Heather and Company
The setting was Ocean Park School – my old stomping grounds as student, teacher, and head teacher – but in its new, twenty-first century configuration. The event was a presentation of “Klondike! The Great Alaskan Gold Rush” performed by the Adventure Musical Theater Touring Company – the school outreach arm of Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater.
Our ‘party of five’ adults sat in folding chairs at the back of the gym. Two of us were from Oysterville, two from Astoria and one from Seattle. We were there specifically to see one of the actors – the only female cast member – Heather McQuarrie.
Heather, the daughter of Laura Creekman and Don McQuarrie, moved north to Linden with the rest of her family when she was about ready to enter school. Her dad, a larger-than-life sort of guy, was a teacher here and he is still remembered for his ability to make himself heard from Hilltop to Ocean Park (without amplification aids) if necessary. Laura, a biologist, worked for various oyster companies and for the State doing complicated shellfish research. Over the years, we’ve kept in touch, though sporadically.
Back in 1970s, when I moved here full-time, Don and I taught for a year at the same school. Laura lived in a trailer next door to the Oysterville Store and Don would come courting. Besides those connections, we had mutual friends in the community. Noel and Pat Thomas, then living in Seaview, became Heather’s Godparents… and so it was that they came across the bridge yesterday and were part of our old-folks’ group seated behind the students of Ocean Park School.
The fifth member of our party was our friend Linda Johnson, a teacher in the Shoreline District of Seattle, who had been spending a few days with us. As it happened, she had met Don and Laura briefly when they were here for Luke Jensen’s funeral, so Linda, too, was ‘connected’ to Heather. It’s the way of it here on the peninsula…
The production was fast-paced, and full of the energy and enthusiasm that only a cast of twenty-something-year-olds can bring to an audience. The actors were professional and their presentation flawless. Someone said they have done 70+ presentations so far this season (since January?) and are scheduled for 60+ more before school is out in June. Yesterday they were at Long Beach School in the morning, Ocean Park in the afternoon.
Our eyes, of course, were on Heather and she certainly didn’t disappoint. It was hard to put the accomplished young actress in front of us together with the little girl I had once known when she was younger than the youngest students sitting on the gym floor in rapt attention. Although… didn’t her voice have the carrying quality reminiscent of her dad? And weren’t her movements and her posture a lot like her mom’s?
Had it really been twenty years since the McQuarries moved away? Obviously, it has…
Oh my gosh, Don McQuarrie and 5th Ave. all in one evening! I remember when when Local Motion came from Seattle and toured around to all the schools teaching dance and a little music and then there was an entire district assembly at IHS. It took my breath away to see every student in a conga-line. Glad you had fun with the play coming on the heels of your house concert. You are getting your portion of the arts!