Jasmine Harrick has been performing since she was 5, and has been lucky enough to work in productions at The 5^th Avenue and Village Theatre, but Kitsap holds a special place in her heart. “It’s more than a theater,” she says, “it’s a community. Because you spend so much time with the rest of the cast – camping, hiking, eating together – you get to know everyone more than at other theaters.”

Jasmine’s experience with KFT began at age 4, when she came with her parents to performances, who were hoping the outdoor environment would be a good counter to toddler fidgetiness. She thrilled at the opportunity to meet the actors onstage and was already a veteran audience member when at age 8 she auditioned with her sister, Eliana, and her parents for Fiddler on the Roof. This began a treasured family tradition of performing together. It didn’t take long for the unique theater to work its magic on all of them. Weekends after rehearsals, Jasmine would head out into the wooded areas beyond the cabin to find secluded glens where she and her new friends from the cast would create fairy houses, explore the trail to Big Tree and Wildcat Creek, or build impromptu carnival rides around the cabin. She went on to portray Lucy in Narnia, Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, Annie in Annie, and Neleus in Mary Poppins.

That sense of specialness of place and community is one thing that drew Jasmine back to the theater this year, after missing last year due to Village Theatre’s Billy Elliott. “I missed it so much,” she says, “I was just hoping to get a chance to be in a show here again,” so she couldn’t be more thrilled to also get the opportunity to play Dorothy.

Jasmine’s says about playing Dorothy: “I don’t care that she’s a girl really,” she says, “What interests me most are characters who are nice people, who know what they want, and who try hard to do the right thing. It doesn’t matter whether they are girls or not. Before I started working on the character, I thought Dorothy was kind of dull, that everything just happens to her, and she’s like, ‘oh no, help me please.’ That’s not an interesting character to me. My favorite part was always the Munchkins.”

She soon found the role presented challenges, physical and emotional. “She’s on the entire show, so you have to have a lot of energy. And emotionally, she goes through a lot of changes during the show. At the beginning of the show, Dorothy convinces herself that nobody understands or really loves her, and that she despises her Aunt and never wants to see her again. When she’s away from her Aunt and thinks she may be sick, she immediately wants to get back to her, even though she’s in this incredible, remarkable place – and that goal drives her for the rest of the show. Dorothy realizes that she already has what she thought she wanted.”

Jasmine is excited by the novel take that Craig Scheiber and costumer Barbara Klingberg brought to the show. “This is a very iconic show, and I think it’s really cool that they are doing something to mix it up a little bit, but still keep the elements that made it a classic.”

Kitsap Sun Preview, May 24, 2016; By Michael C. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Craig Schieber's last experience with "The Music Man" at the Kitsap Forest Theater was 15 years ago. He said the version he's directing there now won't bear much of a resemblance.

"Sixteen years ago, I don't think I had an appreciation for this show," said Schieber, who's directed at least one of the Mountaineers Players' two annual productions at the Forest Theatre since 2000. "When we did it then, we had most of the stage covered in boardwalk, big buildings, and the big house up on the mound."

But Schieber has learned a lot in his years putting on shows in the idyllic amphitheater, carved out of old-growth forest in the early 1920s and active as a performance venue ever since. For this year's "Music Man," he's gone two-dimensional.

"We really had fun with this one," he said. "We've got some furniture, some chairs, and we've got a piano. Pretty much everything else is two-dimensional flats.

"This is a real change" from the 2001 production, he said.

"The Music Man," Meredith Willson's classic tale (and his only significant hit) about a flimflam man who transforms and is transformed by a backwater Iowa town and its naive inhabitants, actually lends itself pretty well to the Forest Theater's al fresco aesthetic. Most of the production numbers already take place in the out-of-doors, and those that don't are easily representable with Schieber's portable-set strategy.

"We're using some two-sided flats that'll take you right inside a building," Schieber said. "For the library, we have one side that's the outside, and then we just flip them around and it's the inside."

The library, for those not already in the know about what transpires in "The Music Man," is ground zero, where the mysterious Harold Hill, in town to sell the idea of a boys' band, and the staid librarian Marian Paroo each meet their match.

