Play time was seriously funny at La Conner Schools last week.
The Bruce Performing Arts Center on campus was the venue for a two-night One Act Play Jamboree staged by the new La Conner-based Skagit Passage non-profit featuring four delightful comedies performed by student and community actors.
Gonzaga alum Taylor Pedroza served as a writer, actor, and director for the May 29 and 30 local performances. His wife, Jessica Pedroza, also a Gonzaga graduate, was the creative director and portrayed Herlemacus in a 20-minute rendition of Carrie McCrossen’s “The Hero’s Journey to Group Therapy.” Alicia Schwind, a La Conner High and Portland State University grad who also studied at the Los Angeles Theater Academy, was stage manager for the fast-paced programs.
The trio had teamed up in March to produce the La Conner High Drama Club’s presentation of “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940.”
The shorter jamboree format brought together several of the La Conner High students cast in the spring school play with community actors from the Skagit Passage troupe. It proved a welcome transition for all involved.
“We really like one act play,” Taylor Pedroza said. “Everything goes really fast. It’s a good opportunity to take a concept and boil it down into one act, not three. It holds a special place for Alicia, Jess, and me.”
“It’s a lot of fun,” he told the May 30 audience, “and we wanted to bring you that experience.”
Auditions for the jamboree were held April 7 on the Bruce Performing Arts Center stage in keeping with Skagit Passage’s twin missions of bringing theater to La Conner and ensuring its availability to high school students here.
Friday night’s presentations began with La Conner students Katie Cayou-Lockrem, Olaf Philips, and Ken Tronsdal performing Matthew Byrd’s “The Three Thieves,” a comedic yet dark fairy tale of how a riddle causes characters Jamie (Cayou-Lockrem), Cassius (Philips), and Micah (Tronsdal) to turn on each other in pursuit of a treasure within the bowels of a dungeon.
Next up was the community cast of Steven Hulbert, Alexander Pedroza, Katie Jo Conley, Jess Conley, Bailey Hodges, and Jessica Pedroza in “Laundry Day,” a modern comedy with dialogue developed by Taylor Pedroza, who also acted in the story of young people jostling for position to use a washer and dryer while perplexed by of one of their friends who won’t reveal the reason for his exceptionally good mood.
“It’s so hard to find these plays,” Taylor Pedroza said, “that I decided to go ahead and write one.”
After intermission, Hulbert, Alexander Pedroza, Katie Jo Conley, Jess Conley, Bailey Hodges, and Jessica Pedroza performed “The Hero’s Journey to Group Therapy,” highlighted by Jessica Pedroza’s Herlemacus, and which depicts a hero’s somewhat fitful path to self-discovery.
“This was a lot of fun,” Jessica Pedroza said of playing two characters in the jamboree. “It’s been a while since some of us have had the opportunity to act.”
The final play was Robert Scott’s “All by Myself,” performed by Annika Keith, Greta Oh, Airin Williams, Hayden Flanagan and Milo Vega. The plot involves five separate shipwreck survivors who discover one another on an island after years of living alone and destitute. However, one among them finds the others annoying and believes he was better off when isolated.
With its annual spring play and now an inaugural one act play jamboree, Skagit Passage is continuing its partnership with La Conner Schools in pursuit of building community through the storytelling arts.
The shows also incorporated instruction for students in production skills. Quinn Lam was enlisted to handle lighting at the jamboree, and Jonathan Gonzalez managed the sound system.
Schwind and the Pedrozas formed their non-profit after having launched the La Conner after-school drama club following the COVID-19 pandemic. Their goal was to resurrect the district’s strong theater tradition, which was in peril due to declining student enrollment and budget cuts resulting from the virus crisis.
Going forward, the Skagit Passage team hopes — through fundraising — to increase student access to local and professional theater and further engage the community in performance arts.
The La Conner jamboree, for its part, was well received by attendees.
Four comedies in one night, after all, had everyone leaving the school auditorium with smiles on their faces.
Bill Reynolds: bill@laconnercommunitynews.org. Bill is a general assignment reporter who covers Town government, schools, and spot news.
