Fuddy Meers, opening at Seattle Public Theater (SPT) at the Green Lake Bathhouse (7312 West Green Lake Dr N) tomorrow night (Friday, July 2, 2010) and running through July 10, signals the end of the SPT youth program for high school seniors.
SPT sent us the following piece written by Katie Dolan, one of the SPT seniors:
Seniors leave lasting memories on Green Lake
by Katie DolanLast Saturday afternoon I conducted an experiment. While I strolled along the Green Lake walking path I asked several people if they knew what that brick building across the way was. Some people told me they thought it was owned by the city—others said they didn’t know. Most people though said, “I think it’s a theatre.” One elderly man with a pink sweatband declared that he had been there several times and that it was the Bathhouse Theatre. He was exactly right. Many high school students in the area know the cozy brick theatre on the shores of Green Lake very well.
Xandi Barber (Nova) has been at the Seattle Public Theatre (SPT) since last October and says she has never found a place with people so nice and accepting. She estimated that at one point she spent about 25 hours a week at SPT during the school year. Xandi’s experience at SPT has included sound, stage-managing, props, and assistant stage-managing. She summed up her feelings towards SPT saying, “I get here and everything is okay.”
Xandi says her time at SPT has prepared her well for college. She will attend Stephens College in Missouri to complete a 3-year stage management program.
Sasha Kool (University Prep) is another high school student who will leave many memories and friends at SPT. “It’s like a family,” she says. I asked Sasha to recall any standout moments in a performance or rehearsal that she will take with her. She started to laugh and explained how she was once playing an elderly woman in the play Enchanted April. Backstage she was hurrying to put more baby powder in her hair to make it gray. Mid-sprinkle she noticed an awful silence onstage—she had missed her entrance. The group she was supposed to enter with was already on stage. She heard them covering for her, querying about where she could have gone. Out of breath she entered from the wrong side justifying her tardiness by complaining about the hill she had to climb and reminding everyone of her advanced age. The audience was laughing and the improvised revision was a success.
Another regular at SPT is Miranda Sieg who has been involved in 13 shows over the past five years. She says she has learned how to work with people and that, “The play is the most important thing.” She too has many memories she will take with her. She recalls one production set in a time period calling for particularly heavy costumes. Unfortunately it was also the hottest summer Seattle had seen in years, making the actors miserably overheated under the hot stage lights. To fight the heat the actors strategically placed ice backstage so they could shove it into their costumes before reentering onstage. The seniors will take with them many memories like these as they go off to pursue theatre across the country. I asked Miranda what summers are like at SPT. She said, “Summer is like a magical island where everything goes half a second too fast—it’s special.”
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Ed. note: Seattle Public Theater is a My Green Lake advertiser. Thank you for your support, SPT!
