"Great Expectations" with All-Local Cast Comes to Orcas Center

An original stage adaptation of Charles’ Dickens Great Expectations will be presented at Orcas Center October 15-24, featuring an all local cast.

Great Expectations is perhaps one of Dicken’s most widely read novels which features hauntingly memorable characters. Miss Havisham, for example, is the bitter woman who was left at the alter and seeks to invoke suffering on men as revenge. Pip is the boy who was plucked out of his working class home by an anonymous patron to be raised as “a gentleman”, and at the machinations of Miss Havisham, falls in love with the beautiful and cruel Estella. The tale is one of coming to age with harsh and difficult lessons to be learned.

This stage version of Great Expectations was adapted by Julie Beckman for Book-It Repertory Theatre, a Seattle-based company that is committed to staging great works of literature. Orcas audiences may remember Sweet Thursday, another Book-It adaptation that was performed in fall 2007. Orcas Center is working in partnership with Book-It on the Dickens work — the current production is a workshop for a later Seattle world premiere.

Jane Jones is directing the play. Jones is the founder of Book-It and founding co-artistic director of Book-It Repertory Theatre. In her 20 years of staging literature, she has performed and directed works by such literary giants as Eudora Welty, Edith Wharton, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Pam Houston, Raymond Carver, Frank O’Connor, Ernest Hemingway, Colette, Amy Bloom, John Irving, John Steinbeck, Daphne du Maurier, and Jane Austen, as well as Dickens.

The complete cast and company is:

Pip — Jamie Mulligan-Smith

Estella — Jules Mann

Miss Havisham — Mary Bayley

Joe/Drummle — Bryan Grantham

Jaggers — David Schermerhorn

Mrs. Joe — Donna McCoy

Biddy/Herbert  — Halley McCormick

Magwitch/Wemmick — Freddy Hinkle

Orlick/Mrs. Wopsle — Ron Herman

Pumblechook/Compeyson — Sukima Hampton

Dramaturge — Antoinette Botsford

Producer — Lynda Sanders

Stage Manager — Kate Hansen

Prop Mistress — Diane Skaar

Set & Lighting Design — Elena Hartwell

Lighting Operator — Phil Burbo

Costume Designers — Kathy Walsh and Deborah Sparks

Great Expectations will be performed Thursday-Saturday, October 15-17 and 22-24. All performances are at 7:30 pm EXCEPT for the final performance on Saturday, October 24, which is a 2 pm matinee. A study and discussion guide is posted on the Orcas Center website for use by teachers and their students, and by book clubs.

Tickets for the play are $16, $12 for Orcas Center members, and $8 for students. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.orcascenter.org or call or 360/376-2281 ext 1 during box office hours, Thursday-Saturday, noon – 4 p.m.