APPLAUSE >>>

Coming off a good season with favorable reviews for its productions of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, A Christmas Carol and California Suite, Tacoma Little Theatre has announced its 2012-2013 season. Let's take a look. ...

Sylvia

Sept. 7-30
Just what Tacoma theater needs: more plays featuring people playing dogs. OK, so I can't think of any others like that. Regardless, the season kicks off with a comedy about the complicated relationships between man and wife, man and dog, and dog and wife. I can only assume that hijinks ensue. It seems like a good setup for hijinks.

Night Watch

Oct. 19-Nov. 11
Carrying on TLT's recent tendency toward Halloween-centric features in October - Jekyll & Hyde, Woman in Black, Transylvania Clockworks - Night Watch sounds thoroughly Hitchcockian with its mysterious neighbors, possible murders, and psychological confusion.

Miracle on 34th Street

Nov. 30-Dec. 23
Christmas is the season for old standards. It's a time for some version of A Christmas Carol, and 24 hours of A Christmas Story, and a quiet evening at home with Die Hard. It's about traditions. The original film of Miracle on 34th Street is another such cultural standby, and I'm sure the play will pull in the audiences without trouble.

Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks

Jan. 18-Feb. 10
TLT first produced Six Dance Lessons as a second stage vehicle for community stalwarts - and husband and wife out in the real world - Micheal O'Hara and Sharry O'Hare. I can only assume it proved to be a winner, if they're bringing it back for a mainstage turn.

The Joy Luck Club

March 15-April 7
Last year, Lakewood tried to stage the Joy Luck Club, but ultimately pulled it for The Lion in Winter, "in order to uphold the integrity of the script and all the attention to the specific cultural details which it is duly owed." Hopefully TLT has better luck pulling together a viable production of this study in Chinese-American cultural heritage.

Little Shop of Horrors

May 3-26
My wife can tell you how excited I got when I reached the end of the announcement and saw Ashman & Menken's classic horror-comedy. I hope my fellow Volcano critics are as psyched as me, because one of them is going to have to review it. I'll be beating down doors until somebody lets me run lights for the thing.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE ...

Filling out the season as second stage productions are two extremely different but thoroughly excellent productions: the return of Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged (Feb. 22-March 3), a riotously hilarious (with the right cast) rundown of all the bard's works, which ran for three consecutive years as a TLT staple; and the beautifully somber Laramie Project (June 7-23), a gripping and surely tear-jerking portrait of hometown reactions to a brutal hate crime in Laramie, Wyoming.

LINK: Tacoma Little Theatre season subscriber information