The cast of Man of La Mancha rehearsing at Seattle Musical Theatre (Photo: Roy Arauz) |
(As printed in Seattle Gay News)
Seattle Musical Theatre is launching their 37th season in a few weeks. They’re starting with Man of La Mancha and the lead role of Cervantes/Don Quixote is being played by Jeff Church. In many ways, that signifies enormous change for the somewhere-between-high-school-and-community-and-professional theater company.
Seattle Musical Theatre is launching their 37th season in a few weeks. They’re starting with Man of La Mancha and the lead role of Cervantes/Don Quixote is being played by Jeff Church. In many ways, that signifies enormous change for the somewhere-between-high-school-and-community-and-professional theater company.
SMT, renamed from the long-known CLO (Civic Light Opera),
has been a very important presence in the Seattle musical community. Many of
our veteran musical theater performers got their first out-of-school
productions at this company. Many performers who went on to gain their Equity
cards and perform at Village Theatre and the 5th Avenue Theatre trod
the boards at SMT first.
SMT has had a lot of struggles over the years, but last
year’s credibility fiasco nearly succeeded in destroying the company
altogether. Some of you who love musical theater might know what happened, but
it is worth discussing what happened because the aftermath has produced some
very very good changes. However, they are by no means out of the woods
financially, so it’s important that you know you should definitely now start
supporting this company. That’s especially true if you felt like you should stop supporting it last year.