Letter to Readers: On stage before you, a live theater hat trick
“The Embarrassment of Riches” was a 1906 play by Louis K. Anspacher: a comedy set in a Lower East side tenement.
That play won’t go under the footlights anytime soon, but this month on the local stage is be an embarrassment of riches, sometimes defined as “more options than one knows what to do with.”
This refers to plays at Gallery Theater, McMinnville High School and Linfield University, all either starting or ending on the weekend of Nov. 22-23.
If you are already a theater lover, it’s a feast.
If you take in shows from time to time, it’s a golden opportunity.
If you’ve never been or rarely go, it’s a time to take the plunge.
With three shows overlapping, it is hard to say “couldn’t work one into the schedule.”
For the next month, the play will truly be the thing.
The theater choices present a little something for everyone: two musicals of very different stripes, including the Mac High show, “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened last weekend with a crew and cast of 70 people.
That is one big group, folks.
Gallery presents an ambitious “steampunk”-styled “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” featuring inventor Caractacus Potts, Truly Scrumptious and the kids going up against the mad Baron and his bevy of baddies, starting Nov. 22.
The third production is a Noel Coward-meets-Agatha Christie mystery, “Death by Design,” at Linfield, continuing this weekend. Marshall Theatre is the smallest venue of all, and reservations are required.
(Call it a theater “hat trick” — and on that note wait until you see the headgear in “Chitty Chitty.”)
For good measure, these will be followed by a production at Amity High School in early December of “Beowulf and the Bard.”
Where I lived and worked before coming to McMinnville, as many as eight separate stage troupes developed at one time, before Covid knocked out all but two of them permanently. Covering all these shows was a challenge. (Also, I acted in a number of productions – we brought the one-act “Judgment Call” to a theater showcase at Gallery in 2010.)
So I come from the perspective of having been in a dozen shows as well as writing previews and features for well over 100 or so productions during my four decades in journalism.
I happily volunteered this week to take photos of the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” rehearsal, and enjoyed an evening backstage at Gallery in April talking with cast and crew of “Romeo and Juliet.” (I played Lord Montague in a production 10 or so years ago). That was the 6 p.m. article in our ’24 Hours series, which is down to its final three hours.
Having witnessed theater from on stage and from backstage, I can tell you that live theater is one of the simplest pleasures one can experience in a community such as this. The degree of talent in student productions is assuredly high, and Gallery consistently delivers powerful, well-produced theater.
Having an audience is a gift to the people on stage and folks behind the curtains who make these things happen. Consult our Events Calendars this month for details, and make a point of attending live theater.
Kirby Neumann-Rea
Managing Editor
kirby@newsregister.com
503-687-1291
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