Skip to main content

Tickets going fast for Taproot’s Big Fish

The catch of the week may be finding tickets for Taproot’s Big Fish. The show closes on Saturday. Tomorrow’s show is sold out and there’s limited availability for Thursday.

The musical is based on Daniel Wallace’s 1998 novel, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, and the 2003 film Big Fish. This tale of tall tales and father/son relationships hits a tender spot for most audiences, said Tyler Todd Kimmel, who plays Will Bloom in the show. And, unlike bigger theaters, the intimate seating of Taproot puts the actors right with the audience when the waterworks start.

“You’re three feet away from somebody weeping with you. It’s not 12 feet away over an orchestra pit in the dark,” said Kimmel.

During the course of the musical, Will must come to terms with his father, Edward, a man fond of embroidering the past. “I had seen the film when it came out. I thought it was fun. Tim Burton is a brilliant director,” said Kimmel. “But I didn’t actually like the way that Will was portrayed in the film. It left me feeling a bit dark. I chose not revisit it. When we read through the script, I saw it painting the characters in a different light.” After reading the book, which tells the story from Will’s perspective, Kimmel formed a light-hearted approach to his character.

Kimmel teaches fulltime, acting in musicals during the summer. “I grew up in Burien and started music lessons when I was five, singing at church and then school musicals,” he said. Last year, a friend called him about Taproot’s Godspell and he’s enjoyed having the opportunity to return to the theater this year.

“The majority of people I teach don’t go on to do music or theater professionally,” he said. “But they come to understand that it is just another area that we study to learn more about life. Choir is a team sport, minus the game aspect. It teaches how to balance with us how to get along with people. Same with theater, it teaches you how to listen. For kids, it opens their mind.”