Submitted by Harlequin Productions
Standing on the corner of 4th Avenue and Washington Street, Olympia’s State Theater has been a handsome landmark building since it opened in 1949. It served as a state of the art movie theater until the 1970s when multiplex cinemas displaced locally owned individual houses and by the late 1990s the building was boarded up and left for dead.
In the meantime, live theater company Harlequin Productions had grown an audience base of a size that inspired the group to seek its own home. After seven seasons as a renter in the Washington Center, Harlequin took a leap of faith and bought the State Theater, remodeled it to be a beautifully appointed live theater venue, and reopened it in November of 1998. Now, seventeen seasons and roughly 350,000 tickets later, the company is preparing for its 25th Anniversary season.
On Sunday evening April 19th from 5-8 pm at the State Theater, Harlequin will host Eclectica!, the company’s annual season announcement celebration, and reveal the lineup for their 25th season. How do you sum up 24 years of theater in Olympia? As Managing Artistic
Director Scot Whitney puts it, “It’s been quite the ride.”
“I was a filmmaker for 16 years,” remembers Whitney. “All I ever wanted to do was tell stories. But over the years, filmmaking became less and less about working with actors and more and more about working with equipment.”
So, Scot put together a set of four plays he wanted to direct and set about finding theaters who would produce his shows. However, he was met with theaters who felt the plays he wanted to direct were too avant-garde, too challenging. “Everywhere I went, I was told ‘Oh, you can’t do that in Olympia.’ So I thought, ‘Alright, I’ll do it myself.’”
Harlequin Productions was founded in 1991 by a group of five people—Scot Whitney, Linda Whitney, James L. This, Phil Annis and Ronna Smith—who decided that they wanted to produce a more challenging style of theater. They wrote their mission statement, pooled their start-up capital—a whopping $400 cash—and began producing individual shows at the Washington Center Black Box, which seated about 100.
After building a small but devoted patron base, Harlequin took on an enormous production of “Hamlet” in 1992 (their second season). The show was staged with an Asian motif on a 20 foot motorized revolve with a cast of 18, an original score, and elaborate fights and dance scenes. “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.”
By 1995, the productions had grown in size and scale so much that the company was outgrowing the Black Box space at the Washington Center. Searching for a permanent home, Harlequin found the State Theater, which had 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 by this time that the company members had few hopes. As Scot Whitney tells it, “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 just needed paint and TLC. And new electrical. And a concessions stand. And marquee. And carpet. And dressing rooms. But the seats were great!”
After about a year’s worth of hoping and dreaming, Harlequin Productions made an offer on the State Theater, it was accepted, and the company launched a massive capital campaign to fund the purchase and remodel. They had precisely seventeen months to raise $1.3 million and complete the renovation. And seventeen months later, Harlequin opened the doors on the beautifully remodeled State Theater.
The move to the State Theater provided Harlequin the ability to continue producing the challenging works the founders dreamed about in the beginning. In season nine (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. And just over a year ago, the company added improv comedy to the mix with their own troupe, Something Wicked.
It’s been an incredible 24-year journey filled with countless magical performances. And on Sunday evening April 19, Harlequin Productions will announce the lineup of their 25th Season.
Eclectica! is Harlequin Productions’ annual fundraiser and season announcement party. The event will take place from 5:00-8:00 PM on Sunday April 19 at the State Theater in downtown Olympia and include a catered dinner; no-host bar; live entertainment; a wine toss; a short, live auction; and the announcement of Harlequin’s Season 2016 lineup of shows.
“The 2016 Season is Harlequin’s 25th anniversary season,” said Managing Artistic Director Scot Whitney. “We’ve got some surprises in store to mark the occasion.”
Entertainment will be provided by the acclaimed musical duo Red & Ruby, featuring LaVon Hardison and Vince Brown. In addition, Harlequin’s improv troupe, Something Wicked, will present live improv comedy.
“Eclectica! is always a very fun event,” commented Harlequin Artistic Director Linda Whitney. “Red & Ruby are fabulous, and Something Wicked will be hilarious as always.
What better way to celebrate where we’ve been, and where we’re going?”
Tickets to Eclectica! can be purchased by calling 360-786-0151, or online at harlequinproductions.org.
