Kitsap Sun Preview, May 24, 2016; By Michael C. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Craig Schieber's last experience with "The Music Man" at the Kitsap Forest Theater was 15 years ago. He said the version he's directing there now won't bear much of a resemblance.

"Sixteen years ago, I don't think I had an appreciation for this show," said Schieber, who's directed at least one of the Mountaineers Players' two annual productions at the Forest Theatre since 2000. "When we did it then, we had most of the stage covered in boardwalk, big buildings, and the big house up on the mound."

But Schieber has learned a lot in his years putting on shows in the idyllic amphitheater, carved out of old-growth forest in the early 1920s and active as a performance venue ever since. For this year's "Music Man," he's gone two-dimensional.

"We really had fun with this one," he said. "We've got some furniture, some chairs, and we've got a piano. Pretty much everything else is two-dimensional flats.

"This is a real change" from the 2001 production, he said.

"The Music Man," Meredith Willson's classic tale (and his only significant hit) about a flimflam man who transforms and is transformed by a backwater Iowa town and its naive inhabitants, actually lends itself pretty well to the Forest Theater's al fresco aesthetic. Most of the production numbers already take place in the out-of-doors, and those that don't are easily representable with Schieber's portable-set strategy.

"We're using some two-sided flats that'll take you right inside a building," Schieber said. "For the library, we have one side that's the outside, and then we just flip them around and it's the inside."

The library, for those not already in the know about what transpires in "The Music Man," is ground zero, where the mysterious Harold Hill, in town to sell the idea of a boys' band, and the staid librarian Marian Paroo each meet their match.

Beaven Walters is delighted to be returning to the Kitsap Forest Theater stage after a brief break after the birth of her fourth child. She got her start at KFT six years ago when she played the role of Maria in The Sound of Music and was joined by her oldest daughter, Sophie, who played the youngest Von Trapp, Gretl. Since then, Beaven (4 shows), Sophie (6 shows), her son Scooter (4 shows), and even her husband, Mark (1 show), have appeared in six shows at KFT. Beaven also appeared as Cinderella in Into the Woods and Ida in Honk!  (which she performed well into her third trimester of pregnancy.) 

From Beaven: "Marian provides an opportunity to portray a more complex character than the typical ingénue. While she may be inexperienced at love, she is not a wide-eyed innocent. Marian is smart, savvy, wise, and strong. She has core values and standards she is not willing to compromise, even though she is teetering on the edge of entering the age when most women in her day would have been considered an “old-maid.” She is judged by the folks in the town for being different, and this sparks rumors. While on the surface Marian appears to be a tightly wound and cold librarian/music teacher, she is a romantic at heart and longs to find a “someone” with whom to share life’s simple pleasures. She also longs to be accepted by the townspeople. Additionally, Marian has a little brother, Winthrop, who has suffered since the loss of their father. This weighs heavily on Marian’s heart." 

"Enter Harold Hill, the least obvious choice for a romantic interest for Marian, but that is also what makes the pairing so interesting. Almost from the start, there is an undeniable chemistry between the two characters that opens up a range of feelings for Marian and forces a struggle between her intellect and her heart. At first, Marian sees Harold for what he is - a charismatic and smooth talking con artist. Then, at the end of  Act 1 when Harold produces the promised instruments, including Winthrop’s cornet, Marian sees how Harold’s impact on the town, especially on her little brother, has done nothing but improve the lives of everyone Harold has come into contact with. This is a pivotal turning point for Marian as she starts to look at Harold in a new light." 

"In Act 2, Marian continues to see the goodness and kindness below Harold’s facade, which brings down her walls and ultimately leads to her transformation. Her love for Harold, despite knowing the truth about him, brings about his own metamorphosis and he is willing to lose everything for this new found love. Love triumphs in this feel good musical where the townspeople and even the audience are all left a little transformed and perhaps even a bit less cynical as a result."   

"It has been my pleasure to discover the deeper meaning and hidden gems in this marvelous work of Meredith Wilson’s and I can’t imagine a better theater in which to perform this particular musical. KFT, with its range of ages of the participants, operates much like a mini River City, Iowa. We are a company full of quirky individuals-mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, husbands and wives all participating in something that is greater than ourselves. There have been generations of Mountaineers Players coming together every spring to produce plays dating back to 1923, just eleven years after The Music Man takes place. I am so grateful to be part of such a tradition."

