NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, July 10.
SEQUIM — Her first year at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., complete, Christie Honore is home for the summer, playing a beautiful and scheming villain.
The 19-year-old actress, who went from Sequim High School to Vassar on a full scholarship, is delighted with this role: Mrs. Potiphar in Peninsula Family Theater’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
The classic musical is opening tonight for a three-week run at the Sequim High School Performing Arts Center, 601 N. Sequim Ave.
Curtain time is 7 tonight and Saturday night as well as next Thursday and Friday, July 17, and Thursday through Saturday, July 23-25. One 2 p.m. matinee is set for Saturday, July 18.
This is the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice production, loosely based on the Biblical story of Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, who’s sold into slavery in Egypt.
Portrayed by Sequim High senior Nicholas Fazio, Joseph contends with a lot: After his brothers send him off to be the property of Potiphar, the lady of the house tries to seduce him.
When he rebuffs her, she makes sure he goes to jail.
Fazio and Honore are part of a cast of five dozen local performers age 6 to 60-something, noted co-director Christy Rutherford.
She’s led this pageant before: “Dreamcoat” has unfolded on the Sequim High School stage three times in the past 15 years.
This one has some new cast and crew members, of course, including Port Angeles’ Richard Stephens, who is portraying Jacob and constructing many of the show’s lustrous costumes.
Rutherford and co-director Robin Hall “let me loose,” Stephens said, “and I have had a ball . . . cutting apart necklaces to make larger jeweled, embellished collars and gluing on literally hundreds of rhinestones.”
But that’s surface sizzle, he said; the performances by Fazio, narrator Amanda Bacon and the rest of the cast give the show its soul.
Tickets, food donations
In past years, there have been long lines at the auditorium door, Rutherford added, so this summer, tickets are available online at a $2 discount.
Prices range from $8 to $20 at www.penfamtheater.org.
Remaining tickets will be sold at the door before each performance.
Peninsula Family Theater is also inviting patrons to support the Sequim Food Bank by bringing nonperishable food items to the show.
For each item, donors will receive two tickets for prize drawings from local merchants; theater-goers also can buy more of these tickets for a dollar each.
While all donations are welcome, the food pantry especially needs peanut butter, canned tuna, beans and boxes of low-sugar cold cereal.
Hometown enthusiasm
Honore, meanwhile, is marveling at her hometown’s gusto when it comes to “Joseph.”
Small towns like Sequim have “a much higher level of enthusiasm. We’re this little powerhouse,” she said, adding that she’s delighted to rejoin the theater artists she grew up with.
To Honore, “Joseph” is about hope springing out of despair.
The turning point comes in the song “Close Every Door,” when our hero is imprisoned, and then again with “Go, Go, Joseph.”
Fazio, for his part, said he’s looking forward to hearing what people think of the whole production. A veteran of Sequim High musicals from “Footloose” to “Fiddler on the Roof,” Fazio calls “Joseph” one captivating show.
“I hope it brings happiness to people,” he said.
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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.
