Set to stage for a limited run — one weekend only — Olympic Theatre Arts Center’s first New Works Showcase features six short plays by local authors writing on the theme of “resilience.”
Performances are set for 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 16-17, and 2 p.m. Sunday, July 18, at the OTA main stage, 414 N. Sequim Ave.
Tickets are $15 for the general public, $13 for OTA members, and $10 for students with school identification card, and are available at the theatre box office from 1-4 p.m. through Friday, or online at OlympicTheatreArts.org.
A team of both established and new directors to OTA are working with a cast of local actors, also ranging from veterans to beginners, to bring the stories to the stage for the first time in a showcase dedicated to long time OTA actor and director Jim Guthrie.
OTA’s first annual New Works Showcase is all about highlighting the written voices of our community.
Never-seen-before plays Guthrie, Suzanne Bailie, Aurora Lagattuta, Gabriel Mills and Sarah Brabant, Susan Noyes, and John Painter take the stage with genres including “adorable comedy, touching drama and mellow musical undertones,” organizers say.
“My play came to be out of my deepened appreciation for the powers of imagination and music that I rediscovered during covid,” said Lagattuta, author of “I Dance For Purple,” a story of a woman in isolation finding freedom and connection through imagination, music and dance.
“Often I thought I turned to sound and story to escape reality but I found that songs and dreams also helped my mind and body re-member another equally true reality,” she said. “One that lives in the pulse of our blood and the joy of our expression.”
Noyes, author of “Goodbye Cruel World,” said that given the theme, frustrated seniors sparked her story. Her play is about two women making a suicide pact, with fate intervening.
“I write comedy because I believe we need it; laughter is so necessary right now,” Noyes said.
Painter is the creative force behind “Dance Your Dance,” a comedy about five souls whose conversations in death reveal their perseverance in life.
“I think it’s easy to fixate on what we perceive as our failures, while often we fail to recognize our successes,” He said. “‘Dance Your Dance’ grew out of a desire to celebrate the spirit of resilience we discover in our darkest moments.”
For further information, call the theatre at 360-683-7326.
