BY KRISTIE WORTHEY for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 6/19/2026
Lakewood Playhouse and Tacoma Little Theatre examine what it means to be accepted, and what happens when we’re not.
At Lakewood Playhouse, a teenage girl struggles to find acceptance among her classmates. At Tacoma Little Theatre, an aging writer confronts decades of grief tied to one of the most tragic refugee stories of the 20th century. On the surface, Carrie: The Musical and Sotto Voce appear to be polar opposites. One is a rock-infused adaptation of Stephen King’s horror classic. The other is a lyrical drama exploring memory, history and enduring love. Yet both productions ask a similar question: Who gets to belong?
That question echoes through both stories. One follows a teenager desperate to fit in. The other looks back on refugees desperate to find a safe harbor. Though separated by time, place, and circumstance, both productions examine the consequences of exclusion and the human need for acceptance.
Lakewood Playhouse’s Carrie: The Musical retells Stephen King’s story of Carrie White, a teenager relentlessly bullied by her classmates and tightly controlled by her fanatically religious mother. Isolated at school and at home, Carrie discovers she possesses extraordinary powers that ultimately transform her life and the lives of those around her.
The production captures the heightened emotions of adolescence: first crushes, social rivalries, desperate hopes for acceptance, and feelings so intense they seem capable of changing the world overnight. While audiences might be aware of the story’s supernatural aspects, the actors in this show hope those in attendance will reflect on the human consequences of cruelty. Beneath the show’s driving score, teenage passion, and supernatural spectacle lies a story about the damage caused when people are denied acceptance.
“It’s a heavy show,” actor Serah Haugse said during a recent CityLine interview. “I want people to be uncomfortable … I want them to be uncomfortable about how Carrie is treated, and how they have treated others similarly, so that we can face that and make change and move forward.”
Haugse’s comments point to the heart of the production. Beneath its horror-story exterior, Carrie examines the damage caused when individuals are mocked, isolated and denied acceptance by the people around them.
Tacoma Little Theatre’s Sotto Voce approaches the question from a different direction. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, the play follows Saquiel, a young Cuban man fascinated by the story of the MS St. Louis, a ship carrying Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany that was denied refuge in Havana and the United States in 1939. His search for answers leads him to Bernadette Kahn, an aging German-born writer who lost the love of her life during that tragic voyage.
As they form an unconventional bond through phone calls and imagined conversations, Bernadette confronts long-buried grief. Through poetic language and elements of magical realism, the play intertwines past and present, exile, longing, and the lingering weight of history.
Yet Sotto Voce is far from somber. Moments of humor, flirtation, and unexpected rejuvenation emerge as the characters discover new connections across generations, cultures, and histories. At its heart, the play is a love story.
Chris Serface, managing artistic director, described Sotto Voce as a poetic play that will offer audiences a profoundly human and affecting journey. “Emotions will wash over you, and you will leave moved.”
Serface also noted that the play offers audiences a contemporary lens, connecting historical events to modern conversations about displacement, belonging and human connection.
The role of Bernadette is played by one of Tacoma’s most respected actors, Sharry O’Hare. During a recent CityLine interview, O’Hare noted that substantial roles for women in their 80s are uncommon. “You don’t see roles written for someone in that age bracket that much,” she said.
O’Hare said she was drawn to Bernadette’s intelligence and complexity, describing a woman whose life has been shaped by the loss of a great love and the lingering trauma that followed.
Actor John Pedro, who plays Saquiel, highlights the deep empathy that forms the core of this three-actor production, which includes Valeria Sanchez-Jimenez as Lucila Pulpo. “There’s this really gentle relationship between the three characters,” he said during a CityLine interview, noting the “general compassion” that runs throughout the story.
Lakewood Playhouse’s production of Carrie: The Musical challenges its viewers to grapple with the painful realities of cruelty and exclusion. It is a call to action.
Tacoma Little Theatre’s Sotto Voce prompts the audience to reflect on empathy, the unreliable nature of memory, the lingering effects of trauma, and the enduring strength of connections even when faced with loss and separation. History is a good teacher.
Though separated by genre, setting, and era, both productions remind audiences that acceptance, and the lack of it, can shape lives for decades. Different stories, different styles, but both remind us that community theater remains one of the few places where audiences can gather together to laugh, reflect, and perhaps see themselves in someone else’s story.
Audiences won’t have to wait long for the next chapter from either organization. Lakewood Playhouse will preview music from its upcoming season opener, Kiss of the Spider Woman, during the Tacoma Pride Festival at Wright Park on July 11. Tacoma Little Theatre follows Sotto Voce with Bedroom Farce, Alan Ayckbourn’s uproarious comedy of marital misadventures, running July 10-26.
Carrie: The Musical
Lakewood Playhouse
June 12-28
Tickets and information:
lakewoodplayhouse.org
253-588-0042
Sotto Voce
Tacoma Little Theatre
June 5-21
Tickets and information:
tacomalittletheatre.com
253-272-228
Thank you to our section sponsor for supporting local media and arts in Tacoma!
