Olympic Theatre Arts to debut ‘The Flip Flop Flotilla’ at Juan de Fuca Festival
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 22, 2019
The Olympic Theatre Arts Children’s Theater Road Show debuts “The Flip Flop Flotilla” at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 25, at the Juan De Fuca Festival in Port Angeles.
Held in front of the Vern Burton Center (308 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles), the 20-minute presentation introduces the audience to characters who live in a Salish Sea tidepool.
“We wanted to tell a story about the pressure our environment is under right now,” Bonne Smith, OTA Children’s Theater director, said. “Our nemesis in the story is a Trash Monster that was generated from waste after a tsunami.”
The Road Show, OTA staff said, became a way for OTA to bring youth voices to issues that affect them by using theater production skills.
The Olympic Theatre Arts Children’s Theater created an original script, “Fresh & Salty,” last December in an actor’s writing workshop for children and youth. The winter after-school class turned it into a film and entered it into the Rivers and Ocean Film Festival.
“The Flip Flop Flotilla” story, which will be filmed winter 2020, shares with the audience how man-made pressures combined with natural disasters have created havoc for the tidepool characters.
The traveling troupe of young actors have a mission, OTA staff say: to “share a story with information that shines a light on local pollution and invasive species as well as entertain the audience with a sometimes funny story but with real life consequences.”
