Robinson, Kuntz to receive Mayor's Arts Awards April 25

Drue Robinson, founder and director of the Bellingham Children's Theatre, wrote and directed her first play as her senior project at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University.

For the past three years, she's been teaching alternative creative performance to current Fairhaven students on the very stage that inspired her.

She will receive her second Bellingham Mayor's Arts Award April 25 honoring a production she she's written, directed, and produced each December. Since its 1998 premier performance, "The Wutcraker," billed as a"hilarious parody of that famous ballet," has showcased not only the talents of many students, adults, children and local Bellingham celebrities (mayors Dan Pike, Mark Asmundson and Tim Douglas among them), it also has revealed the hidden talents of some of WWU's faculty and their family members.

Stan Tag (Fairhaven), Deb Currier (Theatre Arts), Terry Sacks (Communication Sciences and Disorders), Keith Russell (Physical Education, Health and Recreation), and Nicole Brown (English) are a few of the Western faculty members who have participated in the production.

Mark Kuntz, a professor in the Theatre Arts Department at Western, also will be receiving a Mayor's Arts Award at the April 25 ceremony.

With a cast of 50, "The Wutcracker" is a mammoth production parodying the story of Clara's adventure, to which Robinson has written lyrics to Tchaikovsky's music and re-invisioned such staple characters as "Sugar Plum Fairies" and her "Prince" into hilariously warped "Booger Flung Scaries" and "Prince Formerly Known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince."

The Mayor's Arts Awards ceremony will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, at the SPARK Museum at 1312 Bay St. in downtown Bellingham. It is open to the public.