SEQUIM — “A Century of Sequim,” a collection of stories comic and dramatic, arrives on the Dungeness Schoolhouse stage this Friday, and its folks plan to sit and stay awhile.
This past spring, Readers Theatre Plus and KSQM-FM put out the call to the people of Sequim: Tell us your stories — funny, romantic, even imagined tales — of life in Sequim since it incorporated in 1913.
So Sequim answered, with a slew of juicy remembrances. Carol Swarbrick Dries, co-founder of Readers Theatre Plus, assembled them into “A Century of Sequim,” and director Ric Munhall began preparing his cast for the staged reading.
They’re ready now to raise the curtain at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road. That’s opening night, to be followed by five more shows: this Saturday and Oct. 12 at 7:30 p.m., next Friday at 7:30, this Sunday at 2 p.m. and finally the next Sunday, Oct. 13, at 2 p.m.
Advance tickets are $12.50 per person or $20 for two at Pacific Mist Books, 121 W. Washington St., Sequim; or Odyssey Bookshop, 114 W. Front St., Port Angeles.
At the door of the schoolhouse before each performance, admission will be $12.50 per seat.
All proceeds will benefit KSQM-91.5 FM, Sequim’s nonprofit radio station. A raffle and silent auction also will be held to raise funds for the station.
“A Century” ranges from the well-known to the lesser-known events in community history, said cast member Cheri Lumley.
The stories go back to the days of Prohibition, as well as to the nights when dances were held at the Chicken Coop, a hall that now has a road named after it.
Bank robbery
There’s a bank robbery and other crimes, and there are teenagers cruising downtown Sequim — “all two blocks of it,” Munhall said.
The show feels a lot like folks gathered around a campfire to reminisce, said Karla Messerschmidt-Morgan, another cast member.
Together with Lumley, Munhall and fellow Sequim residents Al Friess, Art Moore, Valerie Lape and Bettelee Hall, the actors seek to illuminate the community’s past — and have an old-fashioned good time in the process.
For more on “A Century of Sequim” and the troupe presenting it, visit www.ReadersTheatrePlus.com or phone KSQM at 360-681-0000.
More about the radio station as well as a link to listen live are at www.KSQMfm.com.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