The Music Man opens Sunday, May 29th. Get your tickets now and plan a day in the forest being transported to another time and place. 

Michael C. Moore's review in the Kitsap Sun. (Photos by Alfonso Barrera)

On opening weekend, the cast of the Mountaineers Players' production of "Shrek, the Musical" at the Kitsap Forest Theater were having their makeup washed off by prodigious rainfall.

For the performance I saw, though — Aug. 2 — they had to hose down the floor/stage at intermission to beat down the dust.

Having weathered the inclement stuff at KFT in previous years, I appreciated the extremely clement conditions — and I'm sure director Nikki Fey-Burgett's cast and crew did, too.

The performance had a lot more than good weather to recommend it, though. Fey-Burgett has assembled a large and talented cast of actors and — especially — singers to bring the David Lindsay-Abaire—Jeanine Tesori song-and-dance (based on a trilogy of DreamWorks Animation film features) to the forest. From its dozens of bright costumes and imaginative (and minimal, by necessity) sets to its depth of vocal and instrumental talent, it's generally really well wrought.

And the setting. Well. It's all the same trees that were there last time you went, but you never get tired of them — especially when they're providing shade, as they were on Aug. 2, and not shelter from the harsher elements.

I have to issue a strong warning, though, to anyone considering a hike down to the remaining performances, Saturday and Sunday matinees through Aug. 16: Be prepared for distractions.

"Shrek's" best features, for adults, are its clever lyrics and snarky, funny script. For the younger set, it's the presentation of the characters — not just the Big Green Ogre himself, but the pint-sized Lord Farquaad, the comical Donkey and the platoon of fairy-tale characters that Shrek takes it upon himself to re-relocate from his bog and back to their homes in Duloc.

For many of the youngsters — including a big bunch of toddlers who haven't grown up knowing the film series because they've just barely started growing up at all — the jokes are over their wee heads, and the characters can only hold their attention for so long, especially during several extended sequences of dialogue or vocal solos or duets.

The little ones were gone by intermission — not physically, but intellectually. There's more movement in the galleries than there is on the stage.

If you're there for the "experience," that's all part of it. But if you're there just to see the show, it's liable to make you grumpier'n a ... well ... an ogre who just wants peace and quiet.

It's too bad, because — as previously stated — the show is quite good. Despite what I felt was a somewhat deliberate pace, the story of Shrek's quest to earn the deed to the bog by rescuing Farquaad's intended (the princess Fiona, the Girl with a Secret) is told efficiently, the costumes are fetching and the music is consistently at a high level (musical director Dawn Brazel has bass and drums to augment the Mountaineers' usual keyboard accompaniment, with Josh Zimmerman doubling on electric guitar to bring a convincing rock ‘n' roll feel to several of the numbers.

The leads — Jason Gingold as Shrek, Meagan Castillo (who played Mary Poppins at KFT only a few weeks ago) as Fiona, Matthew Sythandone as Donkey and Adam Othman as the vertically challenged Farquaad — all are wonderful. A personal highlight is the early-Act 2 gross-out battle between Shrek and Fiona, "I Thinks I Got You Beat," a totally charming sequence where the two gradually warm to each other, with the bonus (at least for the sophomoric, like myself) of perhaps the best fart-and-burp sound effects ever to grace the old amphitheater.

At least, I hope they were sound effects.

A few supporting players get their chance to shine, as well, and none does as much with the opportunity as Taylor Davis as Pinocchio, bringing great comedy and a ripping good voice to the fairy-tale rabble-rouser. Both of Fiona's younger incarnations — Maria Pledger and Anna Vizzare — also do strong vocal work in brief appearances during "I Know It's Today."

Mike Myers voiced the Shrek character in the movies, and the rude, referential humor that drips over into the musical owes a lot to him. Shrek and Donkey aren't a million miles from Wayne and Garth, and the off-color gags are toned down from the "Austin Powers" franchise.

That'll all well and good ... unless you're a 3-year-old, who doesn't get much of any of it. At some point, you become more concerned with whether there's any popcorn left.

If you can follow it through, though — including the distractions — you'll like and appreciate the Mountaineers' "Shrek." Owing to all that musical talent, it might be even more fun to listen to than it is to watch.