mary’s of the Assumption, I peered over the rectory wall and saw a priest, sunning himself. With his shirt off. And was immediately convinced, truly, that I had committed a mortal sin and would roast in hellfire eternally. Which is a hard thought for a 7-year-old to bear.)

Ann Russell Whiteman strolls with authority around her office desk, convinced utterly — convinced beyond all doubt — that Father Flynn must be stopped and the children protected. (There was much talk afterwards about how the show changes from night to night. And it’s true, this time it registered with me, the number of times she’s referred to as joyless, a Puritan, cold and unforgiving; at other moments, she can appear like a warrior for righteousness.)
Whiteman’s eyes glisten early on, when she plants suspicions in the young nun’s mind; Whiteman makes clear that Sister Aloysius is a bit too eager to be regarded as the most clever fox in the henhouse. No upstart young priest is going to outmaneuver her.

As Sister James, Bethany Hart uses subtle facial expressions to convey her wonderment, doubt, anger and sadness over what her superior is trying to do. As the mother of the young boy who’s supposedly the object of Father Flynn’s pederastic lust, Rebecca M. Davis plants herself in that office chair and scowls, even as she observes decorum. She mixes being deferential with being defiant (nicely sustaining the play’s ambiguity and balance), and the emotion’s contained but still evident.

Throughout this intermissionless chess game, what we’ve been waiting for is the faceoff of priest and nun in the penultimate scene. When it arrived, at first I thought Murphy was being weak, unassertive — until I grasped (so I thought, can’t be sure, still have my doubts) that he was wearing down under Sister Aloysius’s interrogation. The pendulum was swinging: In a performance in which, for most of the time, she had seemed joyless and vindictive — and he, cheerful and innocent — now our doubts about him were rising to the forefront. Sister’s methods may be Machiavellian (corrupt means, but valuable ends, she preaches) but maybe, just maybe, she has ferreted out corruption in the end.
Or not. Doubt is a mirror that shows us ourselves: inclined to trust others, or accuse them; inclined to forgive or indict. The value of such a production — especially in a Catholic town dominated by a Catholic university and its law schools’ many graduates, its parochial schools and G-Prep Bullpups, its own sad history of priestly sex abuse and coverups — is not only that it “takes you on an emotional journey,” but that the journey, quite likely, will differ from night to night.
Theater should piss some people off. Being inoffensive is not, forever and always, a virtue. When people get angry, somebody’s touched a nerve.

Roger Welch has directed seamlessly, with no fuss and with many of the most gripping speeches delivered while stock-still. Renae Meredith’s set includes a polished-wood square for the priest’s sermons, both in the pulpit and on the basketball court: an arena for the baring of our souls.

Certainty without evidence is faith. But when certainty, absolute conviction, turns past the point of being willing to hear contradictory opinions and evidence, it hardens into dogmatism. And Sister Aloysius — played by Whiteman with squinting, aloof, marble-cold implacability — is dogmatic for 89 of the show’s 90 minutes. By the end, even she has her doubts.
Shanley is taking aim at dogmatism of all kinds, religious and political — at one point, the actual line “You lie!” is shouted at the priest, and suddenly I was transported back to Obama’s health care speech before the joint session of Congress.

Overcome your doubts (it won’t be any good, I’ve seen it before, sex abuse is such a sad topic, people draped in black who lived 45 years ago have nothing new to tell me), and just go. Theater is transitory — this one goes poof on Nov. 7 — but for theater this good, attention must be paid. Cancel your bowling night, skip Mass just this once, whatever — but go see Doubt at Interplayers.

And yes, I’m influenced by how meaningful and good tonight’s post-performance talk-back was — actors articulate, questions observant, Reed McColm moderating like a pro. Theater of the kind we can and should be proud of. An important play, done with subtlety and intelligence. I could go on and on about this cast, and about how Whiteman and Murphy’s performances in particular are exceptional and accomplished. But just go see the show for yourself.

With this show about sin, the most apparent sin is that more people aren’t supporting this show.
Lake City on the verge, Interplayers teetering — if you value theater in this town, overcome the excuses of "no time," "no money." Overcome your doubts and just go see Doubt.

