Auditions set for OTA’s ‘A Christmas Carol’

Olympic Theatre Arts Center will be holding auditions for their Christmas production, the live 1940s radio version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, and 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, at the OTA campus, 414 N. Sequim Ave.

A cast of on stage voice actors will read (not memorize) the radio script, and a second cast (non-speaking roles) will add to the chaos of a live radio station in a comical play-behind-the-play. Each actor/reader will be portraying three to four different roles, as different as Bob Cratchit, a middle-aged adult, and Fezziwig, an older gentleman: or as varied as Tiny Tim, a child, and old Joe, an old pawnbroker: for the women, as different as Mrs. Cratchit, a middle-age woman, and the charwoman, an old servant.

In the audition, director Merv Wingard will be looking for the ability of the actor to voice quite different characters. Scripts and audition forms will be provided at the audition for the readings.

“Everybody knows A Christmas Carol, almost by heart,” Wingard said. “And what would Christmas be without it? It is truly a literary masterpiece written for all time. But to see how a live actor uniquely portrays the miserly Scrooge. Or to find out how the play invents the third ghostly spirit. Or, to admire, as in this production, how each actor renders several different roles. There is nothing like live theatre!”

“A Christmas Carol” runs from Dec. 3-19. Rehearsal schedules will be determined according to cast availability. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required for participation in this production.

For more information, call 360-683-7326.

Collaboration results in ‘Dona Quixote in the Modern World’

Starting without a plan, composition or theme, Sequim artists Mary Franchini and Lynne Armstrong completed “Dona Quixote in the Modern World,” a painting created live during the two days of ArtJam2021 in the Barn on Silberhorn over Labor Day weekend.

Franchini made the first mark, then Armstrong followed with a mark, to create a dialogue in paint.

The painting will be on view at the Blue Whole Gallery, 129 W. Washington St., Sequim, through Nov. 30.

“We wanted to share with the visitors to the barn the creative process, what happens when you just try to ‘make a painting work,’” Armstrong said recently.

“We worked back and forth, because it was important not to have individual ‘sides.’ One shape suggested another … Two very tiring days went by and we stopped. We were happy with the major part of it, but carried it back to Mary’s studio to refine some areas after the show.”

One visitor to the show suggested a title — “Don Quixote in the Modern World” — that struck the artists as the perfect suggestion, Armstrong noted.

“We later changed Don to Dona to reflect the feminine aesthetic which emerged naturally as we kept on working and reworking the canvas,” she said.

Celebration of Shadows set for Oct. 23

Artist and art educator Terry Valdez leads a Shadow Puppet Design Workshop at the Celebration of Shadows Festival from noon-2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 23, at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd.

The workshop _ among others, set for noon-4:30 p.m. — is followed by a gallery talk about the exhibition by the juror at 5 p.m. Later in the evening, the community is invited to join for a pumpkin walk at 6 p.m. and a shadow puppet theater performance in the meadow at 7 p.m.

For more information about the Celebration of Shadows Festival, visit pafac.org/shadows-festival.html.

New textile art exhibit includes artist meet, greet

Painted silk and pillows, Japanese-style rice bags, art quilts and origami, one-of-a-kind garments and collages are among the 100-plus pieces featured in “Art as Gifts,” the new walk-by Surface Design Association exhibit opening Oct. 11 at Lawrence and Tyler streets in Uptown Port Townsend.

More than a dozen Jefferson, Clallam and Kitsap county artists have created wearable, functional and decorative art, all of which is for sale.

Sequim artists include Linda Carlson, Liisa Fagerlund and Steffany Neuschaefer.

Port Angeles artists include Evette Allerdings and Barbara Houshmand.

Port Townsend artists include Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry, Sue Gale, Debra Olson, Janice Speck and Erika Wurm. Jeri Auty of Port Ludlow and Erica Iseminger of Chimacum also have art featured in the exhibit. Bainbridge Island artists Donna Lee Dowdney and Carol Roi Olsen, as well as Redmond artist Donna Lark-Weiner — a former Port Townsend resident _ have works featured.

More information about each art piece is available anytime by scanning the QR code in the SDA window and by visiting sda-np.com/art-as- gifts.

Members of SDA’s North Peninsula chapter meet monthly, with meetings rotated between Sequim, Port Angeles and Port Townsend. The next meeting is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 10 at Sequim’s A Stitch in Time if COVID protocols permit, or via Zoom otherwise; see sda-np.com/meetings). Guests are welcome.