Standing Room Only (SRO) Theater has continued efforts to bring art through drama to Yelm and surrounding areas as the community-based theater club hosted its first ever showing of “Forgotten Yelms” on Saturday, March 8, inside The Outpost Church.
Steve Harshfield, SRO Theater president, told the Nisqually Valley News following the inaugural showing of “Forgotten Yelms” that there was an amazing turnout on Saturday night. He said over 125 people showed up and that there were “lots of laughs and tons of audience participation.”
SRO Theater will host a second showing of “Forgotten Yelms” at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, and Harshfield said the second event will be a continuation of the story told on Saturday, March 8. He noted audience members would not have to attend the first showing in order to have an understanding of the show. He added the inaugural showing of the newest drama will be shared online at a later date.
Charles Phillips, director of “Forgotten Yelms,” told the NVN during SRO Theater’s final rehearsal for the event that the organization had never presented a production like this one before.
“Basically it’s Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons published a document that was public domain. You can use anything that’s in the public domain to make presentations, shows, things like that,” Phillips said prior to rehearsals on March 7. “So that’s how people make podcasts and YouTubers where they actually play online. So there are things that we can say, things that we can’t say, so we stick to all the things that we can.”
The cast for the first showing on Saturday, March 8, included Phillips as the storyteller along with Dave Champagne, Mackenzie Dust, Meg Long, Kamylle Sprenger and Jeremy Chenvert. The Saturday, March 15, cast will include Maurilo Velasco, John Bingaman, Taylor Barnes, Bri Hines, Nabeel Hameed and Ian Montgomery. For the last six weeks, the casts for both showings have been rehearsing.
“So we’ll have five players (Saturday) night, and we’ll be sitting up at the tables here and we’ll have a storyteller, which is myself. The first night, and it basically hearkens back to the oral tradition of just telling stories, sitting around the campfires and telling stories,” Phillips said. “The difference is that the five people sitting around me can actually take part in it and make decisions and interact with the story as it happens.”
Phillips said in addition to the audience being able to interact with the story, audience members can also purchase items for each player. The items, Phillips added, could either help or hurt the players in the game.
The director added though there are two showings of “Forgotten Yelms,” two different stories are being told. He said viewers could come for the first showing and be fully satisfied with a story that includes a beginning, middle and end. Phillips added viewers could come for the second showing, and after being caught up with what they’ve missed, they’ll also get to see a beginning, middle and end in the second showing.
“We couldn’t get the best Dungeons and Dragons or best roleplayers, because what we’re doing is more of a show than the real mechanics and the rules (of Dungeons and Dragons) and all that stuff. It’s more theater,” Phillips said. “So we needed that blend of theater and role playing, and we could teach people along the way. It’s super exciting. We’ve never done this before. It’s been in big cities. There’s actually a Broadway show right now that’s doing really well.”
Tickets for the second showing of “Forgotten Yelms” can be purchased online at www.SROTheater.org.