[image: movie poster, from tower.com]

partial review of *Dames at Sea*

at CdA Summer Theater through Sunday, Aug. 2

(This is about one-third of the review to appear in the July 30 Inlander.)

... the show’s plot isn’t worth a plugged nickel. The ingénue wants to be a star. She and the leading man (a sailor-songwriter) meet cute. The jealousy of the leading lady is aroused. Somebody's dismantling the theater (literally). So hey, kids, let's put on a show — on the deck of the sailor's battleship!
Dames at Sea amounts to a variety show: There will be a cutesy love duet, and a plaintive-love solo, and a parody of youthful desire played out by the old wrinkled couple, and some flash-bang tap-dance displays, and that number where the guy in the sailor suit twirls around the floor hugging a mop or his girl's plaid coat because she's tied up at the moment, you see, and the mop or the coat is all he's got to show us just how gosh-darn much in love he is.
Now either the romance and energy of such music-and-dance numbers is something that satisfies you and makes up for the hokeyness of a confection like Dames at Sea, or else it doesn't.
Well, it should. When Darcy Wright sings, when Cameron Lewis dances, and — maybe especially — when Travolta and (as her elder love interest) Jerry Christakos mock themselves, the goofy ways we arrived at such moments seem to fade in significance.

[ photo by Young Kwak: Cameron Lewis as Dick, Ellen Travolta as Mona, and Darcy Wright as Ruby in Roger Welch's production of Dames at Sea, Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater, July-August 2009]

review of *Joseph/Dreamcoat* at CdA

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a pop-rock-country-disco-doo-wop-reggae hodgepodge. For no reason at all, Joseph's brothers pop up sometimes in cowboy hats, sometimes in berets. And sometimes they walk like an Egyptian.
But that's the childlike fun of a show illuminating the Genesis story of a son with a mystical air who is assumed to have been killed until he takes on the sins of his brothers, rises from the dead and is reunited with his father.
You’ve heard that story before? The Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater production (through June 27) reinvigorates it with a fresh staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music. Because of engaging performances by Krystle Armstrong as the Narrator and Steven Booth in the title role — along with some find-the-comedy-wherever-he-can direction by Roger Welch, and backed by strong creative elements — the CdA Joseph is kicky good fun.
Two particular strengths are Michael Wasileksi's choreography and John Gallegos' lighting design.
Dancers tap and twirl and angle their elbows in vectors toward the sky. They change hands and do-si-do in a square dance. They form a wedding gantlet, do the Frug, and lift the lascivious Mrs. Potiphar right over Joseph’s cowering torso.
Meanwhile, disco bulbs flash and shafts of light enclose Joseph in a jail cell. There’s even a strobe effect for a goat sacrifice.
Welch’s direction seeks out the goofy bits in an already goofy musical. Snake puppets join Joseph when he’s thrown in a well, then make an unexpected appearance elsewhere onstage. A goat rolls out on wheels. Camels (one hump, two legs) skitter and sing.
It all helps speed along a brisk 40-minute first act. Best of all, Welch has borrowed 55 kids from the recent Christian Youth Theater-Spokane production of Joseph, seating them in bleachers flanking the action. So what if, at the top of Act Two, the kids in the choir couldn’t synchronize their cutesy knee-dips? They looked like happy little prairie dogs, and it only added to the fun.
So did Armstrong as the Narrator — engaging the kids in the Prologue, performing comic bits with sunglasses, mai-tais and a Bugs Bunny carrot. At a couple of junctures, Welch just isolates Armstrong in a spotlight and lets her voice reach out and caress the audience. Her warm, clear tone was worth showcasing.
For his part, Booth sells the goody-goody tactlessness of Joseph, who’s blind to the possibility that his brothers might not be his biggest fans. Booth appears earnest, almost all-American, while running around in what he calls his “little Egyptian skirt.” He can even look forbidding. And any doubts about his vocal range are dispersed at the end of “Close Every Door” when he belts out “For we have been promised / A land of our own.” It’s an engaging performance.



