A beautiful evening for outdoor theater
Today box office ticket sales begin for the 2011 Leavenworth Summer Theater Season. The three shows in this summer’s season are: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music.
My day-job is in theater. I’ve worn just about every hat there is in the Spokane theater community: designer, actor, director, stage manager, back-stage crew, PR, props master, and at the present time, costumer. I love theater. Like a lot of children, many of my earliest memories are of planning, directing and performing my own plays for whomever I could make sit down long enough to watch. Apparently, unlike most children, I never really grew out of my stage aspirations.
My children are grown now, but our family spent many, many hours working together in classes and productions for Christian Youth Theater, Spokane.
I don’t just love doing theater, I love seeing theater. On several occasions Scotte and I (Fritzi and Mitzi) have had opportunity to include theater performances in our travel plans. We’ve watched The Lion King in Toronto, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth in Stratford, Ontario, A Winter’s Tale in Washington D.C., Cirque d’ Soleil in Santa Monica, and street theater in Italy (Epcot!). One of our most memorable theater experiences has been Leavenworth Summer Theater’s The Sound of Music.
We’ve had the chance to see productions of both A Christmas Carol and most recently The Sound of Music.
Last July we had the chance to see The Sound of Music for the first time. In the past we’ve either not been in Leavenworth during show weeks, or missed a show because it was sold out or we couldn’t work out our travel schedule to match performance nights. Last summer we decided not to let all those things stop us. We planned our trip dates just so we could see The Sound of Music. Boy were we glad we did.
The night was beautifully clear. We arrived at the Ski Hill parking area while it was still daylight. It takes about 20 minutes to park and walk up the hill to the Amphitheater. The walk isn’t strenuous, but we were glad we’d left plenty of time to take it easy and enjoy our stroll. There is accommodation for those who require transportation to the top of the trail.
We rented seat pads for $1 and were glad we had. The seating is on folding chairs. We also made sure to dress in layers and took jackets with us. The day had been warm, but once the sun set the air cooled quickly. The cast and crew of the theater acted as ushers. We had good seats. The seating area is small. There aren’t any bad seats.
Leavenworth Summer Theater has been performing The Sound of Music for many years and the practice shows. Every year actors are hired via auditions from both the community and outside of Leavenworth. It’s great to see actors of every age and background working together in this community theater. If you’re lucky enough to see more than one show, you’ll see familiar faces, as the shows are performed in rep (all three shows shown in rotation.)
From the moment Maria sings The Hills Are Alive… in the light of the setting sun on the hillside above the stage I had chills. I remember thinking, “This is how this play should be seen.”
We enjoyed the play from start to finish. One unplanned moment that the whole audience was delighted by was when, during a set change, a chipmunk ran out from a piece of scenery and scampered across the stage. It was fun. That’s what live theater is about! We loved our evening at The Sound of Music so much that we handed our 2nd Leavenworthy award to Leavenworth Summer Theater.
This summer make sure you see The Sound of Music or one of the other shows the Leavenworth Summer Theater is performing this year. Box office ticket sales begin today. Call them (509) 548-2000) or stop by the box office. They don’t do mail orders for tickets.
For more information about theater in Leavenworth see our Theater page.
