Four more ‘Broadway at Sunset’ performances set

Published 1:30 am Friday, July 24, 2026

PORT ANGELES — Summer’s a time to try new things, Steve Raider-Ginsburg told the Sunset Lounge audience Wednesday night.

Standing before a scarlet and black backdrop, he introduced “Broadway at Sunset,” a cabaret show freshly created by a local cast.

Raider-Ginsburg, artistic director of Field Arts & Events Hall, collaborated with four singers and their slim crew to present the dinner show this week and next week. Performances are at 6 p.m. tonight and next Wednesday, Thursday and July 31.

Tickets are available at fieldhallevents.org and at the Field Hall box office, 201 W. Front St., Port Angeles. In addition to their show tickets, guests can purchase food and drinks from the Broadway at Sunset menu.

The Sunset Lounge, Field Hall’s upstairs space, is reconfigured with a C-shaped stage that faces guests seated at petite tables. Musical director Linda Dowdell presides, providing the melody and rhythm from the keys of her baby grand piano.

Singing songs of love, friendship and belief — in oneself and others — the performers sashay across the stage, walking out among the tables now and then. They’re a two-county foursome: Port Angeles’ Kyle LeMaire and Morgan Bartholick and Port Townsend’s Kat Agudo and Maggie Jo Chambers. Together they interweave classics from “Funny Girl,” “Chicago,” “Hair,” “Les Misérables,” “Wicked,” “Ragtime” and “Man of La Mancha,” among other Broadway musicals from the past century.

“It’s ambitious,” said Dowdell, who tailored the musical arrangements to these four singers. Instead of reviving another chestnut like “Annie” or “Mame,” she and the crew created “Broadway at Sunset” out of whole cloth. For this production, Dowdell also arranged a mashup of two songs from the musicals “The King and I” and “Most Happy Fella.”

Denise Winter of Key City Public Theatre in Port Townsend is the director; Dowdell, who has collaborated with Winter on many productions, said Winter knows how to fit a big show into a cozy space.

Jennifer Saul of Port Angeles is the stage manager and choreographer — and “the keystone of the project,” Dowdell added.

Rather than having the singers simply stand at microphones, “Broadway at Sunset” keeps them fluid, like fish swimming apart and together. The show has three short acts of about 20 minutes each. The sets have their moods: excitement, comedy, passion, wistfulness, cockeyed optimism.

Agudo stepped forward to deliver a comic “Roxie” from Chicago: “The name on everybody’s lips/Is gonna be Roxie/The lady rakin’ in the chips/Is gonna be Roxie,” they sing, their fellow cast members repeating the star’s name.

Agudo glowed after Wednesday evening’s performance. “Broadway at Sunset,” they said, is a delicious chance to create a space in Port Angeles for musical theater lovers to revel in the art form.

Agudo added that they loved seeing a multigenerational audience gathered for the show. The evenings are an avenue for “introducing (younger people) to the magic that is Broadway,” they said.

“My mom saw a lot of musicals when she was pregnant with me,” added the performer, who was born in Queens, N.Y.

Bartholick, who grew up in Port Angeles, is known to local audiences for his work as an actor and theater director at multiple venues and as principal second violin with the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra. In “Broadway at Sunset,” he sings several numbers with Agudo and Chambers.

And near the close of the show, he sings a duet of “For Good” with LeMaire, his real-life husband of eight years.

This production, Bartholick said, is an expression of the cast and crew’s belief in the power of musical theater.

Going to a play affects the viewer, yes. Yet “songs have a way of tapping into our human connection even more than a monologue or dialogue can … It also doesn’t matter if you know every song throughout the show, or if everything is brand-new to you,” he added.

The performer’s hope is that each person comes away with a new favorite show tune — or a lyric they’ve heard before, but that takes on a new meaning.

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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.