There are other highlights — the accompaniment of Steven Dahlke’s 11-piece orchestra, particularly during the French café mood of “Those Canaan Days,” and the way the jiggly hips of James Lane as Pharaoh Elvis seemed to do his thinking for him. But this Joseph isn’t flawless. As good as Gallegos’ lighting scheme usually is, at times actors strolled into dead spots. For some of Tim Rice’s rapid-fire lyrics, diction — and the sound system — faltered. Unlike the other-musical-genre songs, which got visual set-ups to prepare the transition, the reggae number (“Benjamin Calypso”) seemed to come out of nowhere.
But soon after, the automated disco lights swirl out over us, and we too become part of the mega-mix. When every door seems closed and all you’re hoping for is a better life, “Any Dream” indeed will do. Along with varying its musical genres, Coeur d’Alene’s Joseph presents a mishmash of moods from serious to silly. It’s Lord Webber’s cornucopia full o’ fun.

an interview with Steve Booth

(by phone from Dallas, 3 June 09; headshot from broadwayworld.com)

Steve Booth attended Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene and then went to UNLV on a theater scholarship. He’ll be playing the title role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (at CdA Summer Theater, June 13-27).
Booth has been on the road for the past six months with the musical version of Happy Days. As a result, he’s missing the first week of rehearsal in CdA.
You read that right: The actor singing the title role in CdA’s first show is flying in on Sunday and joining the rest of the cast on Monday morning, June 8 — just 130 hours before the curtain goes up on opening night.
Yikes. At least it’ll be a fun homecoming for Booth, who has lots of family and friends in the area.

In the summers of 2002-04 at Coeur d’Alene, Booth appeared in Anything Goes, West Side Story and Oklahoma!; Smokey Joe’s Café and Fiddler on the Roof; and Cats and Little Shop of Horrors.
He performed in the Las Vegas version of Avenue Q (he played Princeton and Rod), then returned to CdA three summers ago to play the title role in Pippin.
This is his first summer back since.

on Avenue Q:
Steve Booth: We had 10 shows a week, but two casts. So we did five shows a week — we covered for one another within the company, then were on standby for four of the other cast’s five shows every week.
Bobo: But God, living near the Strip … I hate that town.
Steve Booth: I know what you mean. But having gone to school there and doing Avenue Q — I kind of have a soft spot for Las Vegas.

Bobo: So what happened with *Glory Days*?
[from a phone interview on 5/2/08 with Bill Booth, Steve's father:]
Roger [Welch] came to see it in New York. Steve did an off-Broadway show called "Journey to the West," and five or six shows at the Paper Mill.
Glory Days was done at Circle in the Square, which seats about 700.
Steve plays Will, who opens and closes the show. All four characters have been away to college, but Will is the one who wants them to stick together. It's the night before the football alumni game; none of them made the team. He wants it to be the same among them, but it can't be. At the end, Will isn't sure what to do with his life.
One character has a big secret; Skip is the cynic, who's jaded and cynically aware; Andy is passionate, cocky, has a strong sense of self, but also a softer side
But it closed after 17 previews and just one night on Broadway [5/7/08].

[ IBDb.com entry here.
Glory Days: book by James Gardiner, music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire ]

Steve Booth reflects on his *Glory Days,* a year later:
Unfortunately, some bad decisions were made by higher-ups. We rushed moving the show from D.C. to Broadway. In D.C., it had gotten rave reviews and sold out.
It was a tiny little show, just four characters, so we went into it with small expectations and were pleasantly surprised.
Circle in the Square was a perfect size for this show -- a 3/4 thrust stage, so it was an easy transplant.
It opened up, and we made the move real fast.
But all of us actors -- who's gonna say not to go to Broadway? It was our dream. We were sort of flying by the seat of our pants.
The smarter move would have been to take some time, workshop it regionally a bit more. It's not a perfect show, but it's a good one.
But everything moved so fast. I think the producers didn't raise enough money so that, if it wasn't an immediate hit, they'd be able to keep it afloat until word of mouth helped it out.
As it was, they were banking on it coming to Broadway and getting rave reviews.
It could have gained a following; it could have earned some creative nods -- you know, some nominations or something.
But the kids that wrote it -- it was harder for them [for the show to close on opening night]. It was very hard for all of us, but it was harder on them. They'd been writing that thing for a couple of years.
Nick Blaemire was also appearing in *Cry Baby* at the same time.
It was a learning experience for them.
You know, I got my Broadway credit, but when it closed that fast, my first thought was: "Darn, we didn't get to record a cast album." So that's why I'm excited: right after Joseph, I'm going to New York and we're going to record it for Chickaboom Records. [sh-k-boom Records; sh-k-boom.com]
So it's not dead -- it was sold to NPI, and it's being done a lot in Japan. This Japanese boy-group, kind of like the Japanese version of N Sync, they're doing it a lot.
And Glory Days will be done in high schools -- it's an easy, cheap show, with just four guys and good stories.
We should have gone off-Broadway after we were done with D.C.