By Michael C. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Kitsap Sun Review, May 30, 2016: There are many pleasures to be derived from the Mountaineers Players' production of "The Music Man," which warmed up an opening-day crowd on a chilly, unpromising May 28 at Kitsap Forest Theater with a fast-moving, funny run-through that featured outstanding lead performances, generally tremendous singing and impressive, inventive visuals.

Heat the joint up a few degrees and I'd gladly go back and see it again.

The thing about the Forest Theater is that it can be as much about the tradition as it is about the particular show on offer. Folks have been hiking down the trail to the rustic amphitheater since 1923 — to see a show, but also to picnic, to have an afternoon out with the family, and because that's what you do on the Memorial Day weekend. Sometimes the show is just all right; sometimes it's better.

The Mountaineers' "Music Man" — director Craig Schieber's take on Meredith Willson's ingeniously evergreen tale of the redemptive power of love — is the latter. It not only does one of the musical-theater canon's sturdiest entries no harm (despite the venue's obvious drawbacks), but enhances it with a brisk pace and imaginative visuals, and pays respect to its parade of wonderful songs with mostly outstanding singing, both solo and ensemble.

Of course, the "experience" of a show at KFT is never going to be a strictly theatrical one. It's the place's blessing and its curse that eating, moving freely about and being too young to care much about what's going on down on the floor are all in a day's play there. If you're one of those set-jawed, tunnel-focused mavens who go to the play strictly to see the play, this probably ain't the spot for you.

To his credit, though, Schieber makes no concession to the young, the bored or the distracted among the theater's patrons. His pieces — "Music Man" being only the current example — ally with, but don't depend on, the novelty of their forest setting, and would stand up well on any stage in the county.

In "The Music Man," the Mountaineers have selected one of the most can't-miss musicals ever written: It's a great story, laced with comedy and conflict, romance and resolution and a little bit of an edge, and loaded with memorable songs (I'm not the only one who thinks "76 Trombones" ranks with any march Sousa ever wrote, am I?).

And in Jason Gingold and Beaven Walters, they've got lead actor-singers who are more than worthy of their iconic characters. Both — Gingold as the "spellbinder" Professor Harold Hill, who finds himself spellbound by the prissy librarian (Walters as Marian Paroo) of the town he's pulled into for his latest swindle — do top-drawer acting and singing jobs, with Walters supplying particularly glorious vocals for "Goodnight My Someone" and Gingold ably tongue-twisting his way through the 1962-vintage rap of "Trouble."

There's some classy supporting work going on, too. Jenny Dreessen brings her lovely voice and adds a credible Irish accent as Marian's long-suffering mother; Tod Harrick overplays — but to good comic effect — the uptight Mayor Shinn; Molly Hall is a delightfully pliable Eulalie; and 9-year-old Charlie Gingold (Jason and Molly's son; daughter Sadie is also in the cast) is a charmer as the introverted Winthrop. Two Kitsap locals also get to make their marks — Eric Emans plays Hill's partner in crime Marcellus Washburn; Gary Spees is the baritone in the iconic barbershop quartet, and is half (along with Dee Smolar) of the show's best sight gag, a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't parody of the"American Gothic" painting.

Like the frame for that quick, effective laugh, almost all of Schieber's set pieces (designed by Chris Stanley) are portable; furniture and flats transform the performance space simply, efficiently and effectively. Aside from a few talky bits, things never drag. Costumes (by Brenna Stratton) are colorful and eye-catching, and the choreography (by Guy Caridi) supplies not only the expected dance sequences, but keeps the cast of 50-plus, including a number of small-fry, moving and contributing to the storytelling.

Accompanist Benjamin Bentler, on piano and synths, plays immaculately. But the keyboards just can't evoke the big-brass-band oomph of much of Willson's music, and sometimes are buried under the bigger ensemble vocals (not to mention the usual clatter from the gallery). They're much more effective behind the ballads. And it might've just been an opening-day foible, but the show's brilliant opening — the a cappella "Rock Island" — didn't work very well. It's all about rhythm, but for that particular performance, there just wasn't much.

My best experiences at the Forest Theater have always been when the show is the big feature, and the "experience" is a bonus. "Music Man" is one such occasion — the ambiance is rendered secondary because the show is good enough to carry the day on its own.