Building Madness by Kate Danley at Harlequin Productions

Harlequin Productions is at 502 Washington Street SE, Olympia.

A group of five people—James L. This, Scot Whitney, Linda Whitney, Phil Annis and Ronna Smith—got together in 1991 and decided that they wanted to produce a more challenging style of theater than was available locally. We wrote our mission statement, pooled our start-up capital—a whopping $400 cash—and began producing individual shows at the Washington Center Stage II, a “black box” venue that seated about 100. Seventeen months after beginning our capital campaign, we opened the doors on the beautifully remodeled State Theater. Suddenly we had a theater, a mortgage and a staff. Our budget jumped from $150,000 annually to $750,000. Our full-time staff increased from one to eight. To keep up with the bills and the building, we knew we had to increase income, so we planned to expand from a four-show season to a six-show, year-round season, but the first year we panicked and added two additional shows for a total of eight. And these were not small shows. It was as close as we ever came to failing as a result of driving all human beings involved to near collapse. Then… a bunch of years passed, during which no one has had the time to keep this up to date. But that’s how it started.