[photo: cast of Glory Days, with Steven Booth as Will, on right; from jessepjohnson.com]

on preparing for Joseph:
Bobo: Did you watch Donny Osmond in the film, or are you one of those actors who studiously avoids watching previous performances of the same role?
Steve Booth: To tell you the truth, I wasn't that familiar with the show. I've never seen it onstage.
I've seen some clips of the movie. It's great as a reference point.
But I don't expect that Roger is just going to copy that thing. He'll have his own ideas.
I am not Donny Osmond. But I have listened to the music. I'm learning it on my own without watching the movie.

Roger is letting me come to rehearsals a week late. And I'm a little scared about missing the first week of rehearsal.
I mean, it's one of the leads, along with the Narrator. But the staging and the choreography -- it's not that hard, as long as I know my music.
Joseph is in his little skirt and he just sort of walks around -- there's not too much dancing for him.
I'm confident that in a week, I'll be able to get it.

On Sunday [June 7], we have two shows here in Dallas, then I'm getting on an 11 o'clock flight, and by Monday at 10:00, I'll get started on Joseph.
It's gonna be hard, but I have my book and my iPod, and I'm going through the script and highlighting everything.
I might make little notations where I might have ideas, where we might a little twist in the score, but I can't make a lot of choices. Mostly, I just need to be put into the show.
Roger has done this show before. It's not a new show to him. It'll be easy to work with him and with everyone who I know [in CdA]. It'd be a lot harder not knowing anyone. But then I would not have gotten the role if I did not already have relationships with people there. I have the confidence to pull it off.
I told Roger, anytime, I will come back. My whole family is there, so I get to see my family.

on the *Happy Days* tour:
We're in our second week in Dallas now. We started in October in L.A. We did it there to the end of November, then were on hiatus for a bit. So we've actually only been on tour since January, in Milwaukee.
This is my first tour. Some people like living out of a suitcase, but I like to be more settled.

[photo: Steven Booth, on left, as Richie in the musical version of *Happy Days,* with the Fonz and Ralph]



Bobo: Upcoming projects?
Steve Booth: Nothing for sure. I've been invited back to UNLV to do Company.
They bring in conservatory guest contracts to put past graduates on the main stage. I've never done any Sondheim, so I'm excited.
Then, at the end of August, I'm not sure, but I'm going back to New York. My plan is to go back to the city and do albums, get into classes. I'm all about bettering my work and saving money on tour.

Bobo: When did Roger offer you the part of Joseph?
Steve Booth: I think in late February, he brought it up and then in April he told me I was in.
Without the first week of rehearsal, I'm nervous.
Idaho was my home, but now New York is. I'm eager to get back to auditioning, but this worked out perfectly -- things are kinda slow now.
I'm 28 now, and it feels good to get back to my family.
I'm happy where I am in my career, even though I was late getting into theater.

I love to do it, and it paid for my college. But it wasn't until later that I thought I could make a living at it.
It's hard to feel like I'm an adult, even now, because I'm so passionate about it, and then, in the next second, I've got nothing.

I look at my dad, who is a businessman, has a regular 9-to-5 job. And he provided for us. I don't know that I'll ever have that. But I always know that I love to perform.

In high school, I just didn't know. In fact, the first show I was ever in, my girlfriend at the time was in it, so I auditioned.

My senior year at UNLV, I did a couple of musicals -- The Last Five Years in our black box and Floyd Collins on our medium-size stage -- both at the same time, and I was overwhelmed, but I do remember how much I loved it.

I wasn't just a theater kid -- I did sports and band and tried a lot of things. And I'm still learning -- I want to take classes. It has not stopped being exciting.

