“Today” and “tonight” signify Friday, April 24.
PORT TOWNSEND — The wealthy woman, with her velvet gloves and imperious gaze, is about to transform this Pacific Northwest town.
It’s a made-up community, but then again it’s not: a former boomtown on the Puget Sound, gone belly up before the rich one arrives.
This is “TANSTAAFL” — “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch” — a Key City Public Theatre original opening tonight for a three-week run.
Our woman, Crystal d’Gatezehnallen, offers the community salvation of the economic kind. But when she lays out her plan for it, the townspeople recoil, saying they would never go along with such a thing.
The costs, they say at first, are too high.
Denise Winter, Key City Public Theatre’s artistic director, conceived “TANSTAAFL” out of necessity. Key City was to stage Friedrich Durrenmatt’s “The Visit” as the 2015 season opener. Months ago when Winter and crew were planning the season, the rights were open.
“But soon after we started rehearsals, we got word that Broadway was starting a revival of ‘The Visit,’” said Sam Robinson, Key City’s publicist.
“Being Broadway, they also secured the rights to the play, forbidding any other theater in America from producing it,” he added.
So Winter took the opportunity to develop a new work. She’s collaborating with an ensemble cast of 20 to blend the themes of “The Visit” — economic ruin, greed, the costs of “rescue” — with the voices and ideas of the Pacific Northwest.
All along, the production has been morphing, Winter said. Designing the set, developing the choreography, working out the interactions — it’s a ride cast and crew have been on together since March.
A fan of Glenn Miller, Winter is using his big-band music as the score, and choreographing ensemble numbers to reflect what happens among the townspeople. The set is all salvaged materials: pallets from Port Townsend businesses form the backdrop.
Meanwhile, Miller’s tunes provide Crystal’s underscore: When she first appears in the town, “String of Pearls” plays. As she moves through the community, other numbers — “Anvil Chorus,” “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree” — seep in.
“But the choreography is very stylized. It’s not like they’re up there doing the jitterbug,” Winter said.
In the beginning, the contrast is stark between Crystal, who’s dripping with wealth, and the townspeople who have little.
But then they become mesmerized by her. As they move, her music becomes their underscore.
“TANSTAAFL” is “a great play to talk about,” said Mark Valentine, the Port Angeles actor who portrays the town’s policeman.
It’s a highly theatrical work, with elements found only in live theater, he added.
“You never really know,” said Valentine, “who the villain is.”
The large cast includes Lawrason Driscoll, D.D. Wigley and Rosa Linda Davies as a local family; Steve Treacy as the Councilman and Michelle Hensel as Crystal.
Also appearing are Don White, Hewitt Brooks, Kristin Wolfram, Trillium Burbank, Sam Cavallaro, Michelle Cesmat, Laura Eggerichs, Jeffery Groves, David Hillman, Deena Lein-Richards, Blaine Lewis, Dan Stengel, Doug Taylor and Zula Mosher.
“‘TANSTAAFL’ is tragicomedy, inspired by all those German playwrights who did it so well,” Winter said, adding that the play is filled with music, dancing and levity.
These open the heart. Comedy, she said, prepares the theater-goer to fully experience the message at the end.
“People will be thoroughly entertained,” Winter promised.
