SEQUIM — It’s like Olympic Theatre Arts is holding out a dish of ice cream.
The 29-year-old community theater company has announced its new season of shows, the first two of which will bring the actors and stage crew back into the building they were kicked out of in early 2007.
At the same time, OTA has just five days left in its “$100,000 in 100 days” matching-gift campaign for funds to finish its new main stage.
Money rolling in
The checks are arriving at a good clip: On Friday, the total topped $86,000 in contributions; by Monday that had risen to $89,213, according to OTA business manager Loren Johnson.
Lovers of live theater are sending in individual donations as are nonprofit groups such as the Sequim Community Foundation, which presented OTA with a $1,000 check.
Those donations will go into the fund inspired by a $100,000 interest-free loan from Bob and Elaine Caldwell, steadfast volunteers at OTA who decided last spring to forgive their loan if the community sent in another $100,000.
Back in April, at the start of the 100-day campaign, Elaine Caldwell called the loan SDLqthe best investment we could have made.”
OTA has staged more than 120 comedies, dramas and musicals since 1980 — including two seasons in which the troupe was homeless.
‘Do not occupy’
That happened when Sequim’s then-Public Works Director James Bay posted a “Do not occupy” notice on OTA’s center at 414 N. Sequim Ave. in February 2007, after demolition work had begun in anticipation of renovating the theater.
In the midst of its run, the OTA production of “Mame” had to be moved, set and all, to Sequim High School’s auditorium. Since then, the troupe and its plays have hopped from stage to stage all over Sequim.
That show-on-the-road scenario will soon come to an end, Johnson promised.
“Same Time Next Year,” a bittersweet comedy made famous by the Alan Alda-Ellen Burstyn movie, will open Sept. 25 in OTA’s “gathering hall,” also known as its second stage, and run through Oct. 11. Next is “Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s gripping Catholic-school drama, again in the gathering hall. “Doubt” will open in mid-November, Johnson said; he doesn’t have a hard premiere date as he is still negotiating with the local thespians who want to be involved in the show.
The next turning point in OTA’s history, Johnson added, will come Feb. 5, when its 162-seat, $1.6 million theater is scheduled to open, as is the musical “Cabaret.”
That 1966 Broadway hit, set in the Kit Kat Klub of Berlin, became a hit movie in 1972, starring Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, and won eight Academy Awards. And when it returned to Broadway in 1998, the revival won 10 Tonys.
Triumph
In other words, “Cabaret” was a triumph in New York and Hollywood — and it’ll be a triumph in Sequim if its opening night goes as planned on the new main stage.
But with a deadline and a construction crew at hand, Johnson, the Caldwells and the OTA board of directors must focus on right now. The final day of the $100,000 in 100 days campaign is this Friday, and then the Carpenters for Christ, a team of volunteers from the American South, will arrive to do interior work. This will be their second trip here; in April 2007, the carpenters helped build the foundation.
This time, “they’re going to spend a lot of time sheetrocking and building the risers for the seats,” Johnson said. The carpenters, scheduled to arrive Aug. 5 and work till Aug. 15, will also do some finishing work on the gathering hall to help ensure a partial-occupancy permit from the city in time for the opening of the new season in September.
Then the carpenters will be honored, alongside OTA’s flock of volunteers and members, at its annual picnic Aug. 15. The event will take place in the backyard of the center on North Sequim Avenue, beside the theater that’s been years in the building,.
“A real time of celebration is planned,” said Elaine Caldwell.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