Bobo: And in New York, have you had to wait tables?
Steve Booth: I got lucky -- I haven't. Out of UNLV, I went to an open call for Avenue Q -- it wasn't an Equity call. And I got called back, and then the day after, I flew to New York, and then spent three months staying on people's couches, trying to make it as a non-Equity actor.
And then they flew me back to Vegas with full creative, and I worked as a caddy on golf courses, just put all my chips into making it -- it was a long, year-long, arduous auditioning process for *Avenue Q.*
But by flying to New York twice, that allowed me to go out and look for agents. So I got an agent out of it, and I saved a lot of money, so I was able to move to New York, where I've been lucky, getting little gigs, enough to keep me afloat.

Bobo: But now you're performing in front of the home crowd.
Steve Booth: "That's the funnest part, to do it for an audience, and my family gets to see me and have a fun time. To have my family there."

on touring with Happy Days:
“Being out on the road lately — people just aren’t coming. It’s a bit depressing to be giving 100 percent of yourself to a show, and the people aren’t there."

on CdA Summer Theater:
"Roger always hires great people. It's always fun -- I have not had a bad experience there. It's not a job where you make tons of money, but it's fun."

on what opening night for Joseph might be like, after just six days’ rehearsal:
“Come Saturday night, I may be a like a deer in the headlights, but they can push me around — if I’m in the wrong spot onstage, they can just push me into the right spot.”

CdA Summer Theater cast lists

JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT (June 13-27, 2009)
Director: Roger Welch (in 14 previous seasons as artistic director of Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre, has directed 28 shows; appeared here last summer as Thenardier in Les Miz)
Choreographer: Michael Wasileski (in 13 previous seasons at CdA, has choreographed 10 shows and directed three -- Footloose, A Chorus Line and Cats)

Joseph: Steven Booth (UNLV grad who played Pippin here three years ago)
Narrator: Krystle Armstrong (in two previous years at CdA, has played Millie and Cosette; also appeared as Natalie in All Shook Up and in Putting It Together)
Jacob: Jack Bannon (15 shows at CdA, and yes, he was Donovan on Lou Grant)
Pharaoh: James Lane (a graduate of Sam Houston State who has been in three previous productions of *Joseph*)

Brothers: Robby French (in three seasons at CdA: supporting roles in Les Miz, Once Upon a Mattress, The Full Monty, Some Enchanted Evening, Footloose, and Guys and Dolls; leading roles at Spokane Civic Theatre in The Last Five Years and as Jesus in Godspell); Jeffrey Johns (has performed on international tours and also in such roles as Linus, Motel, A-Rab, Peter Pan and Pippin); James Lane; Cameron Lewis (has performed at Bigfork, Interplayers and at the Civic as Will Parker in Oklahoma! and Billy Early in No, No, Nanette; his second season at CdA); Christopher Moll (in recent seasons at CdA, played Will Parker, Orin the Dentist, Munkustrap and Billy Lawlor (in 42nd Street)); Anthony Ong (at CdA in '06, played Ching Ho in Thoroughly Modern Millie; a Fordham grad who has performed in West Side Story and Hairspray in Manila); Justin Ramsey (extensive work in Seattle-area theaters); William Shindler (has also worked at Seattle Musical Theater); Michael Tramontin (graduate of AMDA and Univ. of New Orleans; survivor of Hurricane Katrina); Luke Vroman (a UW grad who has worked at both the 5th Street and Village theaters in Seattle); Josh Wingerter (with multiple credits at Seattle-area theaters, especially the Village Theater in Issaquah)

Wives: Lauren Cluett (in one year at CdA: appeared in All Shook Up and La Cage); Candace Hanson (in three seasons at CdA: Thoroughly Modern Millie, The King and I, A Chorus Line, Beauty and the Beast, and Footloose); Bonni Kealy (eight shows in three previous seasons at CdA; a grad student in math at WSU); Jessi Little (a CdA High grad who's on her way to TCU; three previous CdA productions); Amanda Wertz (Oklahoma City Univ. grad)




