Company History continued...

In season five we upset a few people with THE BALTIMORE WALTZ, sold out STARDUST FOR CHRISTMAS, made the cover of Shakespeare Bulletin and created a major hit with our futuristic CYMBELINE and delighted audiences with SHE STOOPS TO CONQUOR. It was a design spectacle, hilarious, and, like most of the other shows of the season, held over for additional performances but forced to close for lack of available dates in the theater. Harlequin also took its production of DRACULA to the Theater on Broadway in Tacoma. it was a bigger, fancier venue, but we missed the intimacy of our space.

At this time a building became available. The old State Theater, which had started its life as one of the finest movie theaters on the west coast, had fallen on hard times during the cineplexing of America and was chopped into three ill-conceived shoebox theaters. Within a few years it became a neglected dollar movie house and was finally boarded up and abandoned.

The State Theater looked so bad by this time that we had few hopes. But the price was good. The owner was willing to sell. And when we had it inspected, it turned out that it was in superb structural condition. It just needed paint and TLC. And new electrical. And concessions stand and marquee. And carpet. (The seats were great!) And a stage and dressing rooms and restrooms and lighting and sound equipment and... and... and....

In the 96-97 (sixth) season we started off with A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, then produced our third original episode in the Stardust series. OPERATION STARDUST was so popular that we moved the entire production to a local high school for two weeks to accomodate demand. (Competition for dates in the Washington Center made extending impossible. We were REALLY needing our own space!) We then took on Tom Stoppards' ARCADIA--another huge hit--then mounted our original ROCK'N'ROLL TWELFTH NIGHT (with apologies to William Shakespeare)--which sold out two weeks of extension and, again, was forced to close due to prior bookings in the space. With RR12N, we also launched our capital campaign to purchase and remodel the State Theater. We had precisely seventeen months to raise $1.3 million and remodel the theater.

Three months after the campaign began, at the beginning or our seventh season, we purchased the State Theater. We were too busy to write a fourth STARDUST episode, so we produced Seattle Rep's INSPECTING CAROL. It was a hilarious hit, but it was already clear that we had begun a holiday tradition with STARDUST, and our audience didn't want to be let down. They'd forgive us once, but...

The rest of our season was equally successful: a steamy STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, a breathless production of HENRY V with eight actors playing 38 roles on and around a "period" pageant wagon, David Hirson's irreverent LA BETE, and a rousing cabaret-style production of PUMP BOYS & DINETTES, featuring mounds of pah 'n' ahce cream at in'amission.

What happened next?!