PORT TOWNSEND — In creating a brand-new holiday show, playwright and performer David Natale wanted a story about love, food and laughter — with Port Townsend flavor instead of Hallmark sugar.
With the cast and crew at Key City Public Theatre, Natale is about to present his concoction: “Bake to Alaska,” a farcical voyage to set sail Thursday and run through Dec. 29.
The renovated Key City Playhouse, 419 Washington St., will be the venue for matinee and evening performances. Tickets are available at keycitypublictheatre.org or by calling 360-385-5278.
Key City also will present an additional holiday production, Allen Fitzpatrick’s one-man “A Christmas Carol,” on Dec. 24. The website has details about the two performances at 1:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., in which the veteran actor portrays all of the characters in the Dickens story.
Meanwhile, “Bake to Alaska” is a world premiere. Its seed grew from an idea KCPT artistic director Denise Winter pitched to Natale in the spring of last year: Let’s spoof the gingerbread-house contest held here every December, and mix that in with the Race to Alaska adventure that sets out from Port Townsend in June.
Natale, who wrote KCPT’s 2022 comedy, “Around the World in Less than 80 Days,” said this time, he’s “determined to present an alternative perspective on the season.”
So he ran with the gingerbread-and-sailing idea, all the while sprinkling in screwball comedy, video segments, cultural references from Port Townsend and beyond, and his own memories.
“I reached back to stories and shows from my childhood that still make me smile,” Natale said.
Those include “H.R. Pufnstuf,” “Sesame Street,” “The Electric Company,” jokes he heard from his gramps, and his aunt’s Cheech & Chong records.
Our story begins with a brother and sister, Hanz and Gretta (Tomoki Sage and Gabs Nathanson). They’re food vloggers, and they’re covering a contest in which the participants must bake a gingerbread house while sailing toward the Last Frontier.
The competitors include Wolf, a celebrity chef (Paul Kiernan) and Sam, his child, a pair who don’t necessarily see eye to eye. Three young actors share the role of Sam: Eleanor Curtis, Argus McEnerney and Caleb Sigmund each do about a half-dozen performances. A pirate named Patty (Kirsten Louise Webb) also comes into the picture; she’s “a wooden boat sort of person,” Natale quipped, and she has a scarlet parrot for a companion.
“The waters being troubled this time of year, things go awry,” Natale said, “and they’re shipwrecked,” and thrown together, they have to deal with their past.
The artist who created the world around these sailors is Port Townsend’s Margie McDonald, who also made the set for Natale’s “Around the World in Less than 80 Days.”
“I knew to expect lots of action,” McDonald said of “Bake.” This is “a crazy fun play. It has an aspect of outrageous storybook, set in Port Townsend. I went with a storybook look of painted backdrops and painted boats that are like a flat page that is turned, and on the other side is a galley,” she said. McDonald also painted carpet to look like ocean waves, which she called a laborious task with a satisfying result.
Sailing upon the waters are boats made of wood panels and 2-by-4s; behind those is a backdrop painted and repurposed from previous shows.
“Bake to Alaska’s” props provided abundant fun, McDonald said. She used foam and fake fur to make Muppet-style puppets; their eyeballs are from a string of Halloween lights.
“The Muppet boat is lapstrake planked foam core, and of course they have an Easy Bake oven on board,” she said.
“We have gingerbread houses that are made of rigid foam insulation and one made of real gingerbread.”
Yet the key ingredient that makes it work, McDonald and Natale agree, is the cadre of people both on stage and behind the scenes, including director Brendan Chambers, costume designer Corinne Adams, scenic artist Michelle Cesmat, lighting designer Albert Mendez and sound designer-stage manager Bry Kifolo. They’re talented, hardworking and game, Natale said, while McDonald calls the thespians plain “wonderful.”
As a playwright, Natale seeks to offer his audience the messages of the season, through his characters and their relationships.
Though we may appear to be very different from one another, “we have the same problems, cares and dreams,” he said.
And when we are at sea, love is the magic that lifts and carries us.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
Patty (Kirsten Louise Webb) and her companion set out for the Last Frontier in the world premiere of “Bake to Alaska” at Key City Public Theatre in Port Townsend. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/For Peninsula Daily News)