THE PRODUCERS (July 3-18)
Book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan
Music and lyrics by Mel Brooks
Director and choreographer: Tralen Doler (directed La Cage here and everywhere else last year; at Spokane's defunct Actors Rep Theater, acted in two shows and directed four; extensive musical theater credits)
Conductor: Max Mendez (music director at Spokane's Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral; choir director at NIC; conducted three CdA shows last season and appeared in Les Miz)
Lights by Joel Williamson
Sound by John Gallegos

Max Bialystok: Eric James Hadley (Portland actor with 14 years' experience on cruise lines)
Leo Bloom: Matthew Wade (in one season at CdA: Dennis in All Shook Up, Jean-Michel in La Cage, and Marius in Les Miz; has also toured nationally as Leo Bloom)
Ulla: Jennifer Elise Davis (tours of The Pajama Game and La Cage aux Folles; in one season at CdA, appeared in All Shook Up and La Cage)
Roger: Jerry Christakos (played Albin/"Zaza" in La Cage aux Folles at CdA last summer)
Carmen Ghia: Steven Dahlke (since 1996, has been rehearsal pianist, music director or actor in 50 shows at CdA; teaches in Orange County)
Franz: Patrick Treadway (trained at ACT; has performed at several Spokane-area theaters; previous CdA shows include The Will Rogers Follies, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, Beauty and the Beast; Kiss Me, Kate; and White Christmas (in concert))
Ensemble: Molly Allen (the morning show at The Zoo and several shows at CdA); Lauren Cluett; Robby French; James Lane; Cameron Lewis; Christopher Moll; Anthony Ong; Michael Tramontin; Janie Wallace (an Illinois Wesleyan grad who has toured nationally with Gypsy and Joseph); Amanda Wertz




DAMES AT SEA (July 23-Aug. 2)

Book by George Heimsohn and Robin Miller
Music by Jim Wise
Director: Roger Welch
Choreographed by Tralen Doler
Musical direction by Steven Dahlke
Lights by Michael McGiveney
Sound by John Gallegos

Ruby: Darcy Wright (a CdA native who played Eponine in Les Miz and Bianca in Kiss Me, Kate here last year)
Dick: Nick Wheat (Cal State Fullerton grad who has appeared in three previous seasons at CdA — in '99, as Joseph and in The Pajama Game; in 2000, as Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly! and as part of the quartet in The Music Man; and in 2002, in Anything Goes)
Mona: Ellen Travolta (John's eldest sister; toured in Gypsy with Ethel Merman; well known for Welcome Back, Kotter; Happy Days; Joanie Loves Chachi; and Charles in Charge; previous roles at CdA include Mame, Dolly, Mama Rose and Miss Hannigan, along with Joanne in Company, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, Berthe in Pippin and Jeannette in The Full Monty)
Lucky: Christopher Moll
Joan: Jennifer Elise Davis
Captain/Hennessey: Jerry Christakos




MISS SAIGON (Aug. 8-22)

Book by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
Lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil
Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg
Director: Kirk Mouser (on national tours and Broadway, has played Marius and Raoul, along with other roles; directed Les Miz here last summer; artistic director of Portland's Stumptown Stages)
Conductor: Chris Thompson (asst. prof. of voice at UI; last summer at CdA, conducted All Shook Up and played Georges in La Cage and Enjolras in Les Miz; will music-direct two shows at Idaho Rep this summer and will conduct Anything Goes at Lyric Opera San Diego)
Choreographer: Michael Wasileski
Musical direction by Chris Thompson
PSM: Dawn Taylor Reinhardt
Lights by Joel Williamson
Sound by John Gallegos

Kim: Mia Yoshida (WSU freshman who played Kim last year at Lewis and Clark High School)
Chris: Dane Stokinger (in two previous seasons at CdA: Jerry in The Full Monty, Man No. 2 in Putting It Together, Paul in Kiss Me, Kate, Chad in All Shook Up, Sir Harry in Once Upon a Mattress, and ensemble in Les Miz; also played Chris on a national tour)
The Engineer: Brian Jose (in one season at CdA: Bun Foo in Thoroughly Modern Millie; a SAG and Equity actor who has played the Engineer or Thuy in seven previous productions of Miss Saigon)
John: Matthew Wade
Thuy: Eymard Meneses Cabling (a Carnegie Mellon grad who has played both Thuy and, on tour, The Engineer)
Ellen: Jessica Skerritt (Seattle actor making her CdA debut)

