Charisa Silliman owns it right up front: She’s hot-headed, she’s impulsive, and she’s a lot like the love-struck woman in “Oklahoma!”
Silliman is the leading lady in the Port Angeles Light Opera Association’s summer-love musical, opening tonight for a whirlwind run just through July 31.
“Oklahoma!” as created by PALOA brings together a cast of some 40 actors-singers-dancers from divergent walks of life around Port Angeles and Sequim, plus the music of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, in a lavishly staged and costumed show inside the Port Angeles High School auditorium.
This is not only a romp through beloved songs. It’s also a saga of farmers and ranchers trying to build a stronger community — plus it has two hot romances.
And for Silliman, who grew up in Sequim, the musical is not so far from real life. She and her husband, David, got together in much the same way that Silliman’s character, Laurey, circles around Curly, the show’s hero.
Curly — played by Paul Hanes — and Laurey are great friends, and each is secretly in love with the other. “People Will Say We’re in Love” is one of the songs “Oklahoma!” immortalized, after all.
But “she’s afraid to jump in,” Silliman said. “She doesn’t want to lose him as a friend.”
Silliman met her own husband-to-be when they were 13 years old.
“We were friends for a long time. Then, three years ago, we said, ‘That’s it,'” she recalled.
In August, they will celebrate their second wedding anniversary.
Reaching the joyful ending of the love stories in “Oklahoma!” isn’t simple, of course. And the cast members are determined to fill the journey full of juicy and heart-rending moments.
This show “has everything you could possibly want,” said Amanda Bacon, who plays Ado Annie, the character who made “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No” a classic of the American songbook.
“It has comedy, drama, dancing — Paul has choreographed dances that will put people on the edge of their seats — and Charisa’s voice will give you chills,” Bacon added.
Paul is Paul Hanes, who besides playing Curly is the show’s dance maker and coach.
He started dancing at 12 at the Ballet Workshop in Port Angeles and has appeared in the workshop’s “Nutcracker” and in PALOA’s “Peter Pan,” “Oliver!” and “Paint Your Wagon,” mainly as a dancer. This time, he’s also a lead actor and singer who does the show’s opening number in an effort to impress Laurey.
That number is “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” and just the beginning of the roller-coaster Curly rides through the show.
“The role has a wide range of emotions to it . . . Laurey and Curly have this back-and-forth sparring relationship,” Hanes said. “They’re attracted to each other, but neither one is willing to admit it, so they trade barbs . . . then there’s this full-blown scene when all caution is thrown to the wind, and Curly proposes.”
There’s also a fight scene between Curly and his rival, Jud Fry, played by Ron Graham.
Graham used to be a stunt man at the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park in California, so he knows how to make fights look like the real thing, Hanes added.
Hanes himself is in the middle of earning a law degree at the University of Idaho. So he’ll be going back to school at August’s end. This summer spent in “Oklahoma!”, he said, has been “a really steep learning curve,” blending dancing, singing and memorizing all of those Curly lines.
The show has been an adventure too for Teresa Pierce, who plays Laurey’s Aunt Eller. She’s not only Laurey’s guardian, but also, Pierce said, “kind of the glue that holds everything together,” in Claremore, the town where “Oklahoma!” is set.
Coincidentally, Pierce, in her real life, is executive communications coordinator for the city of Port Angeles. Which means she’s spokesperson for City Manager Kent Myers and the City Council.
In the show, “Aunt Eller can be pretty darn cranky, and she can get away with anything,” Pierce said. “She likes to have a little bit of fun” and gets to waltz and two-step with Curly and with Will.
Curly, Laurey, Jud Fry and Aunt Eller are all going to the “box social,” a community party to which the women bring big boxes, or hampers, full of food. In a fundraiser to build a new schoolhouse, the men bid on the boxes, until the only one left is the one Laurey made.
At the same time, Ado Annie is trying to choose between two other guys: rodeo star Will Parker (Cody Coughenour), and the exotic Persian peddler Ali Hakim (Sean Peck-Collier).
All of this plays out across the backdrop of a divided community, said Richard Stephens, the show’s director.
PALOA has staged “Oklahoma!” before, in 1989; it’s doing a revival because, Stephens said, this is the right show for right now. The story, set in 1906 when the Oklahoma Territory was on the brink of statehood, is about people building a life together despite hardships and differences — just as those on North Olympic Peninsula did and are still doing.
“This is not a rosy, cutesy musical with everyone in pastels. There’s dirt and sweat,” Stephens said. “There’s very physical dancing; it’s tough stuff. . . . My costumer, Nina Fisher, has had to take in all of the costumes because the people have been taking off the pounds” via the rehearsals that began last April.
“People ask why we do this. It’s a huge chunk of the summer: May, June and July to do six performances,” the director added.
The answer, Stephens believes, has to do with nourishing the “community” in community theater.
“This is an amazing cast,” he said, “that has really knitted hearts together.”
The “Oklahoma!” company is also a cross-section of Port Angeles and Sequim. For example: Stephens is a Peninsula Daily News advertising account executive, Silliman staffs the front desk at Sequim Gym, Coughenour works at Peninsula Plywood, Bacon is president-elect of the Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club, and a quick survey of the supporting cast finds Peninsula College Running Start student Gabbi Sanwald, marriage and family therapist Mindy Gelder, and Diane Hanes, a home-schooling mother of nine children.
Carol Philpott, as farmer Sarah Pike, is in her 20th PALOA production. She’s also PALOA board president and sees “Oklahoma!” as a burst of inspiration.
“What better time in history for an uplifting story about new beginnings,” Philpott asks in the show’s program. “The farmers and ranchers are working on forging cooperation and friendships. We all know how important that is.”
“Oklahoma!” opens today with curtain at 7:30 p.m. at the Port Angeles High School auditorium, 304 E. Park Ave. It’s family night, so all seats are $10. The next performances are at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. this Sunday, and at 7:30 p.m. July 29, 30 and 31. After family night tonight, seats are priced at $10, $15 and $20 depending on where you sit. Tickets are available online — with a additional $2 per-ticket service charge — at www.PALOA.org or in downtown Port Angeles at Northwest Fudge and Confections, 108 W. First St., and in Sequim at Sequim Gym, 145 E. Washington St.
For more information, call Northwest Fudge at 360-452-8299.
