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Spring 2024

Theatre

Summer 2004

Short Shakespeareans

In a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Demetrius calls for a sword. His request produces instead a yellow rubber chicken tossed from off stage.

“Shakespeare should be fun,” says Sherry Chastain Schreck, founding director of the “Short Shakespeareans.” Children in the drama troupe are 4 to 15, most of them pre-teenagers. In the 25 years since making their debut, the thespians have become a community treasure in Wenatchee.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a favorite of the Short Shakes. “The children love it. It is easy for young people to follow and understand,” Schreck says.

While the cast of characters has changed over the … » More …

Spring 2005

The Show Makers: Great Directors of the American Musical Theatre

Seek out and interview 12 of the most creative and highly respected directors of the American musical theatre, and let them reveal how they went about directing some of the most important and influential musicals of the 20th century. No easy task, but that’s exactly what Lawrence Thelen (’93 M.A.) successfully accomplished in his new book, The Show Makers: Great Directors of the American Musical Theatre.

The book brings together the wide-ranging and diverse approaches of its contributors, and reading it is like bringing these famous directors into your own living room for a casual, yet highly informative chat that is peppered with such phrases … » More …