Ensemble: Cody Bray (NIC student); Kimanh Nguyen Conway (Opera CdA); Matt Frasier (first season at CdA); Robby French; Lorna Hamilton (director and choreographer, veteran of several Spokane-area productions, including Mama Drama at the Civic); Loresa Lanceta (has worked off-Broadway and regionally); Whitney Lee (Northwestern and NYU grad who has also worked off-Broadway and regionally); Glen Llanes (has toured in Asia with The King and I; this is his CdA debut); Cameron Lewis; Andrew Ware Lewis (in one season at CdA, appeared in Kiss Me, Kate; has played leading roles at Spokane Civic Theatre in Singin' in the Rain, Hello, Dolly! and Assassins; teaches at Northwest Christian); Carl Man (born and raised in the UK; has played Aladdin at Disneyland and Joseph, Prince Charming and Tony (in West Side Story) on Royal Caribbean cruises); Christopher Moll; Tsubasa Ogawa (born in Japan, she attended the New School in New York); Anthony Ong; Jay Paranada (PLU grad and Seattle native who has worked in New York theaters; this is his CdA debut); Yvonne Same (a UC Irvine grad who has toured with Miss Saigon and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and who has played Yum-Yum, Peter Pan, Medea and Kim (in Miss Saigon) regionally); Allison Standley (UW grad who has worked with Seattle Shakespeare Company and will appear in "The Grind Show" (which she co-wrote) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; this is her fourth season at CdA); Tiara Yong (Hawaii native, now lives in New York)

Costume designer for all shows: Judith McGiveney (costumer for seven years on Murphy Brown; has worked extensively at Lake City Playhouse and NIC; here at CdA, has designed 39 productions)
Scenic designer for all shows: Michael McGiveney (before designing for the last eight years at CdA, worked with Walt Disney Imagineering for seven years)

Visit cdasummertheatre.com

CdA Summer Theater auditions

... will be in CdA on April 18, but in New York and Seattle before that — all in preparation for their June-August season of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Producers, Dames at Sea and Miss Saigon.

NYC auditions:
Saturday, March 14, from 10 am-5 pm
Shetler Studios
244 W. 54th St., 12th floor

Seattle auditions:
Saturday, April 11, from 10 am-5 pm
Theatre Puget Sound at the Seattle Center, Room G

Coeur d’Alene auditions:
Saturday, April 18, from 10 am-5 pm
North Idaho College, Boswell Hall, Room 102
1000 W. Garden Ave.

Contact:
Roger Welch, Producing Artistic Director
Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre
PO Box 1119
Coeur d'Alene ID 83816

rogerwelch67@msn.com
www.cdasummertheatre.org
(208) 769-7780
fax:
(208) 769-7856

colorful-musical-notes-thumb809477
Originally uploaded by ceciliawong718

CdA Summer Theater's 2009 season

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
and
The Producers
Dames at Sea
Miss Saigon

(belated) review of *All Shook Up*

through Saturday, June 21, at CdA Summer Theatre

In the middle of an evening of mindless fun, the first-act closing number in *All Shook Up* provides a touching moment. After all the unrequited love-longing has been set up — boy loves girl, girl loves another boy, but he loves yet another girl, and so on — singers appear, one after another, sharing Elvis’ love-ache, one line after another: “Wise men say / Only fools rush in / But I can’t help falling in love with you....” It’s a vision of communal loneliness, an assembly of yearning — and, as simply staged by director Roger Welch, quite beautiful. All we need — and want — is love.
A show like *All Shook Up* — a musical with songs that are all Elvis, all the time — has to past two jukebox-musical tests: How good is the story that’s wrapped around the songs? And wouldn’t you be better off just playing your old records?
Joe DiPietro’s book of the musical straddles the line between hokeyness and the kind of self-deprecating fun that undermines excessive sentimentality. There’s too much eye-rolling exposition (“Dad, you sure seem lonely ever since Mom died,” or some equally convenient explanation). Hokey it can be, but there’s also a lot of fun in all the self-mocking jokes that provide the next guitar-chord setup for a beloved Elvis song.
It can be disappointing, at least initially, to hear those opening chords and not hear the voice of the King himself. “Love Me Tender” as a duet? When “Hound Dog” is divided up among several singers, you’ve got too many people up there who ain’t never caught a rabbit and ain’t no friend of … ours?
Dane Stokinger isn’t going to make anybody forget Elvis, but who could ever do that? He isn’t attempting an impersonation anyway. But Stokinger does play to his strengths, which are physical comedy, “jiggily-wiggily” dance movements (he’s all pelvis!), and a great way with those quizzical, self-deprecating remarks. We miss Presley’s deep baritone on “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” but Stokinger’s higher, flightier voice fits in with his characterization of the macho roustabout who’s puzzled by this little town and its funny little men who act like women.
That’s because DiPietro (*Over the River and Through the Woods*) borrows plot elements from Shakespearean comedy: pairs of mismatched lovers chase one another through the night while women disguised as men implore their would-be boyfriends start their wooing right here and now.

