Every year, organizers for the Snohomish Historical Society’s annual variety show like to change things up, adding new acts to keep current while still pleasing audiences with tried-and-true favorites.
So this 30th anniversary show is no different. There’s some modern music, a black light-type dance number and a llama.
The llama is dressed in overalls, a plaid shirt and straw hat. He’s the boyfriend in one of the show’s novelty acts where the woman has let her bad eyesight deteriorate to the point where she thinks the llama is not only her boyfriend, but a really handsome boyfriend.
This is just part of the variety in store during “ShowTime 30,” the Snohomish Historical Society’s 30th annual Variety Show, which opens Thursday and runs through Mother’s Day weekend at Snohomish High School Performing Arts Center.
The show is good family entertainment with the emphasis on variety. There’s also the annual crowd-pleaser: a group of children who lead their dogs in a game of musical chairs.
The show has been going on all these years under the direction of Eleanor Leight, a former Radio City Music Hall Rockette, who has partnered with Tom Lafferty, the voice of the Everett AquaSox, for the past 28 years.
“We try to keep current,” Leight said. “We make sure there are skits that are more recent such as ‘So You Want to be a Millionaire,’ and we have modern music and old time music … and it’s fast-paced.”
And these are a practiced group of performers, with the majority of the cast having been together for 25 years or more. Thirty-four dancers who comprise the Leight Fantastics practice twice a week all year long, said Leight, who at 86 is already thinking about next year’s show.
“I’ve danced all my life,” she said. “You get used to it.”
The variety show has become a Mother’s Day tradition with a lot of the audience returning each year to see such acts as the Leight Fantastics Dance Troupe, or the Dawn Patrol Dancers, or the Valley View Hoofers or the Rockette’s famous “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” from the Radio City Music Hall’s annual Christmas Extravaganza. Some come to hear the singers belt out “Mame,” “Twistin’ The Night Away” or “Walkin’ After Midnight.” Then there are the novelty acts and, this year, a visit from Elvis.
The variety show began at Snohomish High School’s stadium in 1978 and today draws sell-out crowds for six shows. In 1984, the name “Leight Fantastics” was coined. Along the way, the variety show’s sponsors have been able to contribute money from the show’s proceeds to many groups including the Snohomish Historical Society, the Boys &Girls Clubs, historic Everett Theatre, Snohomish Senior Center, the high school’s drama club and Snohomish Skate Park and has bought portable defibrillators for schools, supported the victims of Hurricane Katrina and bought a red curtain for the Snohomish Performing Arts Center.
Reporter Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.
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