4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JULY 30, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
The show goes on — with a passion
‘Beauty and the
Beast’ is a remarkable
achievement
T
here are just three opportunities
left to catch one of our region’s
most sparkling local theater
productions in recent years.
“Beauty and the Beast” is being
staged this summer by the Peninsula
Association of Performing Artists,
an all-volunteer troupe based on
Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula.
It plays at the Fort Columbia Theater
in Chinook on Friday and Saturday
nights with a final matinee Sunday.
To perform the musical, director
Brooke Flood recruited a cast of 30.
Remarkably, for many, it is their first
foray into amateur acting.
The troupe has about a decade of suc-
cessful productions under its belt, but
none demanding the scale of this one.
Even “Fiddler on the Roof,” which
leaders chose to reprise because it was
so popular, cannot match the scope of
“Beast.”
Talents onstage have been matched
by hard work behind the scenes. The
show provided Angela Grote, PAPA’s
creative costume designer, and her crew
with their biggest challenges. When the
prince character is magically turned into
a beast, his servants are transformed into
household objects like tea cups, candles
and even wardrobes. Several heavy cos-
tumes were borrowed from a school in
California and shipped north by truck
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Cast members perform a dance routine during a scene in ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
‘BEAUTY AND THE BEAST’
Musical by Peninsula Association of Performing Artists at Fort Columbia Theater.
Final performances: 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 3, Saturday, Aug. 4, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 5.
Tickets are $18-$23, or $7.50-$12.50 for children, available online at papatheater.com/tickets, at
Okie’s Sentry Market in Ocean Park, or by calling Penny Ripley at (360) 836-4448.
A Discover Pass is not needed to attend the show, which is in a Washington State Park.
especially for the show.
This project is the brainchild of
Flood, a talented woman who began
taking piano lessons from longtime
PAPA director Barbara Poulshock when
she was 6. Her mother, Cindy Flood,
is a former Los Angeles dance teacher
who founded the group and serves on its
board. She plays Mrs. Potts, a charm-
ing supporting role which was voiced by
Angela Lansbury in the Disney movie
on which the stage musical is based.
A product of Ilwaco schools and
Clatsop Community College, Brooke
Flood honed her craft at George Fox
College in Newberg, savoring the private
Christian college’s unusually edgy drama
curriculum. She has returned to the com-
munity to lend her talents to PAPA while
harboring dreams some day of a profes-
sional career in the performing arts.
Knowing that, it is fun to reflect
that Angus Bowmer, the driving
force behind the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival, made his start in Chinook —
in the school barely a mile from where
Flood’s troupe is performing.
Another plus is the collaboration with
Fort Columbia State Park. The 593-
acre facility played a role in the region’s
history as a small part of the expan-
sive Army coastal defense system at the
mouth of the Columbia River.
The theater building was sensitively
restored by Washington State Parks, and
now is among the agency’s assets most
appreciated by local residents. Visitors
might enjoy taking time before or after
a play to stroll around the fort, which
offers glorious views of the estuary.
“Beauty and the Beast” is based on an
ancient French fairytale, but offers timely
lessons about acceptance. Angry villag-
ers sing “The Mob Song” — “We don’t
like what we don’t understand, and in
fact it scares us. . . . Let’s kill the beast!”
To offset this, the upbeat direc-
tor Flood shared a quote from Martin
Luther King Jr. with her cast: “Darkness
cannot drive out darkness; only light can
do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only
love can do that.”
Whether you attend for the mes-
sage, the merriment or the sheer specta-
cle, “Beauty and the Beast” is a remark-
able achievement in community theater.
We fully predict anyone who attends the
final three shows will be entertained, if
not uplifted.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Questions and answers in Cannon Beach
What questions
are on the minds of
first-time visitors?
A
s Oregon Coast residents, we
hold certain truths to be self-ev-
ident. In Cannon Beach, these
can include — but are not limited to —
knowing about Haystack Rock, traffic
gridlock in the summer and always
being skeptical of a weather report.
But what truths are evident — and
not so evident — to the tourists who
walk into the Cannon Beach Visitor
Information Center at
the height of summer?
Last year, more than
42,000 people made
a trip into the center,
which averages to about
90 to 120 people a day.
