Does he miss his native Tacoma?



“Every day,” admits actor David Foubert of New York’s The Acting Company, which is bringing its productions of “Moby Dick ‘Rehearsed’” and William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” to the Broadway Center’s Theater on the Square beginning Feb. 6.



Foubert, a graduate of Washington High School in Parkland, earned a theater degree from Central Washington University before enrolling in the University of Delaware’s Professional Theater Training Program where he earned an M.F.A. in acting. This is his second tour with The Acting Company (which counts actors Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone among its alumni). The company has been awarded Tony Awards for Excellence in Theater, has won an Obie, and has also been recognized at the Los Angeles Critics Circle Awards.



The Acting Company is coming to Tacoma for a four-day residency,  first mounting its production of Orson Welles’ adaptation of the Herman Melville classic about a great white whale and the whaling captain obsessed with killing it. Foubert describes the work as a “deconstruction” – a production stripped of many of the usual trappings of staged dramatizations – and replacing them with bare stages and minimal props.



“We just really have to use the text to spark the imagination of the audience,” Foubert explains.



The other “deconstructed” play in the tour’s repertoire is Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” which centers on an exiled wizard – Prospero – who draws his greatest enemies to his island prison for a final showdown.



David Foubert has also appeared in The Acting Company’s productions of “The Three Musketeers” and “Macbeth.” Both plays were performed in the company’s last Puget Sound area tour, which included runs in Bellevue, Olympia and Bellingham.



Foubert says he’s glad to have this latest opportunity to visit his home city. And what does he miss most about Puget Sound country?



“I just love the down-to-earth attitude here,” he says. “And I miss the outdoors and the weather – it’s good for the skin.”



“New York is a lot of brick and concrete,” he adds. “And I also think that the people are friendlier here.”



Foubert says that members of his family are coming to watch him perform. “I’ve been kind of strong-arming them,” he jokes. (At least I think he’s joking.)



[Theatre on the Square, “Moby Dick ‘Rehearsed” 7:30 p.m., Feb. 6 and 7; “The Tempest,” 7:30 p.m., Feb. 8 and 3 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9, $20-$34, 915 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.591.5894, www.broadwaycenter.org]