Celebrating a 20th anniversary as a small theater company is not a minor accomplishment. To get there, you have to sustain a core group of supporters while growing new audiences. You have to weather the uncertainties surrounding performance space and funding sources. You have to be nimble, particularly when a global pandemic arrives just at a crucial moment in your expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201c20 years is a heck of a long time,\u201d said Teresa Thuman, who\u2019s commemorating the Sound Theatre Company milestone this year, kicking off with a concert-version reprise of one of its most beloved productions, \u201cThe Wild Party,\u201d running Jan. 30 through Feb. 8 at the Center Theatre in the Seattle Center Armory.<\/p>\n
Thuman, now co-artistic director with Shermona Mitchell, founded Sound in 2006 primarily as a way to produce work she found meaningful, beginning with a production of Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cThe Tempest\u201d on the shores of Lake Sammamish. The first five years were about pushing herself artistically, but Sound was becoming something bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was kind of resistant to consider myself an artistic director, and then came to the conclusion that was exactly what was happening,\u201d Thuman said. \u201cWe just started finding more and more people to work with, and it grew in people’s relationship to the work. Around 2010, there was a group of people who really wanted to make this a company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon, Sound was producing full seasons, and achieved a \u201creal breakthrough\u201d with Andrew Lippa\u2019s \u201cThe Wild Party\u201d in 2013, Thuman said. The jazz-age musical about seduction and vice at a raucous apartment soiree was a hit for Sound, dazzling critics and winning the Gregory Award<\/a> for outstanding musical.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was this wonderful coming together of \u2018Let’s do a musical\u2019 and \u2018Let’s do one that the other theaters either won’t or can’t do,\u2019\u201d Thuman said.<\/p>\n Corey McDaniel, who directed the original production, is returning to direct this year\u2019s concert staging, and he said the excitement was palpable among the theatrical community, with a large\u00a0talent pool of hopeful auditioning actors.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people walked in the room and said, \u2018This is a dream role for me,\u2019\u201d McDaniel said.<\/p>\n 13 years ago, the show was a culmination of some dreams and a springboard for more.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Wild Party\u2019 was so pivotal for so many of us,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cIt really put Sound Theatre on the map. It put me on the map in a way I hadn\u2019t anticipated. It really launched a lot of us forward, creatively and professionally.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Sign up for our Daily Headlines<\/strong> newsletter \u2014 delivered to your inbox every morning at 7 a.m.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Thanks!<\/strong> You\u2019re all set.<\/p>\n Watch your inbox for Daily Headlines.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While producing a concert version with minimal choreography and blocking is simpler in some ways, there are still nearly 40 musical numbers for the cast of 14 to learn in \u201cWild Party.\u201d Helping guide that process is music director Nathan Young, well-equipped as the producing artistic director of Showtunes<\/a>, the long-running company dedicated to staging concert versions of musicals.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly exciting to dive back into such a deep, rich, complex script and score after 13 more years of education in my field,\u201d McDaniel said.<\/p>\n In 2026, the theme of free expression exemplified by \u201cThe Wild Party\u201d feels very relevant, Thuman said. Reports show that newly implemented state laws are increasing the rate of book bans<\/a> across the country. The source material for \u201cThe Wild Party,\u201d a 1928 narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March, was banned and largely forgotten for decades due to its sexual content.\u00a0<\/p>\n Along with \u201cThe Wild Party,\u201d other shows in Sound\u2019s season will continue to embrace poetic imagery and align with the theater\u2019s social-justice mission, Thuman said. And the company plans to revisit more past shows in a reading format.<\/p>\n \u201c(We\u2019ll) try them on, see if they still feel like the right play for us,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe we have evolved into a very different aesthetic, which could very well be, but we don\u2019t want to let go of the history.\u201d<\/p>\n Evolution has been part of Sound\u2019s story throughout its lifespan, moving from personal passion projects to community-rooted work that highlights underrepresented voices, including deaf<\/a> and disabled<\/a> artists. The pandemic necessitated another evolution into online streaming right at a time when Sound was reaching new heights: A January 2020 world premiere staging of Darren Canady\u2019s sci-fi-inflected \u201cReparations,\u201d<\/a> co-produced with LANGSTON.<\/p>\n \u201cIt basically sold out the entire run,\u201d Thuman said. \u201cDefinitely more people saw that than any other Sound Theatre show. And then everything closed down\u00a0the next day. It would be so great to achieve that again, but we have to let go of that and just keep doing the work that we really believe in and find is really true.\u201d<\/p>\n