‘If he can, anyone can’: Stage Left’s ‘Pippin’ offers beloved musical with diverse cast

There are passion projects, and then there are passion projects. For director Misty Shipman, Stage Left Theater’s production of “Pippin” is a passion project.

Shipman said her first time seeing “Pippin” stirred something in her soul and moved her to care. Ever since, she’s felt that everybody needs to see the musical.

She pitched the production to theater staff in 2022, and Stage Left bought the rights to the musical last year. With Friday’s opening, she finally gets to see her vision brought to life.

“I think ‘Pippin’ is one of the most beautiful shows that has ever existed in the history of musical theater and it embodies so much of what Stage Left is about, which is putting on unique, creative, edgy content with real social meaning that can improve people’s lives in a two-hour time span,” she said. “Leave them a little bit better than when they came. It’s a really hopeful and inspired message behind ‘Pippin’ while also maintaining a really lovely ‘70s aesthetic. It’s something different to bring to Spokane.”

“Pippin” opens on Friday, Aug. 2, and runs through Aug. 18. The show features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz with a book by Roger O. Hirson. Famed choreographer Bob Fosse also contributed to the book.

In “Pippin,” a troupe of performers, led by the Leading Player (Ijah Moore), tell the story of the protagonist (Owen Henderson), a young prince, as he tries to find a purpose in life. This search for meaning takes Pippin from the battlefields with his father Charlemagne (Adam Bingham) and stepbrother Lewis (Gabriel Conesa Caquias), son of Fastrada (Alyssa Day), to the countryside, where he encounters his grandmother Berthe (Eve Luppert), who tells Pippin he should enjoy the present moment.

Pippin turns to unfulfilling romantic relationships, then to violence then to time on and eventually off the throne. Pippin then meets Catherine (Kiki Prater), a widowed farmer, and her son Theo (Kody Higginbotham), but his quest for fulfillment isn’t finished there, if the Leading Player has any say in the matter.

Koa Otis, Helen Larreau, Sophia Dompier, Mary Ormsby, Jenna Majeskey and Maile Quisano star as the Players. Pippin is stage managed by Elizabeth Lewis with scenic design by Cordero Aaron, lighting design by Alana Shepherd and costume design by Taralena.

Luckily for Shipman, but unbeknownst to her at the time of their auditions, many of the cast members shared her love for “Pippin.”

The leading Henderson was taken with the 2013 Broadway revival while growing up in rural Illinois. Upset at the time because the national tour didn’t stop in his area, Henderson got his chance to not only see but also to star in the show when he moved to Spokane just before auditions.

Henderson said he would have been happy to be a Player and was excited to get a callback for, and cast as, Pippin, joking that he looks like an amalgamation of everyone who has played the role.

Moore was familiar with the original production, which starred Ben Vereen as the Leading Player. Vereen would go on to win the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

“As a Black woman in theater, there’s dream roles and roles that you know you could possibly do,” Moore said. “Luckily, I’ve been compared to the great Patina Miller, vocal-wise, so this felt in my wheelhouse and a dream I could realistically achieve.”

Miller won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her role of the Leading Player in the 2013 revival.

Prater was introduced to “Pippin” through Shipman several years ago and immediately caught the bug. She said she knew Shipman was going to direct a production one day and that she vowed to be part of it, whether on stage or behind the scenes.

“I just followed my heart,” Shipman said about the casting process. “The very first thing my heart said was ‘Cast Kiki as Catherine.’ That was the very first decision I made before even callbacks started and I built the rest of the show partially around that decision.”

Higginbotham was the lone performer not already familiar with “Pippin,” but through rehearsals, he has enjoyed learning more about the show and his character Theo, calling him childish and playful.

These roles weren’t just roles for the cast or Shipman in the director’s chair; they were a chance to truly see themselves on stage.

Prater and Moore said many of their previous roles were as comic relief or smaller parts because the main characters were typically played by white performers. With Catherine and the Leading Player, however, both performers have found fully realized characters through which they can truly shine.

“Like Ijah said, I am a Black woman in Spokane and I feel like while I am very proud of who I am, and I would never want to change that about myself, unfortunately, we live in a world where things like that can hold you back from roles,” Prater said. “But we are seeing a nice revolution of people who look like me getting roles like this that you would not have previously seen. I, of course, have not seen everyone who has ever played Catherine before but I’ve seen a number of them and I am the only one that looks like me and I feel very powerful in that sense.”

Prater said it’s a burden, in a way, to be one of the first people of color to play a role, but that “you leave the door open when you go,” allowing younger BIPOC performers to imagine themselves playing big parts.

Henderson, too, was able to connect his queer identity with the role of Pippin, who he said is canonically queer but straight-presenting. Henderson said he has been hesitant at times to audition for traditional leading man roles, fearing he didn’t look the part, but with some mental reframing, he’s found confidence through “Pippin.”

“This isn’t something I’ve ever conceived of for myself, but this is a different opportunity, an opportunity to actually grow as an actor and do something I’ve never done before,” he said.

Shipman, an enrolled member of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe of Indians, recalls not seeing another native person in theater while she was building her career. If she managed to break through a door, she said, she was offered a place at the table but given rotten food and expected to eat it and say thank you.

“I will not do that,” she said. “For me to exist in this building, this building had to change for me, and it did.”

Shipman hopes audiences too see themselves on stage, perhaps recognizing Pippin’s at times flawed search for fulfillment. The director said there is great value in being happy with your family or your pet or your job, even if it means getting yelled at through the drive-thru window.

After viewing “Pippin,” Shipman hopes audiences feel empowered in the belief that things in the world are going to be OK because “one dumb kid made it.”

“We’ve all been that silly, queer kid who couldn’t find a path through,” she said. “I think ‘Pippin’ shows us that if he can, anyone can.”