BRENNA
In the age of apps,
VISSER
Yelp reviews and social
media, I couldn’t help
but wonder what questions were left on
the minds of those 42,000 people by
the time they entered city limits. What
questions does the firsttime visitor have,
and what does it take for the staff to field
them?
To find out, I shadowed center super-
visor Laura Kaim and spent a day in the
life at the visitor center. Here are some
observations:
‘Where’s Haystack Rock?’
This is by far one of the most pop-
ular questions asked, only second to
“Where’s the beach?” By 1 p.m. on a
recent Friday, both of these questions
were asked almost 20 times.
Known as one of the most recogniz-
able landmarks on the Oregon Coast, it
seems odd for someone to lose track of a
235-foot rock.
“If you’re driving south and take the
first exit, you can see the rock poking up
above the trees,” Kaim said. “But once
you get into downtown, it disappears.”
The visitor center is only two blocks
from the beach, so on the surface it may
seem peculiar how often Kaim has to
give directions to the iconic rock. Part
of the confusion may be that there aren’t
signs anywhere in downtown pointing to
the beach.
By midafternoon, more than 160
people had strolled into the Visitor
Information Center to ask questions
about Cannon Beach.
and food for people like me who don’t
eat it.”
Keeping it light
Photos by Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian
Laura Kaim, the supervisor of the Cannon Beach Visitor Information Center,
helps a tourist find her way through town.
“They would probably still come in
and ask, but some signage pointing west
would probably help,” she added.
Other questions Kaim didn’t expect
to answer as often as she does are mostly
related to Cannon Beach’s natural won-
ders. Many ask the difference between
low and high tide, how to find a tide
pool and how to find the area’s notorious
elk.
“I usually tell them (the elk) weren’t
kind enough to give me their schedule
for the day,” Kaim said. “But I did have
one person ask me if the elk in the city
park were wild. I think she thought they
were the city’s.”
‘We have no idea
what we’re doing’
In the age of the internet, it would
be easy to assume that visitors have
Googled near everything they need
to know about the town before even
arriving.
This is rarely the case.
“People will come in saying someone
told them they just had to come to
Cannon Beach, but told them nothing
else about it,” Kaim said.
In visitor center land, there are two
types of vacationers: those who plan,
and those don’t.
For the latter, the information center
does its best to accommodate by keeping
a constantly updated list of available
rooms and campsites for those strolling
into town, thinking a reservation is not
necessary in the summer.
On Friday, there were fewer than
30 rooms left in town for the weekend.
Most were taken by the end of the day.
Often, Kaim has to be the bearer of bad
news for families that had the miscon-
ception they could camp on the beach or
in town.
“To assume is vacation doom, as I
say,” Kaim said.
For the planners, the center serves
a different purpose: to offer local
perspective.
“Most people are wanting the first-
hand, local knowledge, not something
you could easily find with a search
online,” Kaim said. “It’s not just ‘Where
should I go to get to fish and chips?’ It’s
‘Where would YOU go to get fish and
chips?’”
Unfortunately, this is probably the
most difficult question Kaim faces.
“Because I don’t eat fish and chips or
clam chowder,” Kaim said. “But I tell
them everywhere in town (that) sells it,
Fielding the wide array of questions
that comes their way takes a balance
of humor, patience, and every so often,
some creative communication techniques.
With international tourism on the rise,
it’s increasingly common to see tourists
whose first language is French, German
or Japanese.
“I really wish I would have taken
some German or French in school,” Kaim
laughed. “But between hand gestures and
maps we get by.”
No matter what language the question
is formed in, finding a way to creatively
answer similar questions dozens of times
a day is a challenge — but one Kaim
looks forward to taking on daily.
“We like it to feel like we’re telling
you this information for the very first
time,” Kaim said.
Sometimes that means instead of
describing how far Tillamook Head
Lighthouse is from the shore, Kaim just
tells people you can only get to it with
wings, fins or a friend in the U.S. Coast
Guard — a line she uses multiple times
a day.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m practicing
a standup comedy routine, but no matter
what, I like to keep it light,” she said.
Almost 240 visitors later, Kaim called
it a day. No matter how repetitive ques-
tions may be, getting the chance to help
and share the stories of the North Coast
with new people every day makes this the
most fun job she’s ever had.
“If at least one person says ‘That was
helpful, then the day was successful.’”
Brenna Visser is The Daily Astorian’s
South County reporter.