There's a new professional theater group in Tacoma--and the auditions for the first show are coming up in a few weeks.

Theatre Northwest will be holding auditions on September 26 for its very first show. The theater group is an unusual partnership between the Broadway Center for Performing Arts and a group of local theater professionals, and is a non-profit which will mix Equity, non-Equity and community actors in an intended four shows per season. The group is run by four local directors: Brett Carr, Charlotte Tiencken, Christopher Nardine and Rod Pilloud, and its first show "The Final Toast," a Northwest-premiere mystery, runs in February, 2009.

If you've been following local theater at all in the past two years you'll know that Tacoma's first and only professional theater for several decades, the Tacoma Actors Guild, died a conclusive death in January, 2007 due to lack of money. The only thing coming close to professional theater since then, Erik Hanberg's The Horatio theater company, has been good but sporadic, struggling to find both funds and venue.

So what makes the folks at Theatre Northwest confident that it won't meet the TAG fate? A significant boost from the BCPA, that's what.

"We're production partners," says BCPA executive director David Fischer. "We will help incubate Theatre Northwest for an indefinite period." Which means, precisely, that the BCPA will pay for marketing and administration costs, stage labor, and rent of performance venue Theatre on the Square. Theatre Northwest will cover royalties, actor fees, sets and lighting/sound design. To meet those costs, they're soliciting private, corporate and institutional donations and grants.

"The idea is to help, as prudently as possible, generate a sustainable model for local professional theater," says Fischer, explaining that this sustainability will come as the company builds audience and donor base. He also hinted at a possible long-term partnership between the two institutions on some level.

Theatre Northwest's resident company have good credentials. All four directors are Tacoma Little Theatre veterans, while Charlotte Tiencken was former TAG director and is current managing director for Book-It Repertory Theater in Seattle. Set designer Kurt Walls designs for University of Puget Sound productions like "The New Orleans Monologues," and costume designer Alex Lewington is responsible for many of Tacoma Opera's productions.

Interestingly, though, while the company's first season includes crowd-pleasers like "Educating Rita" (May) and a Scrooge take-off (December), it's kicking off with a play no local audiences have seen. "The Final Toast" is a Sherlock Holmes mystery by Edgar Award winner Stuart Kaminsky, and it's only the second time it's been produced.

Says Brett Carr: "It's important that we establish right from the start that we will bring productions that are top quality but also challenging and unique to the community."

Not that "The Final Toast" is too much of a challenge: as Fischer points out, it's Sherlock Holmes, after all.

Auditions run from 5-8 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Theatre on the Square, 915 Broadway, Tacoma, and are for male cast roles. For more information, visit www.theatrenorthwest.net.