It’s a rare and exceptional honor for a high school theater ensemble to stage the first production of a professional playwright’s new work, but Charles Wright Academy’s drama program is indeed exceptional.  The Charles Wright Academy Players, as the troupe has been known for more than 40 years, will present the world premier of The Last Night of Comedy this week.  Tickets for the play, written by local playwright Nick Stokes with inspiration and assistance from John Forier, are going fast. 

The Last Night of Comedy will be the last fall production in the intimate (some might say tiny) Upper School study hall/music room/performance space.  The show was “hatched from John’s green overture, my coltish humor, John’s gummy ruminations on comedy, my adolescently idealist intent to progress, John’s mature sketches with legs, and my old obsession with death,” says Stokes.  “Fry with technology; garnish with Shakespeare; keep the change.”

Shows will be held:
Thursday, October 30, 8:00pm
Friday, October 31, 4:00pm
Saturday, November 1, 7:30pm

Admission is $5 for students, faculty and staff.  General admission is $7.  Tickets to Friday’s show are $1 for those who attend in a (good) costume.  Reservations are highly recommended as the show is expected to sell out for all three performances.  Call Phyllis Kriese at 253-620-8300.

As the name suggests, the play is set on the last night of comedy for a sketch comedy company on the brink of going out of business.  The time is now.  The place is onstage and backstage during this last performance.  Live music accompanies the show.

Waldie and Best Western, the dying company’s techies and critics played by Victoria Portnow and Susan Blyler, sabotage the show.  They seduce Newt, played by Blaire Bowden, into techiedom by promising to make her funny.  Waldie and Best teach Newt to seduce the company’s founder, Kurt (Toby Shorin), and degrade his questionable marriage to Lucy Hamm (Katie Young), who sizzles in anticipation of her big call to sitcoms.

Kurt leads the company’s fight to get the show off the ground, floundering for survival, comedic progress, and his Newt love.  Jim (Frank Roberts) tries to write them out of their demise; Richard Bit (Clark Hill) tries to joke them out of it; and Bob “Missouri” Smith (Bryan Gula) tries to Nirvana them into electronic image.

Goose’s (Samantha Roberts) gender equilibrium swings and she seeks self-awareness.  Newt strives for Kurt, and to be herself, a new funny actress.  Props disappear; actresses disappear; jokes disappear.  Sketches are disrupted.  New sketches are interjected.  Each member must come to terms with what they, and comedy, will be.  The show must end, and in three more minutes it will.

Before beginning his career as a playwright, Stokes taught physics at Charles Wright.  His first show, “White House,” was produced at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle.  He also wrote a one-act play, “Surviving the Hobgoblins,” which was performed by faculty members at CWA’s spring one-act festival in 2006.  He is a member of the Northwest Playwrites Alliance and his works have been read in Seattle, Tacoma and Alaska.

“When you’re writing a play, you have a visual image of what it’s going to look like and an idea of what it’s going to sound like,” explains Stokes, who has attended many rehearsals this fall to work with students and refine the script.  “You have to let go of it a little bit and at the same time not letting go of it is what makes it real.  It’s really cool to see other people find things in there that you didn’t even know were there.  Every actor has to find a reason to say each line and that’s usually not the same reason I wrote the line, so it reveals aspects – strengths and weaknesses – I didn’t even know were there.”

Stokes and Forier hope this won’t be the last night of comedy for the show.  They hope, with work, to market the script to other high schools and perhaps publish it some day.