New theater company in town

A new theater company has formed in Whitefish, adding to the town's vibrant mix of music, art and culture.

Stumptown Players' 16 founding members include Alicia Blake, Helen and Anker Hanson, Tony Hernandez and Dayle Miller-Hernandez, Gil Jordan and Kim Pinter, Michele Keener, Nina and Stu Levitt, Karen and Russ Moes, Jim Mohn, Mona Charles and Lori Collins.

Nearly all of them have been involved in Whitefish Theatre Company (WTC) productions over the years in some capacity, explained Keener.

"Whitefish Theatre Company doesn't typically offer theater in the summer, but we consider the O'Shaughnessy to be 'our house,'" she said. "Our goal dovetails nicely with their mission. We're not competing with them. We're supporting them."

Hanson, who will direct the Stumptown Players' upcoming production of A.R. Gurney's "Sylvia," has a long career in professional theater. After receiving her bachelors in fine arts from the School Of Theater at Boston University, she worked in New York and Los Angeles. She made the switch to directing after acting for 15 years in L.A.

Soon after moving to Whitefish in 2005, Hanson directed David Mamet's "An Interview" for WTC. She also directed WTC's production of Tom Stoppard's "Real Inspector Hound."

Starting up a new theater company in Whitefish seemed to make sense to Hanson and the other members of Stumptown Players.

"We all live in this community, we've been in lots of productions with the Whitefish Theatre Company, and we thought it was time for something a little different," she said. "We thought it was a shame that the O'Shaughnessy was dark in summer and thought the time was ripe for another theater company."

Hanson said the two-act play "Sylvia" "fits the bill perfectly" for Stumptown Players' debut production.

"We wanted to present it in cabaret format, and it's not complicated set-wise," she said.

For the future, Hanson said she'd like to see some theater based on local history.

"Whitefish has a colorful history," she said. "And Whitefish has so many talented writers. It could be something for the tourists who come to town."

In the role of Kate in "Sylvia," Keener is married and living in Manhattan. The children have grown up and moved on, and she's looking forward to taking advantage of the empty nest to pursue a career. That's when her husband Greg brings home a "labradoodle" mutt named Sylvia that disrupts Kate's plans.

Keener grew up in Houston. She attended Rice University, where she played a different Kate in Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" and Nora in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House." While in New York for graduate school, she played roles in performance art pieces in Greenwich Village.

Next up was a move to Crested Butte, Colo., in 1992, where she not only joined community theater but took up skiing for the first time. Over the next nine years, she became a serious competitor in free-skiing, where racers hurtle down big and very steep faces.

When she wasn't on 50-degree slopes, Keener played Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello" with the Crested Butte Mountain Theater. She also appeared in Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" and in an all-female production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot."

"I performed in about two to three plays a year," she said.

It was lack of snow and the shrinking free-skiing season that prompted Keener to move.

"I visited Whitefish in 2000 and fell in love with the town and its people," she recalled. "The people are so friendly and diverse. It's a very inviting and livable place."

Keener made the move in 2003 and soon hooked up with the Whitefish Theatre Company, performing in WTC's first play, James McLure's "Laundry and Bourbon." She's also been in WTC productions of Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit," Matthew Barber's "Enchanted April," and David Hare's "The Blue Room."

Continuing her love of Shakespeare, Keener played Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with the Flathead Valley Community College Theater. More recently, she played Velma in FVCC Theater's production of the musical "Chicago," which tested her dancing skills.

"I've been a natural singer for a long time," she said. "And as an athlete, I thought I would be prepared to be a dancer. But to make it pretty takes a lot of work."

With the Alpine Theatre Project (ATP), Keener was assistant stage manager for the musical "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" and played an acting role in "Picasso at the Lapin Agile."

Jim Mohn plays Kate's husband Greg in "Sylvia." Born and raised in Whitefish, Mohn didn't get into theater until long after college and some career changes. In 1989, he landed two roles in WTC's production of the pulp fiction parody "Bullshot Crummond" — as a sidekick and a hunchbacked henchman.

"I wanted to do more with my life," he explained about his start. "As a writer, I wanted to write a play. But I was addicted to performing after the third rehearsal."

Mohn says that since 1989, he's been in at least two shows a year in Bigfork, Whitefish and at FVCC. And both of his teenage children have followed his lead — his oldest played the Giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" and performed in three WTC productions. His youngest is working on his first novel.

WTC members had long talked about starting another theater company, Mohn explained. After the idea of forming Stumptown Players gelled, Mohn suggested they perform "Sylvia."

"It was the first play performed in the O'Shaughnessy after it opened," he said. "It was also a dinner theater production at the former Outlaw Inn in Kalispell."

When Stumptown Players is not producing plays in summer, Mohn would like to see it bringing theater to the rest of the valley with low-cost productions such as Black Curtain-type staged readings.

"There're lots of venues across the valley for low-cost theater," he said.

Alicia Blake will play the "lead" role in "Sylvia," and she's perfected a good bark for the job. This won't be her first role animal role — she played the Cowardly Lion in the WTC production of "The Wizard of Oz."

