It is time. The show is here.
We wrote about the 85th Musical Celebration in our August issue, back when it was still something to look forward to. It is no longer something to look forward to. It opens tonight, and when Sunday afternoon ends, it is over.
There are three performances and that is all there is. Friday August 21 and Saturday August 22 at 7:00 PM, and Sunday August 23 at 2:00 PM. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for children, and the Ross Ragland Theater is at 218 North 7th Street in Klamath Falls.
What waits inside is a full evening of musical theater built by people from around the Klamath Basin. A thirty-person choir conducted by Perry Dean, Klamath Union High School's chorister. A live band led by guitarist Zach Southwell and drummer Hannah Davenport. Dancers moving through "Be Our Guest" and "Masquerade" under choreographer Sarah Ekstrom. Soloists carrying songs from West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked and Frozen, with music and dance drawn from more than twenty-two musicals across two acts.
Co-director Nicole Trejo, who wrote our August feature on the theater, put it plainly this week: a production so packed you will want to see it again. Tickets are selling fast. Be our guest.
Her co-director Dana Wirth, arranger Brenna Morgan on piano and violin, and featured performers Harrison Dean, Jake Coker, Jim Weaver, Josh Guest, Spencer Corey, Seattle Trejo, Olivia Snow, Lexi Johnson and Melissa Nash round out an evening that has been months in the making.
"This is a show you won't want to miss," said Olivia Snow, who played Anastasia in the Ragland's most recent musical. "There is something for everyone."
It is also worth remembering what the room itself is. The building opened in 1941 as the Esquire Theatre, Southern Oregon's premier movie house in Hollywood's golden age, and it was the community that rescued it and turned it into the live-performance venue it is now. Eighty-five years later the neon still points upward, and this weekend it points at a stage full of local voices.
Three nights. One stage. Eighty-five years of music. Then the lights come down.
Box office: (541) 884-LIVE, open 12:00 to 4:00 PM Tuesday through Friday and two hours before each performance. The full story of the theater and the people behind this concert is in our August issue — read it here.