To supplement the Elvis soundtrack, director Welch adds plenty of inventive staging. As Chad the roustabout, Stokinger arrives in town astride a motorcycle — in front of a clever back-projection of a rolling country road. There’s a visible quick change that transforms at least one bobby-soxer in this repressed burg from drab to ebullient, just like that. Provocative statutes in an art museum become even more provocative. There’s an interracial romance between a couple of swell kids (Jadd Davis and Melanie L. Gaskins) that’s played out, comic book-style, in a race between a bus and a bicycle. (The bicycle loses, but what’s gained is comedy that makes the seriousness of the anti-discrimination message stand out by contrast all the more.) When the Davis and Gaskins stand up for themselves in a world twisted by prejudice and sing “If I Can Dream,” the entire number becomes a plea for racial harmony. In a crowd of demonstrators behind a scrim, Welch even editorializes by inserting a Barack Obama campaign sign: “Change That We Can Believe In.” Yet he sets up the serious political message with a comic introduction: At the abandoned fairgrounds where everyone has escaped for just one night in 1955, Elvis/Chad pops up between the hand-holding teens, right there in the Tunnel of Love. Just before that, for “Devil in Disguise,” Welch had five angels loosen their robes to reveal another side of their personalities. Visual surprises like these help enliven the plot’s silly proceedings. Overall, the production lacks the kind of rambunctious joy that so many of the songs strive for: Despite the innocent post-war setting and plea for ethnic acceptance, Hairspray this is not. But in its best moments, CdA’s Elvis musical is more engaging than listening to Elvis records at home alone.
As the love interest who masquerades as a grease monkey just to get closer to Chad-on-a-motorcycle, Krystle Armstrong has plenty of spunk — enough to set up the closing image of a young woman who’s independent enough now to set out on the road with or without a man.
Supporting roles are solid. As the bar owner and local cynic, Deidra Grace shines when she steps up and belts “There’s Always Me.” As Dennis, the nerd who loves Natalie from a distance, Matt Wade gets the most out of his horn-rim glasses and slumped posture. He’s just excited enough to be named the Roustabout’s guitar-slinging sidekick that it makes sense later on when he loses Natalie but gains enough self-confidence to make Miss Sandra swoon over his love of poetry. As Miss Sandra, the only person with any sophistication in this dust-blown Midwestern town, Charissa Bertels makes it clear that she’s not about to fall for some motorcycle monkey in a black leather jacket. In “The Power of My Love,” Bertels plays the sexy siren as she corkscrews her knees into the ground, hands caressing her hips as she belts the tune and then makes a Mae West exit.
Chris Thompson’s 11-piece orchestra provides the appropriate sax riffs and guitar-strumming intros, while Cammie Hendry’s choreography sticks to the doo-wop basics: fingers splayed, shoulders shimmied, girls rolled over backs and flung between the male dancers’ legs.
There’s still the problem, however, of al those Elvis songs being danced and sung without Elvis. When 20 people start crooning in “Heartbreak Hotel” about how lonely they are, you wonder why all these characters don’t just starting looking around, right next to them, for companions.
Then again, by the evening’s end, several of them have succeeded nicely. In fact, by the end of *All Shook Up,* so many couples are pairing off, it’s like a convention of rabbits. Elvis always did have that kind of effect on people.