There’s little doubt that all our lives would be different without Alexander Graham Bell. He is credited with being the first to patent an item that has become a key part of our lives - the telephone. Bell also gets credit for a quote that is nearly as universal as the phone, “When one door closes, another door opens.”
Now, Bell was referring to remaining optimistic and moving forward in the face of adversity. Even though his intent was to describe the attitude needed to continue scientific work, he could have been talking about the literal workings of a community theater.
The constant activity this May at the Warehouse Theatre Company offers proof.
The company’s hit show “9 to 5 the Musical” will have the last of 13 performances Saturday night. It’s the final show in the WTC’s 2023/2024 season. But even before “9 to 5” closes the door on the company’s 76th season, the door to season 77 has already been opened.
“I am perfectly willing to take the risk, providing I can figure out a bet on which there is no chance of losing,” character Nathan Detroit said in “Guys and Dolls.”
Auditions for the company’s summer musical, “Guys and Dolls,” took place earlier this week. This American musical classic is an oddball romantic comedy set in a mythical New York underworld of the 1930s. It’s a show about gambling – in life and in love – and on Monday and Tuesday community members showed up and rolled the dice to win a part. To showcase their talents, hopeful creatives were taught a song and a dance to perform, and they read selected scenes from the show. Warehouse veterans Ryan Clinkenbeard and Kaya Luppino make their directing debut with this production, balancing the directorial duties equally.
“We have been meeting bi-weekly for nearly six months, so we have an aligned vision,"Clinkenbeard said. "I believe the cast will see a great benefit to having two directors with different strengths working together for a common goal.”
Luppino agrees.
“Ryan and I are pooling our strengths to function as a cohesive directing team,” Luppino said. “And our production team overflows with talent. We have two choreographers working with us – Carol Garza and Gina Prescott – and music direction is being done by my mom, Betsy.”
Each of the directors has a previous connection to “Guys and Dolls.”
“I was fortunate enough to play Miss Adelaide my senior year of high school in Titusville, FL,"Clinkenbeard said. "When Kaya and I first started looking for shows to collaborate on, we felt our personal histories with this show made it kismet!”
“My adoration for “Guys and Dolls" sparked when our Ike theatre troupe saw it performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015," Luppino said.
Two years later, her senior year, Luppino and the troupe talked directors Janey Peterson, Stephen Clark and Laurel Kaschmitter to bring “Guys and Dolls” to the Eisenhower stage. “Portraying Sarah Brown, a role I cherished, was my debut as a lead in a musical. So, the show means the world to me," Luppino said.
Now that the door on the much-anticipated “Guys and Dolls” auditions has closed, the theatrical duo is excited to take the next step with their cast. They’ll have a read through of the script and get choreography and music rehearsals started next week.
“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” – J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit.”
The musical rehearsals for the summer show won’t start until Wednesday, though. That’s because yet another door opens on another show next Monday and Tuesday as auditions for the Warehouse fall offering, “The Hobbit” are scheduled for 6 p.m. each of those nights.
It’s unusual to have auditions for WTC shows so close together. The style and scope of this highly theatrical version of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy classic suggests a need for a longer, more varied rehearsal schedule, though.
Producing an epic tale with fantastical characters and creatures presents obvious challenges. After all, computer generated images used in the movies don’t work in live theater. So, how does one bring the story to life on a stage measuring 20’ X 20’? Canadian playwright Kim Selody’s adaptation of “The Hobbit” relies on age-old storytelling skills: masks and puppets.
And that suits director Ruth Veselka just fine. She has taught puppetry and mask work to Pre-K through 12th grade students in her West Valley School District classes for 10 years. In the summer of 2021, Veselka was the lead teacher in a WTC puppet camp for elementary students, and just last year she conducted a puppetry workshop in support of the Warehouse partnership with East Valley Schools. You might say that puppetry is her passion. And “The Hobbit” is a passion project.
“For me, ‘The Hobbit’ has always been about family,” she says. “My father first read the story to my brother and me when we were in elementary school. While the poems made me laugh, and the riddles tickled my fancy, it was the journey that drew me in. There’s magic in it.”
Anticipating auditions where she’ll find the creatives to help bring that magic to the Warehouse stage, Veselka says, “Since we’re working in a small space, no more than 20 actors/puppeteers will be needed.”
She hopes to see a mix of players from age 10 to 110 walk through the always open door for auditions, though. “I am excited to see who will become our hobbits, dwarves, elves, trolls, goblins, birds, and of course, who will become a dragon.” As far as casting restrictions, “age is just a number and ethnicity a background,” she says. “There is joy in not knowing what creative minds will come and ultimately help build this world.”
“The Hobbit” world-building will begin with workshops in June and July followed by a standard rehearsal schedule in August.
Even with shows like these two – shows featuring a large cast- there are seldom roles for everyone who auditions. It can be disappointing to not be selected as the best fit for a part. In those instances, actors would do well to study the seldom-cited second part of the Alexander Bell quote mentioned earlier: “… but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
After the audition door closes on these two plays the Warehouse Theatre Company will stage four more shows in the 2024/2025 season. That means four more chances to audition.
And that means four more open doors waiting to be walked through.
• Vance Jennings is executive director of the Warehouse Theatre Company. The company contributes a column in Explore every four weeks.
