NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, March 13.
PORT TOWNSEND — The Fantabulous Follies are all about frolic. And this time around, their big show has a special guest: Tomoki Sage of the juggling-martial arts troupe Nanda.
He’s joining the 18-member cast of “Puttin’ on the Glitz,” the Follies extravaganza to take the stage three times this weekend: at 7 p.m. today and 7 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Saturday.
The venue is the Port Townsend High School auditorium, 1500 Van Ness St., and tickets are $10 for adults, $15 for couples and $5 for seniors and children.
Proceeds will benefit the high school’s drama program.
First Follies show
Sage was in the very first Follies show 10 years ago, noted Jan Boutilier, another original cast member.
Since then, the performer has traveled the continent with Nanda, spreading its particular brand of comedy circus.
Sage is a spontaneous entertainer, Boutilier said, so in this weekend’s revue, “he’s going to do something; we don’t know what it is.”
This 10th anniversary Follies production, meantime, is dedicated to Joan O’Meara of Port Townsend’s O’Meara Dance Studio and to the late Mary Okert, one of the studio’s first tap-dancing women.
O’Meara has been teaching for 50 years now, Boutilier noted, so it’s high time to salute her.
O’Meara came up with the Fantabulous Follies idea, and her adult musical theater students embraced it.
The rest is Port Townsend cultural history.
Since adopting Port Townsend High’s drama department, the Follies have raised well over $1,000 a year for it, Boutilier said.
These performers, mind you, make things new each year. “Puttin’ on the Glitz” is studded with vignettes titled “Best of Broadway,” “Vaudeville Days,” “Songs of the Silver Screen” and “The Big Band Radio Hour,” with Sage joining in as well as offering his own solo piece.
And if the rehearsals with him are any indication, Boutilier said, “it’s going to be lots of laughs.”
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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.
