Harlequin Productions Unveils 2025 'Hope & Heroes' Season Featuring RENT & More

Harlequin Productions' 2025 Season was revealed on Saturday, August 17, at Harlequin's 2025 Season Announcement Gala at the State Theater in downtown Olympia. The night featured a multimedia presentation hosted by actor Jon Lutyens and Producing Artistic Director Aaron Lamb, assisted by an ensemble of actors from current and past seasons.

As an explanation for the "Hope & Heroes" theme, an excerpt from Mr. Lamb's statement reads, in part:

For 2025 we want to provide you with some reasons for hope, and we want to introduce you to some of our heroes. If some seem familiar at first, we hope to show you something new. If some don't look heroic at first glance, we ask you to dig deeper. And while our heroes may not necessarily make the same choices we would, they might well shine as bright as we hope we could. I hope you enjoy our 2025 offerings. I can't wait to see you in the theatre.

Of note:

• The roll-out of a new company logo and a comprehensive website redesign, effective August 18, 2024.
• A new performance series called HQP Bold Voices which includes three offerings: two Readings of new work and a Musical Theatre Cabaret. All three events may be purchased together at a 33% discount as a $60 HQP Bold Voices Subscription.
• The phased reopening of Harlequin's Box Office:
  • Until Oct 29, the Box Office phone number will continue to forward to The Washington Center for single ticket sales in the 2024 season, with Harlequin handling subscriptions - there is an option on the WA Center Box Office phone tree for Harlequin 2025 subscription needs.
  • In the coming months, Harlequin will hire a Box Office Manager and other necessary staff.
  • By October 29, when 2025 single ticket sales open, Harlequin's Box Office will be able to process all 2024 and 2025 ticketing needs, and the physical location will reopen at 202 4th Ave East.
• 2025 Subscriptions may be purchased online at https://harlequinproductions.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/subscriptions, by mail via the Subscription Form in the 2025 Season Brochure, or by calling the Washington Center Box Office, Tues - Sat 12-5:30pm, at 360-786-0151, and selecting the Harlequin Season Subscription option in the phone tree.
• Single tickets for the 2025 season will be available for purchase on October 29, 2024.

The 2025 "Hope & Heroes" Season

January 24 - February 9, 2025: Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson - Apt. 2B By Kate Hamill

An irreverent, darkly comic, modern take on Sir 's famous sleuth and sidekick - a fast-paced romp that re-examines the classic adventure stories you love with a bold new female lens. In this highly theatrical, small-cast escapade, oddball female roommates Sherlock (yes, it's also a girl's name - wait, is it a girl's name? Is it even a name?) Holmes and Dr. Joan Watson join forces to emerge from the pandemic fog as a deeply codependent, quasi dysfunctional, Odd Couple adventure duo... solving mysteries and kicking butts until they come face to face with a villain who seems to have all of the answers. Extremely thrilling. Occasionally shocking. Highly amusing. By Jove, we've done it.

February 22 - 23, 2025: HQP Bold Voices - Reading #1

Readings of newer, edgier work that wouldn't normally get a chance on the mainstage.

March 7- 23, 2025: Is This Room - Regional Premiere Concept and original direction by Tina Satter

A true story, still unfolding. June 3, 2017. A 25-year-old former Air Force linguist named Reality Winner is surprised at her home by the FBI, interrogated, and then charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S elections. Reality subsequently received a record-breaking sentence. The verbatim FBI transcript of her interrogation is the heart of Is This a Room, conceived as a play by Obie Award-winner Tina Satter, in which an extraordinary human drama unfolds between the complex and witty Reality, and the agents who question her. As Reality's autonomy shrinks before her eyes, a simmering real-life thriller emerges, asking what it is to have honor in this American moment, and how the personal can reverberate globally.

April 25 - May 18, 2025: R & J By William Shakespeare, adapted by Aaron Lamb

When two young lovers lock eyes across a crowded dance floor, their hearts are forever bound. But can their love survive the brutal blood feud that has torn apart their rival families, the Capulets and Montagues? The greatest love story of all time, Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet has captivated audiences and artists for centuries. Now, in a nation divided like no other time in recent history, the question posed by these two young people rings loud and long: can true love survive in a divided community? This fresh new adaptation by Artistic Director Aaron Lamb seeks to find modern parallels and star-crossed relevance with the young lovers we've known for centuries.

June 20 - July 20, 2025: Rent Book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson

Set in the East Village of New York City during the previous pandemic, Rent is about falling in love, finding your voice, and living for today. Based loosely on Puccini's La Boheme, Jonathan Larson's beloved musical follows a year in the life of a group of young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Rent has become a pop cultural phenomenon, with songs that rock and a story that shaped a generation of audiences and taught us all to measure our life in love.

August 2 - 3, 2025: HQP Bold Voices - Reading #2

Readings of newer, edgier work that wouldn't normally get a chance on the mainstage.

August 22 - September 7, 2025: POTUS (Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive) By Selina Fillinger

When the President unwittingly spins a PR nightmare into a global crisis, the seven brilliant and beleaguered women he relies upon most risk life, liberty, and the pursuit of sanity to keep the commander-in-chief out of trouble. (Any resemblance to past White House shenanigans is purely coincidental.) In a searingly funny Broadway hit, POTUS follows how seven women of dramatically different backgrounds minimize the damage done by male arrogance and political posturing, in an endearing homage to the women who keep things running behind the scenes.

October 3 - 26, 2025: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christia, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, detective Hercule Poirot must identify the murderer. What do you get if you combine an international cast of characters, a world-renowned detective, and a murder on a cross-country train during a snowstorm? It should be clear to anyone that this lethal concoction produces one of the most famous and heart-racing mysteries of all time, by one of the greatest authors of all time, Agatha Christie.

November 8, 2025: HQP Bold Voices - Musical Theater "Open Mic" Cabaret

Hear some of the newest and most exciting musical theatre on the boards today, as well as many of the standard classics. Join a curated group of local and regional artists with a full band on the Harlequin stage.

November 28 - December 24, 2025: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dicken, adapted by Aaron Lamb

Hailed as the greatest ghost story ever told, we continue our holiday tradition at Harlequin with our adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic story of transformation, absolution, and grace. Join us for a holiday classic that's sure to please, packed with holiday music, a healthy dose of holiday cheer, and the kind of ghostly special effects that only Harlequin can deliver. Grab the family, order a hot-buttered rum, and join us for true holiday spirit.

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