Taproot Theatre Company


Taproot Theatre Company is a professional, non-profit theatre company in Seattle, Washington, with a multi-faceted production program. Founded in 1976, Taproot Theatre has mainstage productions, at its location in the Greenwood neighborhood, touring productions through the Pacific Northwest, and theatrical training through its acting studio. Taproot Theatre Company is a member of Theatre Communications Group, Theatre Puget Sound, and the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce.

Mainstage

Taproot Theatre produces five plays each year for its Mainstage season, plus an annual holiday production. Play selection includes classics, world premieres, musicals, dramas and comedies. Each Mainstage production offers one pay-what-you-can performance. The theatre company reaches approximately 30,000 audience members each year through more than 150 performances.
In addition to its regular performances, Taproot hosts matinees targeted to specific audience, either students or seniors. Each student matinee includes a post-show talk-back with the actors and director. For some students, it is the first time they have seen a professional production.

Acting studio

Taproot’s Acting Studio was founded in 1992 to provide affordable, encouraging and artistically challenging classes for children and adults interested in learning the craft of acting. In the years since then, Taproot has expanded the program to offer year-round classes in dozens of subjects including musical theatre, on-camera acting, and Shakespeare.

Touring

Taproot Theatre Company began as a touring company in 1976, performing throughout Washington State at schools, prisons, churches and community centers. Today, Taproot’s Road Company spends the school year using theatre to teach social-issue lessons such as bullying and harassment prevention to schools in Seattle and throughout the Pacific Northwest; this program began in 1985. Each summer, Taproot assembles a Road Company of five professional actors to present a three-play repertoire of social-issue plays to school populations. The cast engage with the students after each performance through interactive talk-back sessions and classrooms discussions. As of early 2008, over 1 million students have seen Taproot’s social-issue plays. Plays in this program are written by Northwest playwrights and incorporate principles from Committee for Children’s Steps to Respect and Second Step curricula. During the 2008/2009 school year, Taproot’s Road Company introduced a new play, New Girl by Josh Hornbeck, about cyber bullying.
TTC also mounts touring productions for the church and corporate communities. The company’s improv comedy troupe tours as well.

Mainstage production history

2019: Arsenic and Old Lace, We Will Not Be Silent, Kim's Convenience, Bright Star, Necessary Sacrifices, The Bishop's Wife: A Live Radio Play
2018: Camping with Henry and Tom, Crowns, Lady Windermere's Fan, Sweet Land, Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley
2017: Room Service, Evidence of Things Unseen, Busman’s Honeymoon, Persuasion, Relativity, A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration
2016: Silent Sky, Cotton Patch Gospel, The Realization of Emily Linder, Big Fish, Joyful Noise
2015: The Explorers Club, Best of Enemies, Jeeves Intervenes, Godspell, Dracula, This Christmas
2014: Mr. Pim Passes By, In the Book Of, Diana of Dobson’s, Jane Eyre, The Fabulous Lipitones, Appalachian Christmas Homecoming
2013: Jeeves in Bloom, The Whipping Man, Bach at Leipzig, Illyria, The Matchmaker, Le Club Noel
2012: Tartuffe, Freud’s Last Session, Leaving Iowa, Chaps!, Gaudy Night, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol
2011: Odyssey, The Beams are Creaking, Brownie Points, Something's Afoot, An Ideal Husband, Beasley's Christmas Party
2010: The Great Divorce, Brooklyn Boy, Charley's Aunt, Man of La Mancha, Wedding Belles, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol
2009: Gee’s Bend, Tuesdays with Morrie, Around the World in 80 Days, Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, Enchanted April,
2008: As You Like It,, Over the River and Through the Woods, Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Susan and God, The Christmas Foundling
2007: The God Committee, Mary’s Wedding, Seven Keys to Baldpate, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of A Christmas Carol
2006: An Inspector Calls, The Voice of the Prairie, The Foreigner, Smoke on the Mountain, Arms and the Man, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
2005: An Enemy of the People, Beau Jest, Arthur: The Hunt, The Fantasticks, The Last Train to Nibroc, The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge.
2004: Arthur: The Begetting, Fools, Shadowlands, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Much Ado About Nothing, A Radioland Christmas
2003: All My Sons, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, God’s Man in Texas, The Spitfire Grill, Candida, The Carrolls of Queen Anne
2002: The Comedy of Errors, The Man Who Was Thursday, Sleuth, Wonderful Tennessee, Oil City Symphony, Appalachian Christmas Homecoming
2001: You Can't Take It with You, Heaven on Earth, Cotton Patch Gospel, Balmoral, Joyful Noise, Appalachian Christmas Homecoming
2000: Moreau, Harvey, Wait Until Dark, Mass Appeal, Radio Gals, Sanders Family Christmas
1999: Ah, Wilderness!, Terra Nova, The Trip to Bountiful, Bullshot Crummond, Quilters, Sanders Family Christmas
1998: Lost in Yonkers, The Clearing, Busman’s Honeymoon, The Boys Next Door, Godspell, Christmas on the Orpheum Circuit
1997: You Never Can Tell, Traveler in the Dark, Boomers, Driving Miss Daisy, St. Hugo of Central Park, Stages of Christmas
1996 First Season at Taproot’s new permanent facility in Seattle:
Pre-Season show: An Evening Around the Radio JB, Black Coffee, The Foreigner, Edith Stein, Smoke on the Mountain
1995: The Rainmaker, Min Ma Mulano, Opal, Beau Jest, Pilgrim
1994: The Nerd, The Voice of the Prairie, The Curious Savage, Cotton Patch Gospel
1993: Talley's Folly, See How They Run, Saint Joan, Godspell
1992: Steel Magnolias, Both Your Houses, Becoming Memories, Smoke on the Mountain
1991: Fairview location: The Blind Date & The Midnight Caller, Angel's Fall, An Inspector Calls
1990: Fairview location: A Gentleman's Agreement, Marriage Wheel
1989: Red Letter Days, Summer staged readings: Promise, American Lebanon, A Gentleman's Agreement
1988: Catwalk, The Brass Butterfly, The Electric Angel
Mini Seasons at the newly created 70-seat studio theatre at St. Thomas Center: 1987: Fish Tales
1987- 1995 Dinner Theatre at Fairview: 1987 Second Shepherd's Play, 1988 Angel's Arms, 1989 The Chimes, 1990 Snowman, 1991 It's Christmas and It's Live, 1992 The Day Boy & The Night Girl, 1993 Angel's Arms, 1994 Gifts of the Magi, 1995 It's Christmas and It's Live
1983–1986 Dinner Theatre Years at St Thomas: 1983 Christmas in the Marketplace, 1984 The Clown of God, 1985 Christmas in the Marketplace, 1985 Abraham & Sarah, 1986 Christmas Cards
1982: Pilgrim, The Mousetrap, The Fourposter, A Man For All Seasons
1981: Arms and the Man, Easter, You Can't Take it With You, The Beams are Creaking
1980: Our Town, The Devil To Pay, Sentenced To Life
1979: Pilgrim