SEQUIM — Olympic Theatre Arts will kick off its 2017-18 main stage season tonight with a fast-paced Victorian spoof, followed by a champagne reception.
“The Explorer’s Club,” set in London in 1879 and written by Nell Benjamin, features a cast of seasoned actors and introduces new talent to Olympic Theatre Arts’ main stage.
The show is set to run Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and at 2 p.m. Sundays from tonight through Nov. 5 at Olympic Theatre Arts, 414 N. Sequim Ave.
A reception will follow the play tonight.
Tickets are $16 for adults and $12 for students with a school ID. They are available between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at the theater’s box office, 414 N. Sequim Ave., or online at olympictheatrearts.org.
A preview night was Thursday, and a pay-what-you-will night is set for 7:30 p.m. this coming Thursday, Oct. 26.
“It’s silly stuff,” director Olivia Shea said.
“Hopefully the audience will think ‘this gets us out of our normal life,’ ” even if it’s for a couple of hours, she said.
Shea said the play is a farce aimed to entertain the audience through a lot of physical humor and tongue-in-cheek dialogue.
The plot revolves around the all-male Explorer’s Club when the club’s pompous president, Harry Percy, played by newcomer Greg Scherer, proposes female anthropologist Phyllida Spotte-Hume, played by Liz Duvall, for membership.
“A major disruption in the Explorer’s Club — which is a gentlemen’s club — is when one of the members proposes a woman explorer for membership,” said Richard Hendricksen, cast as Sir Bernard Humphries.
“Times are changing, and we are trying to move with the times,” Scherer said. “Most importantly, we have a terrible bartender.”
Hendricksen said more threats come to the Explorer’s Club when Phyllida brings back a savage named Luigi, played by Dave McInnes, who causes an incident at the queen’s palace.
“I read the script and I couldn’t stop laughing,” Duvall said.
She also plays Phyllida’s twin, Countess Glamorgan, and said the humor in this play is reminiscent of Mel Brooks and Monty Python.
“If somebody says, ‘That could never happen,’ it’s about to happen,” Duvall said.
The rest of the production’s cast features Colby Thomas as Lucius Fretway, Josh Sutcliffe as Professor Walling, Pat Owens as Professor Cope, Carl Honore as Professor Sloane and Joe Shultz as explorer Beebe.
For more information, call 360-683-7326.
Carl Honore playing Professor Sloane, Colby Thomas cast as Lucius Fretway and Josh Sutcliffe as Professor Walling rehearse a comical scene from “The Explorer’s Club,” set to play from today through Nov. 5 at Olympic Theatre Arts. (Erin Hawkins/Olympic Peninsula News Group)
