COURTESY HONOLULU THEATRE FOR YOUTH
Honolulu Theatre for Youth asks the eternal question, "Do you like green eggs and ham?" in its season opener, a tribute to Dr. Seuss's early reading classic.
Honolulu Theatre for Youth
celebrates its golden anniversary» Stage troupes promise good season » List of productions
Honolulu Theatre for Youth is gearing up for its 50th birthday in a big way come 2004.
But first, there's the matter of the 49th season. It promises to be a preview of the future for this long-standing company that has introduced the magic of theater to hundreds of thousands of kids.
Starting with two minioperas based on Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham & Gertrude McFuzz," opening Saturday in collaboration with Hawaii Opera Theatre and the Honolulu Symphony, expect HTY to continue to reach out to other performing organizations to help stage its plays.
"It's amazing once you think about it," said artistic director Mark Lutwak. "We're going into our 49th year of being the only professional company in Hawaii and being one of the most nationally recognized children's theater groups in the U.S. We have a phenomenal national reputation.
"It's important to continue to do what we do best, but striving to become bigger and better. And I think collaboration with other groups around the city can help with that."
While Lutwak and managing director Louise King Lanzilotti (who took over from respected veteran Jane Campbell) are two of the figureheads of HTY, they both realize that perceptions of the group could use a boost.
"We have to bring our local reputation up, to try to be of the same level that we have nationally," said Lanzilotti, who has a year under her belt after working for an extended time with the Contemporary Museum.
"I've come to admire the work that Mark and Dan (Kelin, director of drama education) have done, a lot of it innovative. It's all part of HTY's history of presenting new scripts and innovative work. That is one of the reasons HTY is respected around the country -- another one is that Jane Campbell had a big reputation herself in keeping the company going by being a responsible fiscal manager during good economic times and bad.
"When I applied for and got the job at Jane's suggestion, she and I agreed that one change that had to be made was to delegate responsibilities to a larger staff -- after all, before me, she was the only person who kept the books for 40 years!"
So the support staff has grown, and Lanzilotti is working more on funding and developing potential corporate donors. "But a bulk of our money still comes from individual donors who send us $5 and more."
The opening production, "Green Eggs and Ham," is the same one that drew Lutwak from his Seattle home six years ago. But this time around, two members of HTY's company actors, BullDog and Jonathan Sypert, are being joined by three of Hawaii Opera Theatre's actor-singers (Julius Ahn, Louise South and Georgine Stark), nine symphony players and the symphony's new assistant conductor, Joan Landry.
"It's an amazing luxury to get all of these people in these organizations to work on a common project," he said.
Lutwak is also enthusiastic about some of the other collaborative productions in HTY's upcoming season: The world premiere of "When Tiger Smoked His Pipe," a collection of Korean folk tales written by novelist Nora Okja Keller ("in collaboration with her daughter Tai") and featuring the top p'ansori singer in the country, Chan Park.
"And we just got co-production help from the Honolulu Academy of Arts," he said. "We'll do group school performances in their theater for two weeks in conjunction with their interactive Korean exhibits. We'll be part of a Korea Family Day festival there on Oct. 5 as well."
He goes on to mention the annual co-production with Kumu Kahua of the popular "Christmas Talk Story" series, this year with Bess Press publishing an anthology of the best stories of the past five years, including a CD of versions by the company's actors.
"And we plan to take our preschool play, 'Pacific Tales for Young People,' to all 51 libraries on all six islands throughout the Hawaii Library System, a first for us."
"THE WORLD for nonprofits like ours is changing fast, if not faster," Lutwak said. "It's a whole new ballgame."
"Ten years ago, HTY only had to work with four school district coordinators on Oahu to plan the school group performances," Lanzilotti added. "Now every single public and private school seems to run on their own staggered schedules, and kids having to pay for their own tickets, bus fare and activity insurance. It's getting harder."
Both agreed that HTY's future lies in building more of a family audience.
"I think kids appreciate theater better when with their families," Lanzilotti said. "They get a lot more out of the shared experience. Kids and their parents need to talk about the social, cultural and moral issues that our plays bring up."
"Theater, as an empathetic experience, is great for that," said Lutwak.
That's why the two of them feel it's central that a search begin now for a permanent home for HTY -- not just as a recognized location for its theater, but for its offices, rehearsal space and prop and costume shops.
The latter is located on Ualena Street in the airport area, while this season's performance sites include the Hawaii Theatre, Fort Shafter's Richardson Theatre, the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Tenney Theatre at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Leeward Community College Theatre and McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Beach Park.
"Our surviving is dependent on finding one single place for HTY," Lanzilotti said. "It seems like we spend a third of our energy moving from theater to theater."
"This is something we'd like to be resolved in the next two years," Lutwak said. "We're in the process of writing a feasibility study for our board of trustees to look at."
"Children's theater speaks to the heart -- it's the shared experience of emotions and stories," Lanzilotti said. "We're part of an important educational process that shows how theater is important to the lives of both children and adults."
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Stage troupes promise
a season of originality,
color and good music
If Hollywood offerings are looking like repeat after repeat, now's the time to seek out a little live action.
The 2003-04 theater season opens with productions that haven't been seen in Hawaii, including Diamond Head Theatre's "Ragtime" and six world premieres by Hawaii writers from Kumu Kahua.
There'll be a whole lot of singing going on, too, as Manoa Valley Theatre opens its season with "Bat Boy: The Musical," based on a Weekly World News tabloid story about a half boy/half bat discovered in a West Virginia cave. How wild is that? As for other unusual origins, MVT will also stage "Copacabana," based on Barry Manilow's hit song.
Diamond Head Theatre returns the volley with matchmaker Dolly Levi in "Hello Dolly!" and the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar."
In addition to "Green Eggs and Ham," the younger set will be treated to HTY's retelling of the Red Riding Hood story via "The Little, Little Red Riding Hood Show," and DHT will make "Peter Pan" soar.
Among the new works by local playwrights to be debuted at Kumu Kahua are Lee Cataluna's "Folks You Meet in Longs," with its bizarre cross section of characters that look strangely like the people who roam the aisles of Hawaii's favorite drug store; an' les not forget dat odda Lee, Lee Tonouchi, who'll stage the comedy "Gone Feeshing," about brothers bonding, or not, over a favorite pastime.
More serious subject matter is explored in Kumu Kahua's presentation of Edward Sakamoto's new play, "Obake," a ghost story based on a 1920s Big Island plantation; and Rick Carroll's docudrama "Massie/ Kahahawai," based on documents surrounding the rape case and trial that brought racial tensions to a boil in 1930s Hawaii.
And come 2004, Hawaii Opera Theatre will introduce its triple header of "Otello," "Così Fan Tutte" and "The Merry Widow," exploring songs of love and war.
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