Spokane, Stage Left to host 2025 Kaleidoscope community theater festival

Fresh off a national win for its production of “Pass Over,” Stage Left Theatre has been selected to host the statewide Kaleidoscope Theatre Festival in early 2025.

Put on by the Washington State Community Theatre Association, the best amateur theater productions meet in a different Washington city every other year to compete against one another.

A panel of three judges adjudicates a series of awards, including an overall award for best production.

Winners of that award move on to a multistate regional competition and possibly to the national competition in Des Moines, Iowa .

Stage Left Theatre took the top prize at the 2023 Kaleidoscope festival in Tacoma and later won the national competition in Louisville, Kentucky.

In a Facebook announcement, Stage Left Theatre said it was a “big deal” their theater was chosen to host the next statewide festival.

“We’re just thrilled that a theater as small as our is even considered for something this big,” managing and artistic director Jeremy Whittington said. “Having just come off of the AACT competition circuit ourselves and having won at each step of the way, this kind of feels like our time to shine in a way that we haven’t been able to do here locally before.”

Stage Left has not hosted the competition . Spokane was last chosen in 1999 – then hosted by the Spokane Civic Theatre.

Ranging between 10 and 20 productions depending upon the year, performances of each show in the competition will be open to the public. Tickets will range between $10 and $20, Whittington said.

In addition to the shows , the five-day festival will host a series of vendors and workshops to teach those in the host city and other visiting theater-makers the art of stagecraft in a community setting.

“These workshops touch on everything, including costume design and theater management. There will be lots of different things that are open to the public and to the participants that are coming from out of town. It can be really invaluable to those trying to make theater locally,” Whittington said.

Stage Left will not host the event in its small theater. It is looking for another theater to host the performances that would require a larger space.

Further details will be announced next year as it prepares for the February 2025 festival.

If a local individual or business would like to sponsor Stage Left in hosting the Kaleidoscope festival, they can contact Stage Left by emailing Jeremy@StageLeftTheater.org or by calling the box office at (509) 838-9727.

While Stage Left plans the festival, its production of “Pass Over” continues a tour across the state, following its win of the national prize in Kentucky. The play is a modern retelling of the absurdist classic “Waiting for Godot” – now featuring two Black men on a street waiting to “pass over” into a promised land.

The production played earlier this month in Bellingham and more dates across the state will soon be announced.