Weekend Preview: theater, theater everywhere

John Patrick Shanley’s thinker “Doubt” is taking to the stage of Tacoma’s newest theater company starting this weekend. The show opened yesterday, and the word on the street that it is smashing. With South Sound acting veterans like Deya Ozburn and Scott Brown backing the show, all is right with the world. Those names should draw crowds of people wanting to just watch them brush their teeth.

You know the show, well … at least the movie version. A nun at a Catholic school suspects one of the fathers of the church of playing hide the Communion wafer with one of the boys. Drama comes and the story unfolds.

The show runs Thursdays to Saturdays at 8 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m. through June 6 at the renovated Mecca Building, 755 Broadway.

Just down the street from that show is Tacoma Little Theatre’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s classic comedy, “Major Barbara,” a show that recently went into public domain so it is now more available to audiences.

The story centers on Barbara, a major in the Salvation Army, who has issues with her power-starved father, who just happens to be a millionaire arms manufacturer. Shaw’s ideas and insights about the world of humanity are as timely and humorous as they were when he wrote them 100 years ago.

Tacoma Little Theatre is located at 210 N. I St. The show runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through June 13.

For another classic, and a bit of a drive, Lakewood Playhouse is staging John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” This show about traveling job seekers during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression is just as current as the headlines as it deals with the drive of people to better themselves. The show runs at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays through June 13.