by Kirby Lindsay, posted 7 December 2012
On December 15th, the Fremont Players open their latest British Panto show, ‘Sleeping Beauty & The Pea.’ During performances at Hale’s Palladium, the local theater troupe will sing, dance, and laugh their way through a mish-mash of two fairy tales, with a lot of random nonsense thrown in. Plus, a cow. It’s a holiday tradition to be embraced by families, and fans of frivolousness, of all ages!
A Very Familiar Fremonster Face
Every year the Fremont Players stage a playful show with live music by the Fremont Philharmonic, and familiar Fremont faces among the cast. One of those, Candace Reiter, has returned this year to play the magical Pea.
“You just have to show up,” she explained about her decision to return each year to the Players, “and go along with your friends having a good time!”
Reiter got started, she said, in local productions thanks to Norma Baum. “Norma and I used to be together in Cirque du Flambé,” Reiter recalled. Together, the women performed as part of an ensemble called Fife & The Fire Plug. In 2008, the fire performance troupe disbanded, but Reiter and Baum had already started working on shows with the Fremont Players. “We made the Panto horse and the Panto cow together,” Reiter said.
Now, Reiter has established her own place in the Players, and will perform this year even though Baum didn’t take a role. Reiter will also participate in other ways. A professional artist, Reiter does the poster art for the Fremont Players, and the scenery. “I’ve helped with it,” she demurred.
As for costumes, “we all do our own,” she explained, “I always add bling!” Expect to see a shiny, sparkly Pea on stage at ‘Sleeping Beauty…’ Yet, as much as she likes to shine, Reiter has an artist’s eye for what is real as well as shiny. Last year she and Baum performed as lost boys in ‘Peter Pan.’ For that role, the costuming challenged her craving for bling. A lost boy wouldn’t wear rhinestones, she knew, but she finally figured out ways to stud her costume with toys and little boy ‘treasures.’
In addition to the costumes, Reiter also takes time to think about ways to further explore her character on stage. “Norma and I have always been very prop heavy,” Reiter admitted, “it gives you something to play with on-stage.” It also lends visual details to the generally sparse Fremont Players stages. In 2010, for ‘Little Red Riding Hood & The 3 Pigs,’ Reiter added home-y touches to the Pigs’ houses, and subtly differentiated them.
For ‘Sleeping Beauty…’ Reiter will play a sidekick to Formica, the Bad Fairy, and she couldn’t be more grateful for the role. “It is such a gift of a character,” she said of The Pea, “I can figure out my own character.” The Fremont Players collectively morph and modify the stories they choose to perform, and Reiter has one of the few characters invented entirely through the process. It gives her a chance to do what she wants, and she chose to create a more complex character. “I’m like a little kid,” she explained about The Pea, and “I have a conscience.”
“You play with it,” Reiter said, of the whole process.
A Familiar Face At Play
In fact, Reiter’s willingness to play-along came up in talking about all the projects she takes part in around Fremont – from playing ‘Door Babe’ at Moisture Festival to building an ensemble for the Fremont Arts Council Solstice Parade to pouring beer this year at the Fremont Oktoberfest. As for the roles she’s taken at Trolloween, “I usually go in with Norma,” she explained. “They just believe in you,” she said of Baum and Maque da Vis, Baum’s husband and curator of Trolloween, “and let you do what you can.”
She also has another, stronger tie, to certain Fremont activities – a family connection. For instance, when Reiter talks about assembling costumes and props for the photo booth at the Fremont Outdoor Cinema, she may have been helping the founder – her husband, Jon Hegeman – or the current producer – her son, Ryan Reiter-Hegeman.
In addition, Reiter works at the Fremont Sunday Market, and/or one of the other Markets begun by Hegeman but based on Reiter’s experience. While the couple lived in England, Reiter made pillows and jewelry and sold them at the public markets there. When the couple moved to the Northwest, Reiter raised their son and drove once a week to the Redmond Farmer’s Market to sell her hand-made jewelry.
The Fremont Sunday Market started, Reiter laughingly recalled, as, “a place to sell my jewelry, but I spent time running it, and this kind of thing,” she said, as she gestured around at the art pieces that fill her Greenwood studio, “has had to take a backseat.”
Becoming More Familiar
“This is my day job,” Reiter said. She does art and design, painting and product lines. She’s created products – from conception to completion – in her studio, and designed dish lines and fabric lines for manufacturers. Her Catzilla and Dogzilla lines have followings, and even as she perfects her role as The Pea, Reiter works daily at being inventive and creative in her studio too.
“I’ve been a good sidekick,” she acknowledged, of her work on stage, and off. “Part of your personality comes out on stage,” Reiter observed. With The Pea, Reiter has been able to explore the place all sidekicks reach eventually – the time to assert will, have her own opinions, and, “being independent of your family.” And, in her day job, Reiter continues to create and grow her business, but she now has her family helping her.
To see Reiter, and The Pea, along with the whole merry cast of Fremont Players, order tickets today, through Brown Paper Tickets. The run starts with a benefit show on December 15th for the B.F. Day School Playground Improvement Project, and runs every weekend (four shows each) through January 13th. It may sound like plenty of time, but with the holidays, the time slides by so quickly – and if you don’t get tickets now you might miss this chance to see a magical Pea.
Of course, Reiter is likely to return again and again – but never again quite like this!
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©2012 Kirby Lindsay. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.