Submitted by Harlequin Productions
This fall, Harlequin Productions is celebrating the start of its 25th anniversary season. Looking at where the company is now, it might be a surprise that Harlequin was once a small, scrappy, rag-tag group with nothing but all the passion in the world.
Our story begins with five people—James L. This, Scot Whitney, Linda Whitney, Phil Annis and Ronna Smith—who got together in 1991 and decided that they wanted to produce a more challenging style of theater. They wrote their mission statement, pooled their startup capital—a whopping $400 cash—and began producing individual shows at the Washington Center Black Box, which seated about 100.
At the end of the first season, Harlequin had produced seven challenging plays and was still in the black, based entirely on single ticket sales and a few modest donations. Season subscriptions were offered for 1992 and 85 die-hard fans signed on.
In its second season (1992) Harlequin took on an enormous (and enormously popular) production of Hamlet staged with an Asian motif on a 20 foot motorized revolve with a cast of 18, original score, and elaborate fights and dance. “Hamlet redefined the direction of the company,” says Harlequin Artistic Director Linda Whitney. “Who cared if shows of that magnitude overtaxed our resources? They were fun! And no matter how we tried to rein people in, everyone involved was chomping at the bit to make the next production a little bit better.”
In season three (1993), the company doubled its subscriber base. By the end of that year, Harlequin was paying actors and technicians and was still in the black. In season four (1994), Harlequin wrote, produced, and sold out the first in its series of Stardust holiday shows (A Stardust Christmas). In season five (1995), the organization made the cover of the Shakespeare Bulletin. By this time it was becoming clear that Harlequin was outgrowing the black box space in the Washington Center and would soon need to find a home of its own.
Their search brought them to the State Theater, which started its life as one of the finest movie theaters on the west coast. It had fallen on hard times during the cineplexing of America and was chopped into three ill-conceived shoebox theaters. Within a few years it became a neglected dollar movie house and was finally boarded up and abandoned. The State Theater looked so bad in the mid-90s that, to be frank, it was an eyesore in the heart of downtown Olympia. But the price was reasonable, the owner was willing to sell, and it was in superb structural condition. It would take a lot of work, but it had potential as Harlequin’s new home.
During season six (1996), Harlequin launched a $1.3 million capital campaign to purchase and remodel the State Theater. Seventeen months later, Harlequin opened the doors to its new home. Three years later, in season 9 (2000), the company had two productions (The Tempest and Hapgood) selected for permanent collection by the Theater on Film and Tape Archive at the Lincoln Center in NYC.
To this day, exciting things are happening at Harlequin. In season 22 (2013), they blew the roof off the joint with their modern-day staging of Jesus Christ Superstar, and a few months later rolled out their new improv troupe, Something Wicked. This past season, Harlequin set attendance records with To Kill a Mockingbird.
For season 25 (2016), the company is celebrating its silver anniversary by producing three musicals in the same season for the first time ever. The 20th edition of the Stardust musical series kicks off the year. In June, Harlequin will mount Little Shop of Horrors, one of the all-time classics. This will be followed immediately by the awe-inspiring power of Jason Robert Brown’s masterpiece The Last 5 Years.
After a quarter-century of hard work, Harlequin Productions has become a cultural and economic gem in the South Sound. All this success aside, Harlequin continues to produce each play just like it always has: with all the passion in the world.
Subscriptions to Season 2016 are still available. Visit www.harlequinproductions.org or by call 360/786-0151.
