Sparks Produces Electric Drama in Orcas Center's "Great Expectations"

Orcas Center joins with Seattle's Book-It Theater for a workshop production of Dickens' "Great Expectations"

Orcas Center’s Theater Productions Manager Deborah Sparks or “Sparks” as she is familiarly known, has been in high gear this fall, weaving together the multitude of tasks involved in Orcas Center/Book-It Theater’s joint staging of Great Expectations.

Book-It Theater came to Orcas two years ago to produce the Steinbeck play, “Sweet Thursday.” Orcas Center Executive Director Barbara Courtney was eager to work with the Seattle company again, and its co-founder Jane Jones wanted to produce a version of Great Expectations in celebration of the group’s 20th year. Jones decided to fit the Orcas production into her schedule, seeing it as an opportunity to “lab the script” (similar to out-of-town “previews” before bringing a play on Broadway).

Great Expectations has been adapted for the Book-It production by Julie Beckman. Orcas actors have been rehearsing their performances for the last six weeks in anticipation of its opening this Thursday, Oct. 15.

Director Jones has been staying on-island most of the last five weeks, with Orcas Center providing housing and a fee for the Actors Equity Director.

“As Theater Productions Manager, I jump start the whole thing and get the positions in place, chat up the production, schedule the auditions,” Sparks said.

Great Expectations has been “really well cast,” says Sparks, “All the actors seem like their characters.” The cast includes Orcas Islanders ranging from teen-agers to septugenarians, with several actors taking on multiple roles and others playing the opposite sex, such as Jamie Mulligan-Smith, who plays Pip.

Orcas High School Freshman Jules Mann plays Estella and Junior Halley McCormick, who “could do anything,” says Sparks, is dual cast as the supportive Biddie from Pip’s youth, and as Herbert Pocket, Pip’s friend who introduces him to the “gentility” of life in London.

As rehearsals continue, some new casting has occurred, with Freddy Hinkle stepping in to play Magwitch, the convict who forces Pip to help him in a vain escape attempt.

Sparks is delighted to have “experts at their art” on the production details. Kathy Walsh, who has worked with Sparks in several Orcas Center productions, such as Camelot, Beauty and the Beast and Christmas Carol, will head the costume department. “She can construct stuff from scratch, and she’s got a great imagination and we work really well together,” says Sparks. Sukima Hampton and LuAnn Palmatian will assist Walsh as costume and prop curators.

Sparks herself loves creating costumes and props and will delight in fashioning the moldy, abandoned wedding cake that “graces” Miss Havisham’s wedding reception table throughout all the years of Pip’s “Great Expectations.” Ditto the wedding dress that Miss Havisham wears from the day of her jilting for the rest of her life.

The set production is headed by one of Book-It’s set designers, Elena Hartwell, who was a theater tech instructor at Cornish Academy of the Arts in Seattle for 12 years, and is currently free-lancing. The minimal set will all be painted black, and Jones expects the actors to create much of the atmosphere in the play’s choreography.

Jim Shaffer-Bauck, whom Sparks calls “a terrific actor,” will provide sound effects, enhancing the scenes and during transitions. All the sounds and music will come from “live” instruments such as the mandolin, cello, and piano.

Antoinette Botsford volunteered as the production’s dramaturge – the person who researches a period piece such as Great Expectations, to ensure historical and cultural authenticity.  She gives deeper understanding to the script and the meaning behind the language, as well as to the characters’ motivations. Her research of Dickens’ era will be exhibited in a lobby display at the Center during the run of the play.

By Opening Night, the actors will have put in close to 92 hours. Rehearsals start with “tablework” – reading the script, discussing the characters, improvisation and blocking the actors’ movements about the stage, adding the sets and props as they are created and identified. Working with the actors’ and directors’ schedules to pull the production together in six weeks involves many late nights and most of each weekend.

Sparks thrives on “overseeing everything, and making sure everybody follows through on doing what they said they’d do.” She acknowledges the major accomplishment of Paige McCormick who, in a trial by fire with Beauty and the Beast in spring of 2008, set up a Google scheduling system.

Sparks has also found invaluable assistance in Kate Hansen, who uses the Google email system to set rehearsal schedules and type in director’s notes for the actors to review. “Kate’s youth, energy and expertise – and speed!—are electric,” Sparks says. “She’ll ask a question, and we’ll say, ‘Oh! Okay, let’s invent something!”

As the production comes down to the wire, and ongoing challenges are resolved, even while new dilemmas rear their heads, Sparks will be in the thick of it, gesticulating, explaining, persuading, and laughing. She is in her element.

“Dickens’ Great Expectations” will run Thursday through Saturday for two weeks, from October 15-17, 22-24, at 7:30 pm.  (Saturday, October 24 performance at 2 p.m. only) Tickets: $16, $12 (Orcas Center members), $8 (students)

For more information, go to www.orcascenter.org.