Once again, “Shoalwater Shenanigans” is all costumed and rehearsed and ready for presentation.  It’s a new production of last year’s very well-received show about long dead people of the peninsula.  I say “new,” not only because with live theater every show is new, but also because this year’s “Shenanigans” features some interesting cast changes plus one additional venue.

As those who saw it last year remember, the show involves ten actors who present thirty-some historic characters.  While the names of a few are familiar to the history buffs in the audience, most people are meeting them for the first time.  However, the actor presents each old-timer is probably the impression that will be left.

I think that I am one of the few people who really knew any of these stalwart personages.  One is my aunt, Mona Espy, who died in 1972.  As it happens, I am the one who portrays her and, after our productions last year, several people asked me if that’s the way Mona “really was.”  My answer was straight from the words she speaks on stage, “I don’t think so, but I don’t know.”

Acting (at least in my mind) isn’t about replicating – it’s about interpreting.  And in the case of “Shoalwater Shenanigans” we are interpreting the words of Willard Espy who wrote about all of these marvelous folks in his book Skulduggery on Shoalwater Bay: Whispered up from the Graves of the Pioneers.

  This year, we have two actors new to the production and between them they play four parts.  Each of them brings their own interpretation, their own energy, and their own physical presence to bear on the characters they ‘become.’  It changes things for all of us in subtle ways I don’t begin to understand.  I believe it comes under that general heading “The Magic of Live Theater.”

The biggest change, of course, and the one which will potentially make the show feel different, is the addition of the Fort Columbia Theater as a second venue.  The first presentation, next Saturday, November 17^th at 2:00 will be at the Oysterville Church which was the scene of both productions last year.  On Sunday, November 18^th, another matinee will be held at the newly refurbished theater at Fort Columbia.

My fondest desire is to hear next week from someone who has seen it in both places.  I am, of course, totally biased in favor of the Oysterville venue but, just as the characters, themselves, resonate differently for each of us, so the venue is viewed through the eyes of each beholder.  We all hope for Standing Room Only in both places!