Stage Review - Disappearance at the Rocky Mountain Leatherdyke Snow Picnic (Annex Theatre)

Jun 8

Stage Review - Disappearance at the Rocky Mountain Leatherdyke Snow Picnic
Presented By: Annex Theatre - Seattle, WA
Show Run: June 05 - June 20, 2026
Date Reviewed: Saturday, June 6, 2026 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 2 Hours, 10 Minutes (including intermission)
Reviewed by: Patrick Hogan

Disappearance at the Rocky Mountain Leatherdyke Snowpicnic, a new play written by Monty Rozema and directed by Adrian Prendergast follows a group of partygoers into the wilderness, anticipating a weekend of fun and debauchery. They get that, along with maybe some things they didn’t expect. What the audience gets is a fun, ensemble comedy. The show is about two hours and ten minutes with intermission and plays June 5 to June 20, 2026 at Annex Theatre in (as they dub it) the relative safety of Capitol Hill, Seattle.

Midway through Act One they give me a frozen jello shot. The show is a party and asks you to join in. I did. And you will, too if you go see, Disappearance at the Rocky Mountain Leatherdyke Snowpicnic now playing at Annex Theatre. (Don’t alert the authorities, though; the shot was non-alcoholic.)

Annex bills the show, written by Monty Rozema and directed by Adrian Prendergast as a “sexy, spooky, screwball lesbian ensemble comedy.” It’s sexy in spots. It has a couple slightly spooky moments. It’s very screwball, and 100 percent lesbian. But more than any of those things, it succeeds as an ensemble comedy. That’s what draws you in and has you applaud at the end.

It’s a comedy wrapped in a mystery genre plot. The show opens with four characters on their way to the titular Rocky Mountain Leatherdyke Snowpicnic, which we discover is a weekend of casual sex. You and I know of course that sometimes it’s casual, and sometimes, try as you might, it ain’t. Complications seem bound to arise.

The first plot complication is the lore we learn as the four pile into a truck and head into the woods and/or mountains.The driver, Kate (Jesse Tobin) tells the others, Lois (Dani Davis), Skye (Jessica Marvin-Romero), and JP (Lou Cooper) of the mysterious Lady of the Lake, a ghost that haunts the area, reputed to be one of the original owners of the mountain retreat, who is said to have disappeared.

When they arrive at the lodge, you hear music with a Twin Peaks vibe. Soon a character compares the place to the Overlook Hotel. The management, Rhonda (ML) and Leslie (Brighid) seem odd, like maybe they have something to hide.

Lois, already filled with trepidation about the nature of the weekend, is definitely spooked by the backstory. Then halfway through the first evening’s festivities, we learn another picnicker has gone missing. It’s too much. She’s got to get to the bottom of it. The other guests, particularly Ricki (Pearl Mei Lam) and Candy (Megan Huynh) take to calling her, variously, Sherlock, Columbo, and Nancy Drew as she plods from place to place, pencil and pad in hand. They think she’s a killjoy and it’s probably nothing and can’t we all just have fun.

The mystery, in turn, is wrapped in an enigma. Lois does solve it on her own but by then Rhonda has already revealed to all what is really behind the disappearances, past and present. It’s clear there is not going to be a Jessica Fletcher moment at the end where a villain is tricked into self-incrimination. It’s not really a mystery, then.

So what’s going on with this show? The Snowpicnic, to me, is really the Forest of Arden or any other Shakespearean forest where people enter and then come out transformed. The process of transformation drives the screwball comedy.

It turns out JP and Ricki have a history, which they spend most of the weekend avoiding. The same with Kate and Skye. From the beginning there is something brewing between Kate and Lois.

These all get resolved satisfactorily but not before a lot of jumping in and out of hot tubs, affixing of dildos, uptake of substances, intense makeout sessions and other shenanigans have subsided.

The willingness to embrace the opportunity for transformation presented by this weekend in the woods is what does the trick for the picnickers.

What makes the show succeed is that it’s a showcase for the actors, where everyone gets a turn in the spotlight. Several stood out for me.

Pearl Mei Lam and Megan Huynh are two of my favorite actors. They’ve been star-worthy in everything I’ve seen them in. Huynh’s character Candy stands apart in not appearing to need any transformation, embracing life as a party. It had a little bit of a Jennifer Coolidge vibe.

Lam is great with the wackiness of the strap-on dildo scene as well as the serious, touching reconciliation scene between Ricki and Cooper’s JP.

Cooper and Tobin just might become two new favorites. Cooper has an energy and intensity that’s a joy to watch. Tobin has a looseness and ease that’s very compelling. Indeed Kate was the character that drew the most hooting and hollering from the Annex audience.

The two hours and ten minutes with intermission flew by, thanks to great pacing, constant energy from the whole team and sharp solutions by director Adrian Prendergast to possible problems.

Need a way to transition into the hot tub scene without bringing things to a halt? Roll on an inflatable swimming pool. Gets the job done and gets a laugh. Then you stand it back up on its side and roll it right off again at the end.

Need a snowstorm? Have the actors, in unison, take one step downstage then turn around and toss a big handful of confetti in the air (where did they get it?!) then take two steps upstage, turn around again and let the snow fall. So fun! It was like a dance number.

Also, Lighting Designer Richard Klem has a good comic sense of when to throw a spotlight on someone. Hit a button, get a laugh. Easy peasy. It works. As does the show.

Disappearance at the Rocky Mountain Leatherdyke Snowpicnic runs on stage at Annex Theatre through June 20. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.annextheatre.org/.

Photo credit: Sayed Alamy