Blake and her family moved to Whitefish from Dallas in 1999. She says she performed in high school but didn't pursue it. As her interest in community theater later gained traction, she auditioned for WTC's 2004 production of Robert Harling's "Steel Magnolias' and landed the role of Ousier.

"I caught the bug, and I've been in one or two plays a year since then," she said.

With WTC, she played Big Indian in "Peter Pan." She performed in "High School Musical" with ATP and landed a dancing and singing role as Cupid in ATP's 2008 production of "Another Side of the Island," with Olympia Dukakis.

"I've been lucky I can carry a tune," she said, crediting WTC singing coach April Vogel for help.

Blake says she enjoys comedy roles the most.

"I like making people laugh," she said. "I love being on stage, and I'm excited to have the title role in 'Sylvia.'"

With no dog costume in the script, Blake will rely on "hints of dog." She says the two dogs sharing the Blake home up on Big Mountain — a Bernese mountain dog and a Yorkie terrier — will provide her with plenty of ideas.

"The play's got a happy ending," she said. "It's about love and friendship, getting along and sharing."

Tony Hernandez will play Tom, the man in the park who gives Greg the dog. Hernandez was part of the core group that sparked the creation of Stumptown Players, but he credits Helen Hanson, who will direct "Sylvia," with getting it done.

"She's our artistic director," he said. "She said, 'Let's do a play this summer,' and she put the word out."

Hernandez moved to Whitefish in 2005 after a long journalism career in radio and television that took him to New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. He recalls how his interest in acting began while watching a dinner theater production of "Annie Get Your Gun" in Carmel, Calif.

"It was the first real play I'd ever seen, and I thought, 'I can do that,'" he said.

He auditioned for a part with the Carmel community theater and got a part, but a sportscasting job in San Francisco eventually drew him away.

The Hernandez family first vacationed in the Whitefish area in 1994 and knew they wanted to live here. Watching a play at the O'Shaughnessy while on vacation also prompted his interest in getting back into theater.

"I auditioned for a role in 'Our Town' and got the lead role," he said. "I got hooked and kept trying out for more plays."

Hernandez says he's been in at least a dozen WTC productions and three with ATP. He's also been singing with the Glacier Chorale for two seasons.

"I've always enjoyed singing," he said. "I had a nightclub act in New York, but after I got married, I went back to sportscasting. I ended up spending 26 years with ABC in L.A."

Hernandez agrees one Stumptown Players' role should be bringing low-cost theater to the rest of the valley, but he also sees advantages that come with forming a new company.

"We can set our own agenda," he said. "And we don't have to hold auditions for every role — we may have members perfectly suited for an upcoming role."

He emphasized that the new theater company needs people who can do costumes, lighting and other important stage jobs and encourages interested people to contact them.

Born and raised in Whitefish, Nicki Corne plays the role of Leslie, a therapist, in "Sylvia." Corne is returning to theater after taking an absence to go off to college and then raise her children.

Her first experience on stage was in Whitefish High School productions of "Oklahoma" and "Bullshot Crummond." Nancy Nei, WTC's artistic director, was her high school theater instructor. Corne also performed in WTC's production of "Gone With The Wind" before setting off for college.

"I missed theater," she said. "Now that the kids are older and I have more time, I want to get back into it."

Corne recently played The Wicked Witch of the West in WTC's production of "The Wizard of Oz," and Hanson asked her to audition for "Sylvia." She landed the role of the therapist.

"The husband starts to develop a relationship with the dog, and the marriage gets a little shaky," she said. "It's an awesome, hilarious script."

Carla Chapin will play the role of Kate's wealthy, socialite friend Phyllis, who is repulsed by the three-way tension caused by Sylvia.

"She wants to quit drinking but hasn't achieved that yet," she said. "It's funny as all get out."

Chapin moved to the Flathead in 1990 to "escape from corporate America" and make a home in a small town. Her acting career began not singing in the church choir but when she was 30 and landed a role in Louisiana playing a 70-year-old British actress.

After moving here, Chapin appeared in an episode of NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries' about a bigamist who married a woman in Polebridge and then faked his death.

"I played wife number four telling wife number six that he had stolen everyone's life savings," she said.

In Denver, Chapin performed in "Fairy Tale Theater" on cable TV. In the early 1990s, she performed in a Bigfork Summer Playhouse production of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap." With WTC, she had roles in "The Music Man" and "Inherit The Wind."

Chapin appears on TV in "Healing Arts Theater," and she recently had a role in a play at the KM Theatre in Kalispell about Vietnam veterans called "When They Come Home." This spring, she traveled to Libby to perform in "The Pitiful Pirates."

Chapin said she met members of the Stumptown Players over the years at auditions and in plays.

"They come from a great variety of backgrounds, with incredible talent," she said. "And that fits theater — it evolved from the earliest civilizations. We all tell stories."

"Sylvia" will be performed at the O'Shaughnessy on Aug. 11-14 and Aug. 18-21 at 8 p.m. The play is recommended for adults and teens. Cabaret seating will be available, with beer, wine and snacks available.

Tickets are $18 available by calling 871-6447 or visiting online at stumptownplayers@gmail.com. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Flathead Spay and Neuter Task Force.